New Military Units and Equipment

[Paedrig]

I do like the Warfare rules of the RPG (imo superior to many attempts by other RPG-Systems), however in our group we came to the conclusion that there are some aspects and possible units which were left out, minimizing the variety. And i found the idea of the Core Rule Book, to creat new units by combining different units (f. e. the Dothraki as archer-cavalry etc.) as not well balanced, because this soon gets very power costly.
Therefore, I would like to begin to post some ideas we had developed for additional units and military equipment to give the game (and the players/ game master) a little bit more flexibility and options.

P.S.
For these ideas we used the Core Rule books, the Night Watch Book, Strife of Prosperity and (at least i hope!) common sense...
We start with Infantry-Units, some cavalry, northern and more...exotic Units will follow (plus some rules for additional equipment for Military Units)


P.P.S.
Since English is not my native tongue, I do apologize for any failure in writing or grammer.



Comments and suggestions are always welcomed...

[Paedrig]

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Infantry
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Slingers
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Slingshots are certainly the least costly ranged weapons at use - and the ammunition (normally stones) comes almost for free. The weapon is also very common around smallfolk, even in areas were most weapons are restricted. Therefore, it is quite easy and cheap to muster a unit of slingers.
However, like the slingshot itself, slinger units are a 'weapon of the poor'. They are undisciplined and not very effective in comparison to bows and crossbows. Therefore, they are mustered when there are no money and arms available for units that are more effective. Some uncivilized tribes of Westeros and abroad use slingers because they lack more powerful weapons. Ill armed and armoured, slingers must be protected by others units or become an easy prey in close combat situations. However their mobility and long range armament make them useful for supporting advancing infantry, ambushes, and defending fortified positions.

Power Cost: +2
Discipline Modifier: +3
Key Abilities: Agility, Stealth, Marksmanship

Start Equipment/ Equipment Upgrade
Armor Rating: 0/ 2
Armor Penalty: 0/ -1
Bulk: 0/ 0
Fighting Damage: Athletic-1/ Athletic
Marksmanship Damage: Agility, Long Range/ Agility +1, Long Range



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Crossbow-men
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These fighters are armed with the deadly crossbow. They are very effective in defensive positions, but hampered in open battles by the great weight and slow fire rate of their crossbows. It is quite common to equip such units with mantlets, and they are usually better armoured than archers, but this make them even slower. Such units (slow, but relatively immune against enemy ranged weapons) are often used during sieges, both in defending and in attacking castles and towns. As archers, crossbowmen are less disciplined than normal infantry are and vulnerable in close combat (and too precious to be risked).

Power Cost: +3
Discipline Modifier: +3
Key Abilities: Agility, Awareness, Marksmanship

Start Equipment/ Equipment Upgrade
Armor Rating: 3/ 5
Armor Penalty: -2/ -3
Bulk: 0/ 2
Fighting Damage: Athletics -1/ Athletics
Marksmanship Damage: Agility +2, Long Range/ Agility +3, Long Range

Special rules: Crossbow-men could only fire twice per round, anyway how much commands the commander could give.



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Skirmishers
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These men are lighter armed and armoured than normal infantry. They try to evade pitched head-on-head combat and rely more on mobility and flexibility. Such kind of warfare needs men who could act more independent, but this has some negative effects on discipline. Armed with javelins and short side arms, skirmishers can do damage in close and ranged combat. Normally they ‘soften up’ the enemy, protect the flanks of an army or perform semi-autonomous tasks like raiding, armed reconnaissance, forage etc.

Power Cost: +3
Discipline Modifier: +3
Key Abilities: Agility, Athletic, Fighting

Start Equipment/ Equipment Upgrade
Armor Rating: 1/ 3
Armor Penalty: 0/ -2
Bulk: 0/ 0
Fighting Damage: Athletic + 1/ Athletic +2
Marksmanship Damage: Agility, Short Range/ Agility +1, Short Range

Special Rules: As ‘normal’ infantry, they are armed with shields and can built formations like shield wall, tortoise and phalanx (although they generally prefer a not so static and ‘conventional’ form of warfare).



