Awesome layout! Tiny typo...

Two portions of the Battles BR calculation procedure (p 93) that look like possible typos, if I’m understanding them correctly:

  1. The combat multiplier for melee attacks takes the unrounded number of attacks and divides it by the rounded number. This effectively means that the combat multiplier is mostly independent of the number of attacks. For example, a 5-attack unit with 4.9/5 = 0.98 would actually have a lower multiplier than a 1-attack unit with 1.1/1 = 1.1. This isn’t consistent with missile attacks (which are directly proportional to number of attacks), and it doesn’t make sense to me why something as important as number of attacks would get canceled out of the equation like this.

  2. The final step of finding the combat multiplier (for missile units) is listed as “Missile Value x 0.05 x Melee Value”. I’m pretty sure the first “x” is wrong, and this should read “Missile value + 0.05 x Melee Value” instead.

p97
“In bad years, the legions are weak, the border foots are undermanned…”

EHamilton,
The formula is: (unrounded number of attacks/rounded number of attacks) x (max damage during a charge)

But maximum damage during a charge is
(rounded number of attacks + bonus attacks + bonus damage from charge)

In the case of standard units without spears, maximum damage during a charge is simply the rounded number of attacks. So the formula is actually:
(unrounded number of attacks) x (rounded number of attacks) / (rounded number of attacks), or, more simply (unrounded number of attacks)

But when a unit has bonus attacks or damage in charges, we increase the Melee Value proportionately.

That’s a case of our cartographer, Chris Hagerty, being a better visual thinker than I am. When I envisioned the map I told him 24 x 18 but when he executed on it, he realized it had to be 25 x 19 to work correctly. I’ve fixed the text to reflect the reality.

Thanks again to everyone for your proof-reading. As of today I’ve finished my final proof-read, including adding in all the missing page numbers. I will provide the document to Carrie Keymel on Monday, and she’ll finalize it for the printers.

Our cartographer, Chris Hagerty, has completed creation of all of the unit counters so those are ready for printing. PDFs should be available by the 1st week of January, with print copies following 6-8 weeks later.

Great news!

Also, that means it’s ‘Bug Alex About The Next Product Season’. Two Christmases in a row!

Is there a new pdf/draft-version out there? Have only word-foles, Tavis sent me a couple of months ago.

I got my PDF of Battles from a Kickstarter update.

I’ve just noticed that the attack throws for ancient and venerable dragons on page 79 appear to be reversed. That is, I think dragon (ancient) should be at -2+, and dragon (venerable) should be at -3+, rather than the other way around, to maintain a smooth improvement with hit dice.

Ooh! Hey! It’s the first (second?) week of January. I’m excited for those unit counters! :slight_smile:

So the hex maps that are being produced will end up being a bit larger than 4x3 ft? The battlemat PDFs on the backer page haven’t updated in a bit.

The battlemap will be exactly 48" x 31.183" to line up with the dimensions of 24 hexes wide and 18 hexes tall.

(I really gotta tune into the Autarch boards more than I have - Chris)

…so they are 25x19 in the book for purposes of illustration, but 24x18 in the product for purposes of play?

The latest backer download states:

A 4’ x 3’ fold-out battlemap, 25 hexes wide and 19 hexes deep, is included with the Complete Domains at War Set. It is designed to the same scale as our
unit and commander counters, and features 2” wide hexes.

(but then goes on to mention using two battlemaps at 48 by 18 hexes on the very next page, thus coming back to 24 by 18.)

Just notice a typo on page 23 of the battle pdf: The unit shock die roll for “9” is listed twice.

The unexciting technical answer to this mystery is that in-house at Autarch, a 25x19 hex battlemap that was 50" x 33" was created for printing purpouses (a 2 inch bleed for choppin’ off by the printer) and this file probably got into the example illustration by mistake.
The true play map will be dimensioned as above at 24 x 18 hexes as orginally designed.

Sorry for any confusion.

Ah! Makes perfect sense now, thanks.

Proofreading the Campaigns final layout (20130823V04.pdf, from the backer downloads. Hopefully this is current… ?)

Page 7 - “Campaigns, provides rules for going to war, maneuvering and supply armies…” should be supplying?

Page 9 - “The Mercenary Availability by Realm Size table shows how many of each type of mercenary is available in each size of realm” “is” should be “are”?

Page 12 - “f the character is personally vulnerable, the mercenaries may attack himor stage a coup.” Needs a space between him and or.

Is Grudging Loyalty supposed to be different from the way it works in ACKS core?

