Ascension Isle: Conflict Resolution and Combat

War on Land

The dominant paradigm of war on the lands of Arth is that of massed armies of infantry, supported by artillery and cavalry. There are some similarities to Earth’s Great War of 1914-1918, however there are also some important differences.

The Armies of the Zones are closest to the “stock” ideal of Great War armies, with masses of unarmoured infantry armed with bolt action rifles, supported by numbers of long ranged artillery. The zones deviate from this ideal somewhat with the addition of low level magic, which allows them to improve the abilities of their basic units, and provides a slight firepower boost in combat. Further deviation is added with the elite brigades of the Resistance Fronts. Benefitting from the direct support of the Great Library, the Resistance Fronts have access to greatly superior war machines, some of which would not be amiss in a WWII setting, while those who have passed through the ancient Standing Stones may now wield more potent magics. Some Resistance Fronts even have access to captured Chosen weapons, giving them technomagical devices in excess of even those of the Jibrilites.

If the Zones adhere closest to the Great War ideal, the armies of the Zenith Empire are the furthest from it. The basic Zenith armies are a rag-tag mix of ill equipped, but cheap, militia armed with swords, spears, bows, and crude firearms - and then the most awesome magical knights of the mortal world, a hundred of whom can match an army (in both power and cost). To flesh out this extreme dichotomy, the Zenith can adapt to several new military doctrines, including adopting the technological forces of the Zones, raising armies of the dead, training schools of warrior monks, or even attempting to build magitech to best the Jibrilites. Zenith armies have the potential to be the most varied on Arth, but their ability to bring devastating magics to any fight ensures that even the weakest armies must be taken seriously, if supported by significant numbers of mages.

Jibril sets the standard by which military power in the Age of Trial is judged. Jibrilite soldiers enter battle wearing heavy suits of armour, and carrying powerful repeating rifles, supported by specially engineered cavalry protected by energy shields and wielding powered lances, and massive steam powered robots known as warjacks and warstriders armed with arrays of light cannon and crackling electric blades. Jibrilite weapons hit harder than those of anyone else’s regular units, and their armoured and shielded soldiers can take more punishment in turn. Despite this armour, the alchemical steam that runs through all Jibrilite war machines allows them to remain highly mobile on the battlefield. This allows a Jibrilite division to both outmanuever and outfight many times their own number in regular Zone forces, as well as granting the protection to stand up to the worst the Zenith battlemages can throw at them. However, while the Jibrilites benefit greatly from the Thamatech granted to them by the Chosen it also locks them into a very rigid military construction, and Jibril armies have the most uniform appearance of all the continents.

Entering Combat

Two armies enter combat when they enter the same hex during a the movement phase of a turn, and at least one of the players elects to fight a battle. Once a battle is declared neither army may move further without playing a strategem, such as breakthrough or flee (discussed later in the Complications section). Any other army that enters a hex with an ongoing battle will also be unable to move further, as it is caught up in, or holds back to avoid, the fighting.

After the movement phase, combat enters the dramatic phase, when all players with military forces or characters in the hex can write posts about the fighting. These posts do not directly affect the combat results, which are randomly rolled, but they can serve as dramatic set up for those rolls. It should be emphasized that since posts do not directly influence the combat results, writing a slew of posts about how your forces slaughter the enemy left and right may be a bit jarring if the rolls go against you. On the other hand, even in the worst of defeats, some of your forces somewhere likely scored some victories. But the main reason you write these posts is to involve your characters in the story, allowing their powers to be added to the battle, gaining more dice, experience points, and even persona points.

The mechanics of gaining persona and experience from posts is discussed in the character section, but the important mechanic for combat is that to take part in a battle a character must meet two requirements. They must be physically present in the hex in which the battle is occurring, and they must be included in at least one story post regarding that battle, written by their controlling player. These story posts need not be long, but as with all story posts they should set up or continue some dilemma, conflict or challenge for that character. Note that this does not always have to be possible. If you can’t find some way to write an interesting story post about how your character commands his overwhelmingly superior mechanized army while crushing an outmatched band of militia, then maybe it wasn’t a battle worth his time in the first place, and he just let his subordinates handle it.

At the end of the week, combat enters the resolution phase, where players declare their moves in a blind bid, and then roll dice to see who wins and who loses. This forms the meat of the combat system, and is discussed below in detail.

Combat Resolution

In combat resolution the two players engaged in the fight both submit their battle maneuvers to an impartial invigilator (usually, but not always, the GM). Battle maneuvers may be chosen from the following list, and then further modified with stratagems, assuming the army possesses the necessary traits to conduct them.

Withdraw: A withdraw maneuver attempts to take an engaged army out of combat. It is extremely easy to execute against an army that has sacrificed the initiative with a defensive maneuver, but becomes more difficult if they are attacking. A skilled general can modify this maneuver with the stealthy stratagem, while armies with a great deal of firepower can modify this with covering fire.

Defend: A defend maneuver places an army in a static position, sacrificing the initiative. It is most useful for reducing casualties, and can inflict particularly heavy losses on the enemy if they fail in an attack or shock attack. Skilled generals can modify the defense with the decoy or countermove stratagems.

Block: A block maneuver is an offensive form of defensive, where an army places itself across the path of another force to prevent it from maneuvering. With a large enough disparity in numbers or speed, this can prevent any attempt to withdraw, and is sometimes used when besieging cities or fortresses. A skilled general can modify this maneuver with the encirclement stratagem.