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Pikemen
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These men are named after their main weapon, the pike, a spear of around four or more yards length (they often wear only light secondary weapons). There are several sorts of units of this type. While some (often ill-trained and ill-equipped) town guards use such weapons in war, especially the pikemen from the Westlands are famous and honoured for their courage and abilities. Not so expensive like "normal" infantry (but also not so flexible against attacks from the flanks and rear) these are units for battles in open terrain and with clear frontlines. It is said that trained units of this type are among those happy few which might survive a direct attack from trained cavalry, if they are placed well.

Power Cost: +3
Discipline Modifier: +0
Key Abilities: Athletic, Endurance, Fighting

Start Equipment/ Equipment Upgrade
Armor Rating: 3/ 4
Armor Penalty: -2/ -2
Bulk: 0/ 1
Fighting Damage: Athletic+1/ Athletic+2

Special Rules: While such units could build a phalanx (their typical formation in battle, in fact), they lack shields and therefore are unable to form a shield wall or tortoise. Units of this type could never charge. If they operate in battle formation, phalanx or square formation, they negate the effect of charging hostile units (in battle formation or phalanx only if the enemies attack head on head).
An attack from the flanks or rear increases the Discipline Modifier to +3.


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Heavy Infantry
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Like their name indicates, these units are heavy armoured and armed with two-handed weapons (heavy battleaxes. warhammers, Great- and Bastardswords, flails and pole-arms). They can crush almost any other unit of foot soldiers and can take a great deal of damage before they become disordered. However they are also costly and relatively slow, limiting their usefulness in rough terrain. It is also not easy to find enough men who are able and trained to wear heavy armour and use two-handed weapons. Heavy Infantry is often the backbone of a battlefront, because they can crush the enemy ranks or form a line to which other units can fall back. Some armies use heavy infantry for the deadly first charge, breaking up the ranks of their enemies. Such units are called "lost hope", since few of the soldiers survive for long.

Power Cost: +5
Discipline Modifier: +0
Key Abilities: Athletic, Endurance, Fighting

Start Equipment/ Equipment Upgrade
Armor Rating: 5/ 8
Armor Penalty: -2/ -4
Bulk: 3/ 3
Fighting Damage: Athletic+3/ Athletic+4

Special Rules: In contrast to "normal" infantry (or personal guards and mercenaries), heavy infantry is not equipped with shields. Because of that, they are unable to build formations like phalanx, shield wall and tortoise.



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Dogs (of War)
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While not in common use in Westeros, some lords send packs of special trained dogs into battle. Such tactics are also used in Essos. War dogs are ferocious, heavy build beasts, trained to aim for the throat or other vulnerable parts of the body and never let their bite lose its grip. Such units become even more frightening if they are build out of giant elk- and wolfhounds, although these animals are expensive. Dogs are hard to control after the initial charge, but they tend to frighten men and animal alike. They and their masters are barded, sometimes even heavy. A unit is built out of 20 men and 40 dogs.
The movement during the initial charge is 60 yards - when the dogs are released.

Power Cost: +4
Discipline Modifier: +0/+3 after the first attack
Key Abilities: Animal Handling, Endurance, Fighting

Start Equipment/ Equipment Upgrade
Armor Rating: 2/4
Armor Penalty: -1/-2
Bulk: 0/1
Fighting Damage: Animal Handling+1/Animal Handling+2

Special rules:
A unit who is in close combat with dogs has a +3 discipline modification

The dog kennels war hounds improvement (Strife of Prosperity) did not work with such a unit, since the unit has already dogs. However, dog kennels for war hounds reduce the costs of mustering a unit of war hounds by 2 points, since trained war dogs are easy to get for such a lord.

[Gurkhal]

I like what I see but if you would make crossbows into a unit then I would advice that "Archers" are actually removed and a new unit called "longbowmen" are added and the two of these are differentiated rather than having the specialized Crossbowmen and a generalized Archer unit.

