I'm utterly confused about the divisions 'explained' in ultimate war. Did someone actually used the book for the mass combat rules?
- Equipment: Can i say "My unit has 3 divisions of infantry and 2 of cavalry" or not? Under the "Creating a Unit" rules, there is no step for equipment.
- (I hope I can quote) "Allowing separate allocation of damage to individual sub-units [...] gives you a different level of tactical flexibility in resolving combat, depending on who gets to allocate the damage from a Battle Phase, the attacker of the defender." However, thereafter, there is only a little reference in the Ranged Phase about the allocation of damage. What about the melee phase?
- Since "a division has similar combat statistics to a unit two size smaller", does this mean that divisions can fight independently from one another?
Ultimate War is probably the book in the Ultimate series that I understand the least. Unless Jason Nelson (or Endzeitgeist, I know he loves these rules) pipes in, I'll take a look later on and see if I can make sense of this issue: you're not the first person to ask.
I writing this from memory, so bear with me if i spew any nonsense.
An unit is what we understand as a troop from ultimate campaign, that meaning it is a group of soldiers that has a single commander as a leader. And each commander can only control a single unit, no more.
The ultimate war rules for Divisions allows that commander to control different type of soldiers in a single unit, so he isnt stuck with 500 melee soldiers, or 500 archers, or 500 knights, he can actually have a mix of them, a cohesive troop.
I believe you can attack with them as if they were different units all under the same commander. And i have absolutely no issues with that, as smaller units do have some difficult against larger units (both in attack vs defense and hit point differences).
But being a division and not an actual unit, i would require them all to be in the same combat. If you have two units with two commanders, you can attack an enemy unit one at a time, but when you got divisions, they all have to participate somehow, even if not deployed to attack (sitting in the camp), meaning that any units can be attacked if all other divisions deployed are killed/routed.
And yes, each division can equiped and even with different types of equipment, the cost for that will ramp up significantly though.
1) Yes. When building your unit, build the divisions as separate "armies" two sizes smaller, and combine them into one. Your Unit record needs to show that (say) 3 divisions are mounted with lances wearing masterwork armour, while the other 2 have ranged combat ability. Calculate the Consumption of the Unit as the total Consumption of the divisions.
2) The Melee Phase functions like the Ranged phase, substituting MV for RV - basically it works exactly the same, with the same rules for allocating damage, with the exception that even a missed MV/DV check results in an unmodified 1d6-3 damage to both units involved.
3) If you really want them to, yes, but bear in mind that if you split your unit, chances are that at least one of the divisions won't have a commander, and won't get morale bonuses from the commander, LB bonuses to RV/MV/DV, and is almost stupidly likely to fail morale checks. The only way to avoid this is to add commanders to the unit (note that the rules say that NPC units will typically have 2-4 commanders, so they can do this almost with impunity).
So... all divisions fight as individual units, but should stick together?
However... the fact that you have to allocate the damage (as defender or attacker) should mean that i have to attack (or defend) the unit as a whole, but if every division has different equipment, i can't make the unit statistics as a whole, right?
Time for an experiment. Hypothesis: apply a -1 penalty to the Units stats for each division which doesn't have a particular feature.
Unit size Battalion. ACR 8 (3rd level fighters). 5 platoons, 3 mounted with improved Armour, two with ranged weapons. Each platoon is ACR 4. The 3 with improved armour have DV 7, the archers have DV 4. MV is 6 for mounted, 4 for archers. RV for archers is 4. If you apply a -1 penalty to the Unit for each division which doesn't have improved armour, the unit has DV 7.
MV: 8 (10 for mounted, -2 for two divisions without)
RV: unit has 3 divisions without an RV. Unit RV is 8-3 = 5.
Yep, this works.
An interesting approach, I will give it a try!
Pretty sure I messed up the DV calc:
Base ACR 8, +2 mounted, +1 improved armour, -4 for 2 divisions not having mounts or improved armour would be 7, which is less than the DV you would have for an all-archer unit. Cap the penalty so that it doesn't reduce any of the values below ACR, that should solve that problem. Not sure yet if a similar cap should exist for MV and RV.
Might have to talk to Jason.
In Ultimate Battle, under Battle Zones, there is a "but see Moving an Army".
Where is that section?
The only place that could be relevant to that reference is Supply Trains under On The March in the Special Rules, where it refers to engaging the supply train, which is part of the Camp Zone. That section is pretty generic. Hopefully there'll be more on it in Ultimate Armies.
As a stand-in, try the following:
Once all units in the ranged, melee, and command zones have been defeated or destroyed, the attacking units may choose to engage the supply train. The unit commander under attack may choose to have the supply train surrender without a fight (in which case the supply train provides spoils of war as if the army had been destroyed, see Pillage and Plunder), or the supply train may fight back, in which case the battle proceeds as normal.
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If you're interested, there's another book which offers a massed combat ruleset which hews much closer to normal Pathfinder combat. A lot of people find it more fun than trying to use the mass combat system from Ultimate Campaign. (full disclosure - I wrote it.)
Why thank you!
I'm not sure there's much of a market for consultation, but let's just say that if Jason wants me for anything, he knows how to get in touch with me a few different ways, and I'm very happy to do what I can.