You're In the Army Now

This week we continue exploring the army combat rules in the Tome of Whispers. So far, we've looked at a wide-angle overview of the rules in general and taken a close look at the backbone of the system, troops. This time we're going to explore how individual characters interact with the army combat system. This aspect of the rules is critically important to get right, as it forms the bridge between normal game play and army combat.

Although army combat is a zoomed-out experience, where a whole troop is the primary unit that performs actions, individual characters in a troop can use their particular skills to assist their comrades, ensuring that personal heroism still matters even at this widened scale. Each character in a troop has several options at their disposal to use in parallel with their troop's actions for a turn. While these abilities are not a substitute for an effective troop, an individual character's heroics can have an enormous impact on the outcome.

Each character in a troop chooses one of the available options each turn in army combat. Some abilities are useful in different phases. For example, Determine Strategy is used during the Command phase to choose your overall troop's action, if your character is the one in command. Heroic Bulwark, on the other hand, can be used in the Execute phase to reduce damage your troop takes from an engagement, and this boosts your troop's morale if it does not take any damage as a result. Heroic Medic is one that can be used during the Aftermath phase to reduce the casualties your troop takes as a result of an engagement, also boosting your troop's morale if this causes your troop to avoid suffering any casualties as a result.

There are a wide range of character abilities that can be used by any character, and some that require access to magic. There is also a suite of class-specific abilities that are only available to characters with the matching class. These class abilities tend to be a little more powerful than the generically available options, ensuring that your individual character's strengths shine through. These class options often have even further distinguishment for the different specializations within that class. For example, using the Heroic Vanguard always provides a class bonus to your troop's tactics modifier and DC for the round, but this ability has different additional effects based on your doctrine. A Brigadier grants a +2 bonus instead if leading from the front, a Drill Sergeant temporarily grants their troop the use of a troop perk it does not have that it would qualify for, a Stalwart Defender grants a +2 bonus instead while the troop is Defending, and a Tactician grants a +2 bonus instead if leading from the rear.

While a troop's commander must always be a character, at least an NPC if not an actual player character, other characters in a troop are a special bonus that can help turn the tide of an encounter. Characters in troops can be a powerful asset, but they are not a guarantee. Characters in troops are also at risk of becoming casualties, which can knock them out of the fight at inopportune times. A troop's commander might even become a casualty, which is more likely if leading from the front for example. The commander becoming a casualty allows other characters in the troop to Seize Command for themselves, which might allow your character to be the one that takes over! This might even earn you a field promotion if your troop performs well under your substitute leadership!

Each time a troop takes damage as a result of an Engagement, it also risks suffering casualties. The number of casualties is determined randomly, and might even be zero, but the more damage a troop takes, the more likely casualties are. Troop casualties are expressed in a percentage. For a troop itself, the number of casualties suffered matters most for whether it can survive the battle, and if it can level up afterward. The abstracted and diffuse nature of troops means that, normally, any specific casualties do not really matter.

This is not the case for characters, however. A character's increased importance comes with increased risk. Each time a troop suffers casualties, all characters in that troop have to check to see if they, specifically, are amongst the fallen. This is done by rolling 1d100. If your result is more than the current casualty percentage, you're fine! Otherwise, you're a casualty and are taken out of the fight. Fortunately, casualty simply means incapacitated, and not specifically killed. What happens to a character casualty largely depends on the result of the battle. If your troop won, you'll probably be fine and can recover in time for the next battle. If your troop lost, you might be taken prisoner by the enemy, assuming they take prisoners. If using the injury rules, becoming incapacitated also risks suffering an injury.

Although an individual character is a small part of a whole troop, the ability for each character to have an outsized impact on the flow of battle ensures that every character matters and players stay fully engaged during army combat, even if they are not personally the one directing their troop. Because character builds still matter, this ensures that there is no single best one for army combat. A varied party is as useful in a war story as it is in any other tale, ensuring that the same party can work independently sometimes, perhaps doing reconnaissance or infiltration, and join up with a troop when the narrative calls for it. This seamless transition between both modes is what makes army combat in Realm of Runes special!

This will do it for our overview of army combat, specifically, but we're not done looking at military combat in general! The Tome of Whispers has more military options to dive into in future installments! Next time, we'll return to the card game to introduce another new villain, though, so stay tuned!