Raise your banners.
Hold your ground.

Field manual

Each round: automatic rally, missile fire, movement, melee. You issue orders first in each phase, then the computer acts. Each phase ends automatically after the last legal action, and impossible phases are skipped. Use Skip remaining only to forgo actions deliberately. Each unit acts once per phase; defending in melee spends its melee action.

All troops and separate commanders can move in eight directions. A diagonal step costs the same as an orthogonal step, including terrain costs. Range and adjacency also include diagonals. Enemy adjacency stops movement. During movement, an unengaged unit may pivot 45 degrees left or right once, using horizontal, vertical or diagonal alignment when every rotated square is clear; it may still move afterwards. A straight run of 3+ squares can charge; heavy rain needs 4. Disorder prevents charges.

Roll 4+ to hit in melee and at up to half missile range; longer shots need 5+. Then roll to save each hit: 4+ normally or 3+ for armoured knights and men-at-arms. Hills and villages improve foot troops by one further step, to a maximum 2+ save. A missile volley can inflict at most 2 strength damage. Each unit has 6 strength. At 3 strength or below: −1 Attack/Move. At 1: −2 Attack and morale after combat. Disorder: −1 Attack.

Morale is 5 + experience + kit (up to 10). Roll a d10 at or below the score. Failed ordinary tests retreat 2 squares and disorder; blocked retreats lose strength. Rally tests remove disorder on a pass. Elite troops automatically reroll their first failed morale check each round.

Commanders attach for +1 morale, or support within 2 squares when separate. Detaching does not spend the commander movement action: the commander may then move independently or immediately join another adjacent friendly unit in the same movement phase. Unprotected commanders adjacent to enemies are captured. Capture gives army-wide −1 morale; allies seeing the captive within 6 squares test once at a further −1, routing on failure.

Wooden palisades have 4 strength and stone walls have 8. Intact sections block all movement. Missile troops may shoot through walls and target them during Fire, but fire crossing a wooden wall suffers +1 to its hit number and fire crossing stone suffers +2. Breached sections impose no shooting penalty. Adjacent troops may batter walls during Melee. Reduce a section to 0 strength to open a passable breach. Woods and villages block sight. Difficult terrain costs +1 movement. Deep river squares are impassable; units may cross them only where a scenario provides bridge squares. Light rain slows horse by 1 and caps horse charges at +1. Heavy rain slows foot by 1, horse by 2. Snow slows all by 1 and can disorder charges. Wind penalises long-range shooting.

Ploughed earth and crops cost mounted troops +1 movement. Soft ground costs everyone +1; heath costs foot +1. Stubble, ploughed, soft ground and heath cancel horse charge bonuses. Short grass adds +1 with a 4-square run. Crops penalise shooting beyond 2 squares.

Spears/pikes gain a die vs mounted; bills vs mounted or armour; steady longbows gain a die. Keen grants a die, capped with weapon features at one. Piercing and crossbows remove one armour save. Balanced rerolls one miss per round. Elite rerolls the first failed morale check each round. Every upgrade costs 25% of the unit's base price, rounded up to the nearest 10d.

Units begin in a single battle line. After participating in melee during two different rounds, a line becomes fatigued and suffers −1 Attack from its third melee round onward. During deployment or as its movement action, an unengaged unit with at least three troop squares may reform into a block up to three ranks deep, if the required squares are clear. A block uses the same number of troop squares and is immune to the fatigue penalty; reforming into a line makes accumulated fatigue apply again. Destroying or routing an enemy company rallies the victorious unit and resets its fatigue counter to zero.

In Field battle, lose half your starting strength and your army breaks. At the selected round limit, the side holding more objectives wins; ties are draws. Annihilation has no objectives: eliminate every enemy unit; a selected round limit produces a draw if both armies remain. Defender is an endless survival battle with no objectives to hold. The enemy begins with an army worth exactly twice yours, and a fresh wave matching your original roster enters from the north after every 10 completed rounds. Destroying the current attackers does not end the battle. You lose when your army is destroyed; the final score is the number of complete rounds survived. Rout counts as removal in all modes. Disorder prevents control; contested objectives count for neither side.

Solo adaptations: one grid square per ten troops plus one for an attached commander, manual deployment in the highlighted area (expanded for large armies), fixed player-first phases, movement-based facing, manual move ordering. Flank attacks gain +1 die and impose −1 morale; rear attacks gain +2 dice and impose −2 morale. Starter rosters and terrain values are supplied for playability.