Page 12 - “Mercenary units with experience of real war are known as veterans.” bugs me; I’d’ve used “in” instead of “of”.

Do beastmen suffer the morale penalties for lacking an armorer or quartermaster? One assumes these are specialists they might be lacking. Also, what sort of proficiencies might qualify a PC to serve as a unit’s quartermaster (considering the case of low/mid-level PCs attached to or running a small mercenary unit)?

Page 24 - “The number of specialists available to hire will be determined” feels awkward to me; would use “for” instead of “to” here.

Page 24 - “The fees required to find each type of specialist are determine by the market class” should be determined.

Page 25 - “All mercenaries
and followers presented in the Adventurer Conqueror King System core rules and Player’s Companion and Domains at War: Campaigns supplement are described.” Could cut out one “and” and use commas instead. Supplement should also be plural I think.

Either some of the HD entries on the troop table are missing, or my pdf reader doesn’t render them properly. I’m inclined to believe it’s the latter.

Why do none of the human cavalry units have mount damage? Also why do human cataphract horses (lamellar-barded medium warhorses) have 3 more HP than elven cataphract lameller-barded medium warhorses?

Are rust monsters really supposed to have 0 supply cost?

I’m sort of surprised that workbeast ankhegs are an option, since I was under the impression that ankhegs were natural hunters / carnivores.

Page 42, “calamity” should be bolded in the flag description like it is in the emblem description on page 40 (for consistency).

Page 43, Surgical Saw - “Sharp, sturdy saws are used to saw through bone and tissue when amputation of the limbs is required.” “the” seems odd in this context.

Page 44 - “Artillery can fire ammunition of a lighter or heavier weight than indicated for their type, but reduce maximum range by 25%.” Second clause there needs a subject; it could plausibly be the imperative “you”, but that’s at odds with the style of the rest of this section.

Page 44 - “If the artillery’s modified attack throw, ignoring the creature’s Armor Class, would have been sufficient to hit the creature, the artillery’s projectile has landed near enough that the creature is within the area of effect and effected as above.” Pretty sure “effected” should be “affected”; effected is to cause change, affected is to be the subject of it.

“It deals fire damage to the hp of creatures each round the creatures are in the area of effect or until the fire is extinguished.” What is that “or” doing there?

“Artillery crews without an artillerist (p. 23) suffer -4 to attack throws. Artillery firing crude ammunition suffer a -2 to attack throws.” Either put an “a” before each -x, or before neither (probably should be before both).

Page 44, “Artillery crews without an artillerist specialist reduce their rate of fire by half.” Artillerist should be bolded here, as it is in the preceding paragraph (arguably if one is looking for the consequences of lacking an artillerist, being able to immediately recognize both paragraphs as of immediate interest is a good thing).

Page 47, “See Equipment Availability in Chapter 2 of ACKS (p.39) for rules on equipment availability; and Supplying Armies in Chapter 3 of this rulebook (p. 56) for rules on supply lines.” should use a comma instead of a semicolon.

Page 48, “As a rule of thumb, a structure will have 1 shp per ton of weight.” Should be “has” instead of “will have”; I think this tense shift occurred because the previous sentence was about future-conditional collapse when out of HP, but the rest of this section is in the present tense.

Page 49 - “A stone wall is 100’ long and 10’ thick, with height ranging from 20’ to 60’ high.” The “high” at the end is a bit superfluous.

Page 50 - “When levying peasants to serve as laborers, it has the same limits and effects on the domains as levying peasants into a militia.” could be tightened up to “Levying peasants to serve as laborers has the same limits and effects on domains as levying peasants into a militia.” Even if this change isn’t made, “the domains” should be either “domains” (the general case) or “the domain” (a specific single domain). Not sure what situation “the domains” would make sense in.

Page 50 - the text mentions that one in four laborers is skilled, while no more than one in a hundred is a master craftsman. How common are apprentice and skilled craftsmen? Four in a hundred and two in a hundred?

Page 52, spellcasting in construction table - “Increase construction rate of workers at construction site by 200%” should be 100%, since it’s a doubling, not a tripling.

Page 54 - “Initiative: Each army’s leader calculates his initiative score by rolling 1d6 and adding his strategic ability (p. 20) to the roll. 1. Before rolling, the leader may order a forced march (p. 55)”. There’s an extra “1.” between the two sentences, as if the second was supposed to be a sub-bullet but was incompletely merged back into the main bullet.

