See also Mass Combat Charms.
Mass Combat[]
Passive Traits[]
A Mass Combat Unit has the following statistics, as normal:
- Magnitude
- Might
- Drill
- Morale
Units with "extra" commanders are assumed to have leaders with War and Wits each equal to the units Drill, minimum Wits two. Players who wish to operate in a special unit without ranks in War may use these built-in commanders. Note that this makes Tiger Warriors and similar units easily commanded by most anyone.
Each character may use one charm/combo per round, even if multiple characters are in the same mass combat unit.
A join battle is Wits + War, done only by commanders. Solo units may use the higher of Wits + War and Wits + Awareness; this includes most vehicles.
The (only) DV of a unit is:
Drill + Might - Magnitude + Cha + (higher of Performance or War)
All divided by two (round up or down based on the commander), plus stunt bonuses. No wound penalties or action penalties apply to this number. Abilities are the commanding officer or head relay.
The soak of a unit is:
Drill + Might
Units have hardness equal to their Might.
Units have a number of health levels equal to their Magnitude.
Once a unit's health levels reach zero, their health is reset to full and they lose one dot of Magnitude. They then make a Morale check, difficulty 1 (2 if the opponent is led by a Dawn with flaring Anima). If the roll fails, rout occurs as listed in the base rules: The units loses one additional dot of magnitude for every success by which the roll failed, typically one or two.
Actions[]
Attack[]
An attack roll is: (Speed 6, Rate 1)
Magnitude + Might + Wits + War
Plus stunt bonuses and any charms. No wound penalties or multiple action penalties apply to this roll. Abilities are the commanding officer. Remember the Drill of the unit may be used in place of Wits and War.
The damage of a unit is:
Previous extra successes + Magnitude + Previous stunt bonus
Units ping at a value equal to their Magnitude.
Rally[]
Once any defending unit has been routed, a relay can attempted a Rally action (Speed 4). Roll Charisma + (Performance or War). This can regroup the unit into proper formation, restoring lost points of Magnitude. It requires successes equal to the current magnitude plus one, squared. Divide this by two (round up) if the relay has a supernatural form of voice projection, such as some artifacts or the Charm Commanding the Ideal Celestial Army. Extra successes may roll over to add multiple dots of Magnitude, provided there are enough troops available.
Example: Amber Melody, a Solar performer of some skill, is surrounded by panicked by well-armed islanders that are under attack from a horde of zombies. She calls the islanders to her side, rolling a total of 23 dice due to various enhancements and Charms. She gets 13 successes, and has a supernatural form of projection, an orichalcum necklace.
As she currently is a solo unit, her magnitude is zero, so adding one, squaring it, and dividing by two rounds up to one necessary success. She now has a Magnitude 1 group of islanders. Adding one to that, squaring it, and dividing by two takes two more successes out of her attempt, so she's now surrounded by Magnitude 2, around 25 islanders, with ten more successes. Adding one to Magnitude 2, squaring it, and dividing by two takes five more successes out of her attempt, so she's now surrounded by Magnitude 3, around 100 islanders.
At this point she has five more successes. Adding one to Magnitude 3, squaring it, and dividing by two gives a result of eight, which is greater than her five remaining successes, so those successes are lost. However, there were only about one hundred islanders to begin with, so it doesn't matter either way; all available units are at her side and future rally attempts will automatically fail unless her troops get routed again.
Splitting and Merging[]
The only way to get additional attacks is by splitting the unit and having each group attack separately. This creates multiple less powerful attacks that can deal more damage if the attacker is well-organized, though leaves the attacker more vulnerable as well.
Splitting and merging are each speed 3 actions. A unit can split into two identical units with one less magnitude as a speed 3; each unit has health equal to the parent unit's health minus one. A unit with one health, including units of magnitude one, can't split (though solo characters can break out as usual). At the commander's discretion, the split units may have different health totals, such as if you're sending the wounded back to retreat.
While any two units can merge, they only really become "one" unit if they have the same magnitude. Otherwise, the small unit is "stored" in the large unit until damage or rout would reduce it to the size of the smaller unit, in which case a normal merge occurs. (This is complicated but intuitive stuff that probably won't come up.)
The small unit may separate from the large unit at any time, but cannot be attacked until it does so. Multiple small units can merge individually, while inside a large unit, and if these become large enough they may merge with the large unit themselves.
