Hi

Hi

Hi,

I’m enjoying a lot the beta of Band of Blades and are planning to play soon (once I translate the playbooks to Spanish for my players). Love military fantasy and I think that all the new rules/setting developed by Stras Acimovic and John LeBoeuf-Little help enormously to recreate the genre tropes perfectly.

A couple of doubts, typos? and questions:

Rules

1. Which is the max. value for actions modified by the Friendly, Connected and Stern traits? (the values on the playbooks and the book are not the same)

2. The Medic sheet has 6 actions points marked, while the other playbooks have 4. Is this a typo, or something intentional?

3. The Rookie main weapon is the Musket, but they don’t have the shoot action by default. Again, is this intentional?

4. Any question that the commander asks using the Intel rules applies to all available missions or just to one?

Narrative

5. What is the reasoning for the legion to go to Skydagger Keep? The map seems to indicate that there is a clearer south path through some forest.

6. Why is Skydagger Keep unprepared & unused? If this is so a critical path to the Eastern regions, should not be protected by the Eastern Kindoms? Does the Legion know it, and that is the reason for going there?

9 thoughts on “Hi”

  2. Thanks for the Q’s! And kind words. ^_^

    1. The max value at character creation. So if you’re Friendly (+1 sway) you can start with 2 sway. You can spend XP to raise it to 3 (or 4 if you have Elite) after creation.

    2. Not a typo. Medics take extra time to study, and we found that the extra two points helped them be less dead weight out of the gate, and rookies can place points easily enough to get their starting ratings if they want to become a medic.

    3. Intentional. Remember that shoot is about lining up shots. Fighting with a pistol or musket in a panicked melee is still skirmish. The points work out better if you also compare them to soldiers. You have spare points to put wherever you think is appropriate.

    4. Just one usually. If the question isn’t about a mission (what’s in the next location) answer accordingly.

    5. You haven’t read the locations. Cinder King himself, with 3 broken and his main armies is there. This is the main path into the Eastern Kingdoms.

    He sent 2 broken to secure Aldermark and open the northern route.

    6. It’s a small pass through the mountains. There are better and more widely used routes. It’s not critical at all. You can’t push a full army through there—but the undead don’t need to. If a Broken walks through the pass they can raise an army on the other side. This is something humans couldn’t do and no defenses were ever prepared for.

    Remember that the Eastern Kingdoms have already lost one war, followed by losing a second decisive battle. In something simplistic like Risk you can plug single points of access. In the real world, you move to counter armies. Mostly you have to read your enemies intent and movements and react to limited information.

    There are no phones, no planes, no long distance scout-recon. News that Ettenmark was lost gets to the Eastern Kingdoms only a week or two before Panya is under assault. Disseminating that information to Barta, and assessing threats, raising new levies from countries short on soldiers, and plugging up problems is barely under way.

    The Legion is moving faster than politics, gathering armies, and news in an age without radios. The Commander (who has seen or fought against broken) knows the danger and the they pause, and has made a decision without a chain of command or the ability to consult superiors.

    If we ever put out later campaigns, you’ll see some of the consequences of that, and what it looks like when the legion has to play politics ^_~

    Let me know if that helps.

  3. I can’t confidently answer the rules questions since I know Stras and John are going to be putting out an update that addresses at least some of those but I think you can give answers for the narrative ones without too much trouble:

    5. The objective of the campaign is to get to Skydagger Keep before the forces of the Cinder King do. You can say that the southern pass is inaccessible (maybe there’s mountains just off the map we can’t see, maybe there’s a large body of water that needs to be crossed), or maybe it is just forests but the bulk of the reserve eastern forces are guarding this obvious approach.

    6. Similarly, a possible reason Skydagger keep is unused is because no nation had a need for it. It might have seen a lot of use during the time of the Empire, when the kingdom was completely united, but as it is now, only one nation would benefit and if they were in a time of peace I could easily see it being abandoned. Also, the kingdoms probably didn’t expect to lose. Remember that usually to take on a supernatural threat, the gods Choose two mortals at most. This time they got *nine*. The leaders must have thought the Cinder King would have been curb stomped: in such a situation, why bother stocking and supplying a keep that’s weeks or months behind the battle lines when those supplies can go to the glorious battle at Ettenmark instead?

  6. David, have you translated the basic BitD playbooks perchance? I’m thinking of translating them, but if there’s an existing resource, it’d be a bit of a waste.

  7. Stras Acimovic, Thanks for taking the time to write such a long answer. It really helps. I think that is important to have a good context for the Legion travel to Skydagger, given that is the focus of the campaign.

    (Duan Bailey, your reasoning is also great :))

    I had an alternate explanation involving the location of the forgotten Skydagger Keep written in the Annals of the Legion, but I feel that yours are more simple and coherent.

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