[Top] An Introduction to Day of Battle
Think of your leader, referred to as a Warlord, as a character out of a book or movie, acting out mighty deeds and feats of arms for all to see. Similar to the limitations and interpretations involved with such art, this wargame presents a specific point of view during game time, and is unique among the large variety of wargame rules available today. In Day of Battle, sliding time and distance scalesallow the player to focus on specific facets of medieval battlefield action, while other facets are temporarily relegated to thebackground.

Day of Battle presents action in a way that is both comprehensibleand enjoyable, permitting you to act and react to your opponent. This fluidity can be difficult to absorb at first, but if you reflect on the editing and presentation of entertainment art, you will realize that the infamous downtime of ‘hurry-up-and-wait’ in war, is not something to be represented in a game! Day of Battle is here to entertain, and avoids simulating the boredom of war for the same reason that it avoids simulating its discomfort and violence.

As a warlord, your focal point at any given moment during the tabletop battle can be compared to being in a tunnel. You are focused on one part of the tabletop battle. The ‘tunnel vision’ experienced by persons in moments of intense action, such as on a battlefield, are directly presented in your role in the game. Your focus warps time and space. As read about in first person battle accounts and instances when adrenaline takes over, time slows and the red haze of battle replaces it. Some points of the battlefield are perceived as active, and other parts just seem to stand still. This can be a difficult concept for an historical wargamer to handle, as we want to employ all of our troops for maximum impact at all times. Conversely it is a very clear notion for those who role-play, either in games or reenactment societies. This point of view permits you to use your imagination and skills, and with some luck, to raise a stalwart army and do battle repeatedly. As you learn the tactics of this period, you will gain more victories. As you learn to manipulate the time and scale interaction of the game, you will become more and more daunting an opponent to face on the ‘Day of Battle.’

The of majority of battles in the feudal period involved a few thousand men per side and were fought in a space about the size of a football field or two. Most of these were fought for personal reasons between the warlords involved. Due to this personal aspect of medieval warfare and the time, space, and cost limitations all of us face in buying, painting, and playing wargames, Day of Battle scales real life down to a manageable level. It is a step above a skirmish level game, where each figure represents one man, and a step below a battle level game, where each figure represents 50 or more men

[Top] Day of Battle III – What’s inside?

Design Philosophy
This article is meant to touch on the new points presented in third edition. It is not meant to be in depths look at the rules. Special thanks here to The Sling Shot editors past and present who have always been open to the little guy on the wargameing block.

Key Game Concepts and Changes

Level of Play
This version has been reduced to a level of play between skirmish (man to man) and traditional Wargames (1:20 to 1:50 men per figure) with armies representing only 500 to 2000 men per side. The idea being that most Medieval battles were nothing more than a local scuffle between feuding barons. The ground scale has been adjusted as such with table scale being 5 yards to the inch for 25/28mm figures. Time scale is admittedly overlooked but is a short amount of time given the ability of units to move faster than most games. In this scale a feudal longbow has a maximum range of 50” or 250 yards. Look out.

Game Units
Figures are physically mounted on WRG/DBx style bases and then grouped into units of 3 identical stands. Such units equal 100 Close or Loose order foot or 50 cavalry or skirmishers. Units are therefore deployed in companies of 50 to 100 men, which seems to feel right for the level of play. Units usually shoot and melee a single stand deep. This was a conscientious decision to keep the depth distortion of game units to a minimum. Depth rules where logical are built into the combat systems by allowing units within an inch behind to aid in the fight.

Battle Lines
These rules are unchanged from the previous editions. All units must start in a Battle Line (BL). To be in a BL a unit must be within 3” of the main BL unit called a Banner Unit (BU) or able to trace a line of friends back to such a unit with the distance between supporting units being no more than 3” each. Units in a BL gain serious Morale and Command advantages. If a Personality is attached to his BU he is able to give BL commands. These are an economical way to issue a similar command such as advance, shoot, reorder etc. to all the troops in the BL. Units and Personalities may come and go from their BL once the game begins.

Personalities
As in Second Edition there are three Personality types. The Warlord is you the player, if there are more personalities in the army then he is the Commander in Chief. Leaders are similar to a Warlord but may only command a BL. Finally is theHero. This feisty Personality is attached to a single unit and fights and commands them for the battle. He may not leave his unit and all of his skills (combat, morale etc.) benefit only them.

Combat i.e. Shooting and Melee
The goal of the game is to break or destroy units. A unit can be broken either by a morale failure or when all of its stands are disordered. Both shooting and melee use the same game mechanism. This again was a game design decision to make memorization of the rules easier. Units roll 1 D20 fore each remaining stand. They then roll each dice looking for hits on the enemy. Hit numbers are always the same with situation modifiers being in dice. Again this makes for a simpler system to remember. When a unit takes hits its local commander decides if he will absorb them and hold his ground or fallback before the effects of the attack can mount up to a point where the unit is damaged. If the damage on the unit is overwhelming it can be simply destroyed.

The Weapon of Choice in Melee
This melee modifier simulated the fact that in most melees one weapon system will overwhelm the other, Mounted charging knights against poorly armed foot for example would claim the Weapon of Choice (WOC). This bonus doubles the hit number of the unit that can claim it. There is a hierarchal list that determines which unit has the WOC. Steady, trained spears are at the top followed by knights, then cavalry then men at arms and so on. The beauty of this list is that it can be modified for individual armies and periods. Our Dark Age WOC list for example has Huscarls at the top.

Morale
This system has been completely overhauled and I personally think is a lot of fun. For starters there are four grades of morale, elite, veteran, average and finally poor. During the course of a turn different events will happen that may place a morale marker on a unit. Finally at then end of each side’s turn all units with morale markers on them must make a morale test. To this you roll 1 die for each marker; each failure is counted towards the unit’s ability to stick around. If a unit fails it breaks. For example a poor unit breaks on is first failure while an elite unit doesn’t break until it takes 4 failures.

Proximity to the Enemy Movement
This has not changed since first edition. This mechanism allows units that are farther away from the enemy to move faster. The distance to the closest is always measured and it is this that determines how fast a unit moves that turn. For example knights move 8” if they are within 15” of an enemy, this is doubled if they are 15 to 30” away and tripled of over 30”. Finally if they cross a movement band their movement is slowed down. This represents units moving more freely when they feel there are no immediate threats in the area.

Summoning your Army “The Lance”
I wanted to break away from the stylized army lists that so many rules have. I have always been fascinated with Charlemagne’s “Lance” concept. I realize that it probably was not original to him and that it didn’t really last into this period but the idea has stayed with me. I felt that at this “Baronial” level of play you just never know what your army would be so I set about to build this into my Domain lists. To build your army you first determine how many army points show up when you summon it. This is mostly based on drawing a certain number of playing cards based on your social rank and then applying some situation modifiers. The final army point value is divided by six giving you the number of lances that show up for your summoning. Each lance is different based on what nationality it is. For example a French lance would net 4 mounted stands, 1 foot and 1 archer stand. The domain itself now determines what these generic stands are. For example missile are usually crossbows but up to ¼ may be skirmishers. Mounted are usually knights but ¼ must be other cavalry. This creates a different type of army each time and there is little you can do but fight with the army that you have!

Well that sums up the highlights of third edition. I hope you’ll be interested enough to visit me at my website and to join the yahoo group...Chris Parker