[Kajani]

That would be worth a second thought (although I think most "archer" units are indeed armed with bows, since I am not sure how many pure specalized unit of men with crossbows are common in Westeros). Of course we should keep in mind that there is not just what we call longbow (and in history likely was called livery bow or just bow) but also smaller types of bows and the double curved bow of the Dothraki and Dornish men. It would be difficult also make there a difference.

[Gurkhal]

Well yeah, there's certainly some room for non-Westerosi archers so maybe I was a little Westerosicentric in this suggestion. But the way I see is that given that crossbows are fairly different from longbows I think that either just let "Archers" be or go the full length and make both crossbowmen and longbows into specialized units.

The way I see is that longbows would be more expensive to create than crossbowen, given that while you can learn to shot a crossbow in a few hours you'll need a lifestyle to manage a longbow, to my understanding of it. And that the longbow will fire faster than the crossbowmen and so shoot every turn. So either a cheaper unit that fires every second turn or a more expensive unit that can fire every turn.

[Paedrig]

I always thought that the upgraded archers units (increased long range damage) reflects the use of more powerfull bows (f. e. longbows).

[Gurkhal]

Could be, but there are many types of bows, and arrows for that matter, that can be improvement over a "normal" bow and so could just as well represent what the upgrade is about. Or it could also be that "Archers" in the normal unit upgrades from simple bows to the more powerful crossbows. I can think of many things that this upgrade to Archer units would represent.

[Kajani]

Well with the creation - that is tricky. You are of course right that it needs years and years of training to handle a longbow and much less to learn that with a crossbow. Although I guess to learn to use it propper in battle, maintain that your weapons works as it should, reload it quickly and hit targets who are not just in short distance (since I guess with a crossbow over 100 yards or so the line of fire is not anyl linger absolutly straight) needs just more time than a few hours. It is also always a question (and I am not sure who is right) if the crossbow or the longbow had the greater reach and was more powerful in pierching through armour...
On the other hand the crossbow seems to be much more expensive (a bow was not very high priced).

[Gurkhal]

Well with the creation - that is tricky. You are of course right that it needs years and years of training to handle a longbow and much less to learn that with a crossbow. Although I guess to learn to use it propper in battle, maintain that your weapons works as it should, reload it quickly and hit targets who are not just in short distance (since I guess with a crossbow over 100 yards or so the line of fire is not anyl linger absolutly straight) needs just more time than a few hours. It is also always a question (and I am not sure who is right) if the crossbow or the longbow had the greater reach and was more powerful in pierching through armour...
On the other hand the crossbow seems to be much more expensive (a bow was not very high priced).

Are you sure you're looking at longbow prices? Because while crossbows were made across the world the longbow was pretty much only made in the British Islands, despite some, if we can believe Bernard Cornwell in the notes to his book "Azincourt", attempts by the French to get longbow makers to move their business down to the Continent. But even if the material would be roughly the same or even crossbows somewhat cheaper, I still think that the training requirement of the longbow would need to be represented in that either you need some kind of extra holding to your land to represent enough people training with archery often enough to make them into possible recruits for longbow units or that the power price is increased.

As for the effectivness of the longbow I kind of agree that it's mostly overrated and the victories the French won over longbow dominated armies, when they figured out how to fight these, are seriously downplayed by longbow fanboys who don't like that this supposed superweapon of the late Middle Ages didn't win its most famous war.

[Kajani]

With cheap I mean the material. Of course the material for bows were not just cut in the open forest (I have read that it was even grown in some cases in special tree-plantations) and often was not "English" but imported. however I think for a crossbow you need (especially for the more advanced types) a little bit more skill and time.
I guess it would not be any real problem to build longbows for other "nations" - it would be possible to get the people who know how to build it and to get the material, too. The real point was that you had not the men to use it and I guess medieval armies simply had not the patience to build long-lasting "schools" for their own special corps of longbow fighters - some did just buy them in the form of mercs who surely brought their weapons with them (but must get some supply over time, I guess).