In a normal merge, one commander is chosen as the new leader, and the average of the two units' Drill and Might are applied to the new unit. The magnitude is that of the old units, plus one. The health is equal to the average health of the two units, plus one.
Splitting is best done when you have enough able, non-extra leaders, or have a high Drill so the units are easily commanded anyway.
Solo Units[]
Any non-extra may switch between any unit available in the field for free, so long as they have the means to travel as such. They may also choose, each action, to act as a solo unit or as a part of a mass combat unit.
Solo units are not attacked normally, rather they are automatically attacked by any unit within range. Each enemy unit in range is a separate hazard; units trying to take down solo units are advised to split into smaller units.
- Attack = Drill + Might + 2
- Damage = 5L + Might
They are automatically attacked by any units aware of their presence and capable of doing so, and this does not take an action on their part.
Mass combat units may, at their option, use their normal attack against a solo unit, by having the commander focus the attack. This uses the normal pool of Magnitude + Might + Wits + War, and replaces the automatic attack. The solo unit gets their normal (not mass combat) DV, and may use Charms as normal.
Example: Adamant Fern is a Solar sorceress who intends to use her abilities to disrupt a band of pirates. The pirates are moderately organized (Drill 2) Lintha family members with considerable prowess (Might 2). Her DV is 5, so the pirates roll Drill (2) + Might (2) + 2 to try and hit, a total of six dice. They roll three successes, so Fern slipped through their barrage of attacks and now readies another spell. The pirates are, however, free to also attack a group of barbarians led by Fern's circle member, Largo the Black Lion.
Later, several elite units from the Wyld Hunt are tracking down the party and manage to surround Fern in a casino full of her followers. The units are extremely well-trained (Drill 4) and are primarily Dragon-Blooded wielding powerful artifacts (Might 4). There are three groups, each only magnitude 1. Fern uses Seven-Shadow Evasion on two of them, but defends against the third normally, testing their abilities and conserving Essence. They roll ten dice (4 + 4 + 2) and get six successes, riddling the young sorceress with arrows. They roll ten dice of damage, 5 (base) + 4 (might) + 1 (extra success), scoring four levels of damage. Fern winces and prepares a fiery retaliation.
Attacking a special character in a mass combat unit requires a solo unit making the attack, and uses normal, non-mass-combat rules. Defending special units that are not solo units have a bonus to their DV equal to the units Magnitude, and may in some cases be simply impossible to reach at the ST's discretion (though a creative stunt can often get around this). Solo units attacking other solo units are not engaged in mass combat.
If the enemy unit has only built-in units, the solo unit can also attempt to target the leader and the relays of the unit. These attacks may also involve killing several extras along the way. Regardless of execution, the purpose of solo attacks are to disrupt the unit, unless an attack somehow has a broad enough area of affect to hit several dozen or hundred extras at once.
This requires a normal attack roll against a DV of
Drill + Might + Magnitude
Damage must be sufficient to disable a heroic mortal, or an otherwise semi-elite unit representative of the troops. Multiple attacks may be attempted against the same target with damage accumulating.
Killing the target causes an immediate check for rout. Dealing double or triple the necessary damage indicates that additional important units have been killed, and increases the Morale check by one for each additional important unit. The Dawn's Anima power adds one to the difficulty of this roll as well.
Solo units may rally units around themselves if they are capable of acting as a relay, with normal rules for the rally action applying.
Vehicles and Artillery[]
Vehicles may be treated as solo units or as mass combat units with might and magnitude, depending on the vehicle. Most normal wooden sailing ships are mass combat units with a magnitude ranging from two to four. The Coatl is treated as a solo unit as far as being attacked by mass combat units is concerned, mostly due to its speed, and its hardness puts it out of range for most attacks under Might 4.
It's worth noting that vehicles being treated as mass combat units may still be attacked as vehicles. Vehicles being treated as mass combat units, firing artillery at vehicles being treated as mass combat units, are therefore simply attacking vehicle-against-vehicle.
Sinking a ship with a hostile crew is a very efficient pastime for Solars and other powerful solo units in mass combat, though it does not involve mass combat rules, simply the rules that archers have trouble firing arrows while swimming and that it's difficult to float in plate armor. Artillery is the best way to sink a vehicle, solo units usually require a bit of creativity.