Page 55, “The daily and weekly movement rates of an army are related directly to encounter movement rates of its troops…” should have a “the” before “encounter movement”.

Page 55, “However, each day of force marching counts as two days of marching for purposes of rest and recuperation”. Force marching, or forced marching?

Page 56, “Each week, the supply cost is 60gp for each unit of 120 infantry; and 240gp for each unit of 60 cavalry.” Semicolon vs comma issues again.

Page 56, “The costs are inclusive of fresh bread, wheat, and water,” would be tighter as “The costs include fresh bread, wheat, and water”

Page 59, “The maximum range at which an armies can be reconnoitered is determined by its size, as shown on the adjacent Reconnaissance Range table.” Armies should be army.

Page 60, “his location and the location of units in under his command may not be scryed upon.” Superfluous “in”

More to come…

Page 62 - “Without magic, there is now way for an interrogator to know for sure how many pieces of information a prisoner possesses…” Now should be no.

Page 62 - “or slay, deceive or trick enemy scouts”. Needs a comma following deceive.

Page 63 - “even if it is not directly under control of the domain’s ruler.” Could use a “the” before “control”.

Page 67 - “Each army leader selects one or more units from those available to participate in the battle from those available.” Too many "from those available"s.

Page 70 - “4 longbowmen are led by a captain with strategic ability +3. Their total battle rating is (4) x (3 + 0.5) 14.” Should be four units of longbowmen; else those are some very impressive longbowmen!

Page 70 - “You can also check out D@W: Battles rulebook for the full details.” Should have a “the” after “out”.

Page 71 - “All may heroes fight in the same foray…” should be “All heroes may fight in the same foray…”

Page 72 - “After a fierce fight with many losses on both sides, Moruvai withdraws He has…” needs a period after “withdraws”.

Question - for purposes of mutual awareness, what degree of localization of the enemy army do you need? If you’re in the same 6 mile hex, but prior recon rolls indicated that you only knew they were in the same 24-mile hex, are you surprised? (Reason says yes, they snuck up on you and you should be surprised, but just want to make sure)

Page 74 - “Because Army B still has unrouted cavalry units in its army,…” is a bit redundant.

Shouldn’t spoils of war from routed units be half those from destroyed units, since presumably SOW from units is primarily equipment and personal effects taken from the bodies of the fallen? I mean, it doesn’t come out of the losing army’s commander’s budget directly after the battle, so it has to come from somewhere else.

Page 77, Blockade Quick Reference table, minimum circumvallation length should be 2500’ rather than 250’.

Page 78, Aura blockade example. 105 ships account for 210 points of unit capacity, but the remaining 90 should require 180 besieging units rather than 90 besieging units, since it takes two units of besiegers per point of unit capacity.

Page 78, circumvallation example. If Marcus needs 6000’ of circumvallation, and such circumvallation costs 100gp per 100’, why is the listed price 6250gp instead of 6kgp?

Page 79, Sabotage - “The proficiency throw is modified by the opposing army’s leader’s strategic ability (as skilled generals tend to be better at guarding their stored supplies).” “modified” should be “penalized”, as under the description of Smuggling also on page 79. (Or, if we’re being consistent with the reduction hijinks on page 82, “penalized” in smuggling should be “modified”)

Page 81, How Big is a Siege-mine? - “(20,000 cubic feet/20 cubic feet x 1gp/20 cubic feet = 1,000gp).” This confuses me. I think 20,000 cubic feet should not be divided by 20 cubic feet.

Page 81, Countermining - “Each day of a mining project, the defender
may make a reconnaissance roll to detect the siege-mine.” What degree of success on a recon roll is required to notice this?

How effective are catapults firing pitch at reduction of wooden strongholds? I know my players will try this given the chance.

Page 82 - “A maximum of 1 unit per point of unit capacity may be assigned to the defense.” How could a defender have more units in a stronghold than its unit capacity? Summoning magic, I guess?

Page 82 - “All heroes’ heroic forays are revealed and resolved simultaneously. 3. Lost units are then removed.” Extraneous “3.”

Page 83, artillery and siege equipment table - I would think movable mantlets and galleries could only be employed by the attacker, and should have the “2” note in addition to 4.

Page 84 - the assault encounter distance table has two different entries for hills - “badlands or hills” and “mountains or hills”, with different ranges for each. This makes the example below said table somewhat confusing, since it used the “mountains or hills” value, which appears lower on the table than “badlands or hills”.

Jedavis, could you please email (alex@autarch.co) with how I could credit you for your editing/proofreading in the rules?