Extended Melee, Comamders, and Bodyguards

[Atgxtg]

In the Book of Battle, it notes that to get through to an enemy commader an group has to fight through 3 waves of enemy troops with the commader in the third wave. Now, assuming that the group gets through to the third wave, and the commander sticks around to fight, what happens after the third round of extended combat? Do even more bodyguard show up on the fourth turn, if the battle goes on that long, or is three waves it?

My group got lucky and got a shot at King Netres last session, and since it was the battle tunr that he was srcipted to get killed anyway, I had his stick around and fight on turn three raqther than ride off. But he and the PC both tied and I wasn7t sure if more guards should have shown up on turn 4 of extended melee or not.

[ewilde1968]

In our campaign PKs were so overwhelmed by that point that piling on more bodyguards is just going to result in massacre. We just kept to the number of foes there at the end of round three. The enemy commander had the upper hand and so stuck around to finish off the PKs.

Different year, different battle, different enemy commander; but, thats how we did it.

[Atgxtg]

What happend with us is that the PCs used Loyalty (Pendragon) for inspiration and allended up with Sword skills over 26 (most over 30). With such high skill, they kept mowing down the bodguards. Some guard did get inspired by Loyalty (Lord), but I kept rolling a lot of "ones" (About half my rolls than session were 1s and 20s), and the PK went through them mostly unscathed. One guy did take a major wound, but was saved by his Squires.

I was just thier time to shine, I guess.

I probably should have had Nentres ride off, but as the battle scrip had him getting kiled on this battle turn, and the PCs were lucky enough to get a shot at him from an opportunity, it seemed proper to have him stick around.

[Greg Stafford]

I think you did it perfectly: three waves are all I usually use.

As you said, "Sometimes it is time for the knights to shine."

Merlin knows that they suffer enough!

In the Book of Battle, it notes that to get through to an enemy commader an group has to fight through 3 waves of enemy troops with the commader in the third wave. Now, assuming that the group gets through to the third wave, and the commander sticks around to fight, what happens after the third round of extended combat? Do even more bodyguard show up on the fourth turn, if the battle goes on that long, or is three waves it?

My group got lucky and got a shot at King Netres last session, and since it was the battle tunr that he was srcipted to get killed anyway, I had his stick around and fight on turn three raqther than ride off. But he and the PC both tied and I wasn7t sure if more guards should have shown up on turn 4 of extended melee or not.

[Atgxtg]

I think you did it perfectly: three waves are all I usually use.

Yea! Nice to know I7m getting the hang of it!

As you said, "Sometimes it is time for the knights to shine."

The Boy King phase seems to be that time. Up 'til then they were getting a lot of major wounds, and things were dark and grim. Around 509 the "next generation" of knights appeared, and all have both the chilvarly and religous bonus (not to mention reinforced mail). We're up to 514, and the "runt" of the group (knighted at 18) is 23 years old with 7,000 glory! The highest ranked knight has 20,000 glory, a 30 Sowrd skill, and has knighted both Earl Robert and King Arthur! He will probably be appointed to the Round Table this year, and if he survives Badon he will probably wind up a banneret.

In all my time as a GM, I've never seen a whole group do quite so well. Usually one or two guys shine out and the others are average, but here even the least accomplished of the group has 7,000 glory and should be an extraodinary knight in a few years. After Badon, I expect that the surviors of the group will all be Round Table Knights! That will make my job tougher. .

Merlin knows that they suffer enough!

He should. He7s been resposible for that suffering enough.I'm going to miss having him around to send the PKS on dangerous missions.