Talk:Sengoku Amahara: Tactical Rules

Sengoku Amahara

Notes

• Commanders should be able to determine basic layout of armies going into battle; units can be placed in the center, the left wing, the right wing, the reserves, and/or some other combination of general positions.
• Since armies are usually in lines, most units can only be engaged by one other unit.

• Basic unit size is 100.

• Battlefields are separated into small, manageable sectors with max x units per side.
• One random roll at the start of a fight, and then the numbers return to default values as luck starts playing less of a roll in masses of troops beating up each other.
• Horses allow movement between sectors and allow such movement to be intercepted.

• All units have a morale. Ashigaru are easier to rout than to kill all of. Monks are easier to kill than rout. Samurai come up somewhere in between.
• Flanking attacks and rear attacks are powerful, but difficult to pull off on most units due to everyone being in a line.

Units

A unit is a body of 100 fighters. Units are the building blocks of any army, but require a general to lead them. Without a general, an army is merely a mob. Units maybe upgraded, but never forget that any battle is fought equally between two commanders as it is between two armies.

Unit Statistics

Unit Statistics are usually not rolled, but instead compared. Over time, without the will of a commander behind them, most combats tend to even out to the expected result. A commander however can change that, and even the most overmatched army may have victory under the control of a skilled general.

In general, each statistic is subtracted from ten to give the difficulty for a general's Arete of war to affect that unit.

Attack Value

How good at a unit is at attacking. Each unit type has a base value, and then an additional value is added onto it by the units weapon. Weapons values tend to be specialist against certain unit types.

Defence Value

How good the unit is at resisting attacks. Each unit has a base value, and a list of armours it can wear, which have a major effect on defence. Each point in which the Attackers Value exceeds the defenders inflicts X causalities on the opposition.

Resolve

Few units except the most dedicated warrior monks and shrine maidens fight to the death. Resolve is how dedicated a unit feels. A unit has a number of morale hit points based on its resolve x10. Each causality removes one MHP. At 0, the unit breaks and runs, though it may later rally.

Manoeuvre

Battles are not static affairs, manoeuvre is extremely important. Match manoeuvre against the difficulty of a zone crossing check to see if a unit may manoeuvre into a new zone.

Move Forward into an empty or enemy occupied zone when out of combat

Move backwards into an empty Zone

Move sideways into an empty zone

Moving sideways into a friendly occupied zone

Move forwards into a friendly occupied zone

Move forward from a friendly occupied zone

Moving back through a friendly occupied zone

Certain units will be listed as skirmishes and use the second value.

manoeuvre is also used often in Arete of war checks, for instance with the terrain or command sphere.

Professional Unit Rules

Professional Units are the best fighters in any army, and the primary standing force in peace time. Unlike the largely faceless regiments of Ashigaru, professional troops have members whose names will be recorded in chronicles, stories and anime for the next thousand years.

Each Professional unit leader must have a name, and each professional unit must have a province of origin, it gains X bonus to action in that province and may gain other bonuses for being of particularly impressive lineage.

Ashigaru Unit Rules

Ashigaru are the foot troops. They're far cheaper than Professionals, so they're easy to create huge hordes of, even if they're nowhere near as good.

Unfortunately, Ashigaru cannot be kept raised in peace time, cannot be customized, and do not have heroes, this makes them much harder to train or turn into heroes, usually remaining in the realm of extras.

Spheres

Discipline

Your ability to keep your troops from running away, betraying you and drive them into perilous or seemingly hopeless situations.

Command

Your ability to get your troops to perform complex tactical manoeuvres and formations, or control the time of attack (for instance to conduct a night attack)

Construction

Your ability to change the battlefield to your whim with walls, earthworks and spikes

Terrain

Your ability to control the terrain of battle, and your influence with the spirits of air and water.

Prowess

Your personal skill. A single warrior, if great enough, can turn the tide of armies

Subtly

Your ability in treachery, deception and other such arts.

Logistics

Your ability to bring a large army to the field

Technology

Your ability to utilize new inventions, cannon, fine weapons and armour, and muskets

Religion

Your favor in the eyes of heaven.

Deployment

Deployment is done in a series of spaces called zones. The deployment zone holds an infinite number of these zones, but most armies will deploy over no more than double the number of zones that they have units (and if they do it should be bad for them as they lose mutual support)

Deployments are done in secret. It is difficult to change zones unless you are cavalry or have empty zones to maneuver through, so in general you'll be matched against the unit facing you.