‘The Art of the Master’ rules included in the War Unleashed companion book expand upon the use of Combat Masters and Battle Masters as well introducing skills into games. These rules form the basis for having characters in your games, each with a number of skills.
The way this works in a battle is that you would play a round of Conflict Resolution normally up to the end of step 3 – so the Attacker and Defender have been determined and both players have reduced and absorbed Mastery Points.
At this point players can bring their Masters and Skills into play to affect the round. By doing this it is actually possible to force your opponent to replace the Mastery Card he played with one that is more favourable to you – one that you can Guard or even beat!
If you think of each round of Conflict Resolution as being longer than a split second all of this makes sense. In a battle, a round would actually represent up to a minute of real time – possibly more as the actual time is arbitrary. The Mastery Cards played for the round represent the troops fighting and reveals the outcome should nothing else intervene. But Masters can spot that their troops are about to be beaten and throw themselves into the fray to turn the tide. Or they can see that their troops are pushing the enemy back and that by diving in they could really cause some damage to the enemy. This is ‘The Art of the Warrior’ in action.
Not all Masters and Skills will directly affect the result of combat. Some can be used to alter the result of the ‘tcts’ Secondary Card. Your Battle Master is trying to bring a couple of Stratagems into play but you play the wrong Mastery Card and this isn’t going to happen. But with the use of Masters and Skills you have the opportunity to alter this result. Maybe another Battle Master in the Unit – a lieutenant – literally pushes troops in the right direction so that you do get that Terrain Advantage.
With expansions you’ll get different Masters and more Skills. Put several Master cards together with a few Skills and you’ve got yourself a multi-skilled Character. For example, a Character could be a skilled leader and a champion. So when you build him you would give him some Battle Master and Combat Master Cards. Give him a few Skills and you can then use him in your games.
(NB. For those interested, this is the basis for character ‘classes’ and The Art of the Master are the core rules for using your Character’s skills in the Edath RPG.)
Familiar cards can be reused to represent skills. A good strategist knows his enemy and how he fights. So in the game you can give Troop Cards to your Battle Master to represent him knowing his enemy and knowing how that specific troop type fights and so knowing how best to beat them. You can then spend these ‘Know Your Enemy Troop Cards’ in the game to swing things your way.
Terrain Cards can be used in a similar way and with expansions, other cards will be used to represent knowledge or skills.
Next time I’ll introduce ‘The Art of War’ – the campaign rules – within which you can level up your Masters, Characters and their skills.
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