Some Band of Blades questions
1) Is it 3 full squads, or 2?
Page 6 – Ending the Campaign “The campaign ends when there are fewer than 3 specialists or full squads in the Legion”
Bottom left inside Marshal “If fewer than 2 full squads, end the game.”
2) how many rookies do you start with? The full 30? 5 full squads to match 5 starting specialists feels right, but I can’t find it spelled out anywhere
3) Is it correct that you could have 18 specialists but only 14 (or 9) soldiers/rookies and that would end the game for lack of full squads?
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4) It seems like you should be able to take the spy network advance “Training” any number of times when spy masters die and new spies are recruited.
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1) 3 full squads. You need two to send on missions, and one to hold the home front.
2) Full 30. Trust me they’ll go away.
3) If you end up with 18 specialists something really strange happened in your game. This is an improbable theoretical case we’re not designing for.
Yes, if you don’t have 15 soldiers+rookies you cannot deploy correctly on missions, you cannot hold camp, and it’s a good sign that something is wrong enough that you won’t make it to Skydagger—or if you do—last the winter.
And since it was asked:
4) Nope. If you’re killing masters that’s on your spymaster.
5) You could get +1D to the engagement roll on a scouting mission without spending horses if you have horses and a soldier on the mission with the Calvary special ability, correct?
Also, should add a Stras Acimovic
No. You cannot. Horses are a mechanical resource. By that logic if people pick Black Shot and no black shot is spent, and they bring some back you never had to spend it in the first place.
This is hard coded for mechanical reasons in order to make supply lines and resources work. It’s the same as core blades acquire assets going away after a mission. Don’t over-think it.
Ha, you answered while I was typing another question! Thanks.
1) I figured… that was mostly pointing out a typo in the form of a ?
2) indeed
3) Yeah, 18 was just the most extreme… could have just said “extra” I guess. But this does mean
there could be cases where promoting soldiers to specialists is a very bad idea. Or sacrificing a specialist to save a rookie is a very good idea. Might be rare in play, but interesting to think about
4) seems like only viable way to go with spies is (unless you’re desperate) have Crimson Vexing Gale finish any long term assignment that wounds a spy, then let them recover. Or is that just too slow and you should take some chances? Am I missing something? I think I may be confused on how spies work.
5) OK, yeah, that is how it is worded. Glad I asked.
6) -1 or -2 per
Front page of Marshal “you must lose supply and you have none (-1 per)”
Bottom left inside Marshal “No Supply. Can’t pay supply (-2 per)”
Back to 4)… trying to make sure I understand spies correctly. Once a spy has started a long term assignment they can’t take another assignment until it’s done, yeah? It says “different spies may take turns working on them” – does that free the original spy to take a new assignment? Could two spies swap assignments? Am I totally off?
6) It’s 2.
You’re totally off. Each turn the spymaster decides what each spy is working on. So you can switch up spies every turn.
Huh… I guess I figured that couldn’t be right because then any time a spy is wounded they can heal before continuing… seemed too safe… and it says in Recruit spies lead dangerous lives! Are there pressures on spy masters to ever risk their spies?
The game decides that. In general there’s 10-13 moves the spymasters get, so playing too cautious means you don’t get to finish all the things you want to, and since each takes time…
When I’ve run a spymaster I’ve chosen 2-3 times per campaign to send wounded spies out because completion was more important than the risk to me. Depends on who’s playing the role.
7) When a special ability says “mission” can that refer to 2ndary missions? Some obviously only could be used on a primary (say, Moral Support for example) but others… like the extra engagement die from Strategist or a specialist with Hard Knocks.
Strategist would work. Rookies just die on secondary missions, but if you level up enough to have a character with Hard Knocks I don’t see why not.
Hmm… do multiple Stratagists stack?
No (though that will be clearer in the full text).
I think vital means necessary to even take the mission, instead of “just” a penalty to the engagement roll… but if it’s actually defined anywhere I can’t find it.
If you get a vital mission, it has to be primary. That’s on my list to update.
“If you roll a mission type that’s not available at the Legion’s current location, use the first correct type above it.” This rule works fine for every location except one – Talgon Forest.
Good catch (thanks for the in-depth read). For now, if you roll a 1-or-2 run religious, and 3-4 scout. I’ll run some numbers and check if “use the one below” works better or if we should just post the “if you roll a 1 it’s a religious mission” in the Talgon special rules.