Skirmish: A skirmish maneuver attempts to avoid heavy losses by avoiding a decisive engagement. It is useful when your army is smaller but more mobile than your enemy, or when you do not want to fight a major battle just yet. A variant of skimish called harassment can also be executed by armies possessing particularly long ranged firepower, such as heavy artillery or aircraft. Harassment is useful because it can be executed after declaring a defend or block manuever. A skilled general can modify this maneuver with the guerrilla stratagem.

Attack: An attack manuever attempts to defeat the enemy with a deliberate advance. Attacks are often not great military art, but they are the most effective and reliable means for an army with superior firepower to resolve a battle in its favour. Skilled generals can modify the basic attack with the flanking or feint stratagems.

Shock Attack: A shock attack manuever is the riskiest of maneuvers. It commits everything to an all out charge into the teeth of the enemy, seeking to overwhelm them with speed and violence. A failed shock attack risks heavy losses, but a successful one can utterly destroy an enemy army. A skilled general can modify this maneuver with the surprise stratagem, while armies made of faster units can modify this with speed.

Combat Strength

Combat Strength is calculated based on the attack, defense or mobility statistics of your units. In its most common form, combat strength derives from the statistics of your vanguard line unit, and is then modified by a geometric progression derived from the total strength of all other units in your army.

This is easiest to show with an example.

Most armies are built around line units, which are usually infantry divisions. You can use other units as line units, but this can come with certain vulnerabilities and limitations, although it also sometimes offers special capabilities. We will use the example of a Jibril Armoured Infantry Division, which is one of the most powerful line units in the game.

Jibril Armoured Infantry Division Attack:5 Defense: 6 Mobility: 2

If used in an offensive maneuver, that is an Attack or Shock Attack, the Division will use its attack stat, and roll five dice for combat resolution. If used in a defensive maneuver, that is a defend or a block, it will use its Defense stat. If used in a mobile maneuver, that is a Withdraw or Skirmish, it will use its Mobility stat, and roll only two dice. As you can see Jibril units are exceptionally powerful on the offense, even more so on the defense, but have little inclination to retreat or conduct “skulking” warfare.

Being an infantry division, this unit can also be used as a line unit, and as a line unit, it can also be the “vanguard” unit. The vanguard unit is the unit on which the stats of the army are based. This is important when you have armies of multiple units on the battlefield.

Continuing our example, suppose you had a corps of three Jibril Armoured Infantry Divisions. Their combined attack stat would be 15. However, in a real fight, not all the troops will be able to fight at once, and an outnumbered force can still hedge its odds by attempting to engage only part of the opposing army. To represent this, and to prevent larger armies from easily crushing smaller ones, we use a geometric progression to increase the stats of the vanguard unit.

The stats of the vanguard unit for the army’s base stat. If the total of the relevant stats in the rest of the army is double this number, then +1 die is added to the base stat. If this number is doubled again, then another +1 dice is added, and so on. Using this rule, the Corps of three Jibril Armoured Infantry divisions would have a combined attack of 5 +1, or 6, rather than 15.

The progression from a base of 5 would look as follows.

Combined attack of (2 x 5) = 10 = +1; Combined attack of 10 + (2 x 10) = 30 = +2; Combined attack of 10 + 20 + (2 x 20) = 70 = +3; Combined attack of 10 + 20 + 40 + (2 x 40) = 150 = +4, and so on.

Thus you would need a massive army of 47 Jibril Armoured Infantry divisions to roll 10 dice on the attack. This is somewhat excessive, which is why armies made up only of infantry are very limited beasts, and the best armies use a multitude of units with different statistics and additional traits.

Combat Resolution Tables

These six basic maneuvers can be represented on four tables representing a drawn combat (both players roll equal), minor victory (one player wins by 1-2 successes), major victory (one player wins by 3-5 successes), and crushing victory (a player wins by 6 or more successes). A special option is open to skilled generals to win a legendary or total victory (winning by 10 or more successes).

Read each table across horizontally for the results for both players, as they are not symmetrical. The leftmost column indicates the action the player took, the topmost line indicates the action of his opponent.

Drawn Combat (equal rolls)

Results	Withdraw	Defend	Block	Skirmish	Attack	Shock Attack
Withdraw	Withdraw Succeeds - may disengage in three hex arc from route	Withdraw Succeeds - must head back up route	Withdraw fails - remain in hex next turn	Withdraw Succeeds - may disengage in three hex arc from route	Withdraw Succeeds	Withdraw Succeeds - inflict 0-1 casualties
Defend	No result	No result	No result	Defend Succeeds - inflict 0-1 casualties	Defend Succeeds - inflict 0-1 casualties	Defend Succeeds - inflict 1 casualty
Block	Block Succeeds -Inflict 1-2 casualties	No result	No result	No result	Block Succeeds - inflict 0-1 casualties	Block Succeeds - Inflict 1 casualty
Skirmish	No result	No result	No result	No result	Inflict 0-1 casualties	Inflict 1 casualty
Attack	Inflict 0-1 casualties	Inflict 0-1 casualties	Inflict 0-1 casualties	No result	Inflict 1 casualty	Inflict 1-2 casualties
Shock Attack	Inflict 1 casualty	Inflict 0-1 casualties	Inflict 0-1 casualties	Inflict 0-1 casualties	Inflict 1 casualty	Inflict 1-5 casualties