Land Combat

This page describes the land combat system.

Selecting Combatants

Before a battle starts, you need to select your combatants. You player character is pre-selected; use the "Deploy All" button to deploy all of your available crew (minus a skeleton crew to man and protect the ships).

Sometimes, your forces will be completely outclassed by the enemy (typically if they outnumber you by more than 3 or 4 to one). In such cases, your men will refuse to fight and you will not be able to start an attack. Your only option in that case is to abort the attack and return to your ships.

Combat Map and Deployment

The Combat Map is a grid of 2 by 5; your units will always attack from the left, while the opponents army is deployed on the right.

Your units will typically start off the map. You can browse your available units in the scrollview at the bottom, and select any unit by long-pressing on it.

Once selected, you can chose where to deploy your units. Infantry units can deploy to any of the three central squares. Deploying a unit counts as a full move for that unit.

Combat Round

Each round, you can carry out one action with each of your units. Select a unit that has not yet acted on the map or in the army list, to see what options are available.

Move

The places that a unit can move to will be displayed on the map (with a black boot). Press on the highlighted space to move the unit.

Attacks

Possible attack actions are shown in the unit panel. When you click on an attack action, it will show you the potential targets for that action.

Melee attacks can only hit the front row of the opposing enemy. Missile weapons can - depending on the weapon - hit the second or third row as well.

Except for special units (e.g., artillery), only the first two rows in a square can attack the enemy. Choosing a unit to attack moves them forward (to the front if they are the first unit to attack from the square, to the second row if they are the second, etc). Be careful - the first unit you attack with will also be the target of your opponent's attacks in their round.

A melee attack results in contested battle rolls; the loser in that combat gains fatigue and may lose morale and rout.

A missile attack is one-sided, potentially inflicting fatigue and morale loss on the enemy. This makes missile attacks risk-free, but they are also less effective than melee attacks.

Stats

Units have a number of attributes:

• Melee Ability: How effective the unit is in melee
• Missile Ability: How effective the unit is in missile combat
• Resolve: How resolute the unit is. This is used when checking for morale.
• Fatigue Threshold: How much fatigue the unit can take. Once a unit has received this amount of fatigue, it is exhausted. Exhausted units receive penalties to their combat ability and resolve.

Representation

The following describes the unit icon:

• The number at the bottom is the number of troops in the unit.
• The bar above the unit size indicates the fatigue of the unit. It gets progressively more red as the unit gains fatigue.
• A green triangle in the top left corner pointing toward the unit indicates that the unit has impetus. Units with impetus gain a bonus to melee. Losing or drawing in a melee means the unit loses impetus. Winning a combat in melee, will gain the unit impetus again.
• A red triangle pointing toward the unit indicates that it is exhausted. Exhausted units cannot have impetus.
• An orange triangle in the top left corner pointing away from the unit indicates that it is shaken. Shaken units will rout if they fail another morale test.