Inferior Troops

[ironchicken]

We played our very first game of DBMM last night and to be fair the game sailed along fairly smoothly, however we struggled with something in the rule book which appears on the QRS relating to Inferior troops.

It states on the playsheet that regardless of who's bound it is if inferior troops roll less than their opponents they must also apply a -1 grading factor to the result but in the rules themselves when you read the section on Grading Factors it is not very well explained.

It reads on page 37.....

If superior (S) in close combat in enemy bound:

+ 1 if scoring more; and mounted against foot
+ 1 if scoring less; and foot against mounted or foot
- 1 if Inferior (I) troops scoring less

To us this implies that if you are fighting an element of Superior troops versus an element of inferior troops and it's not your bound then the inferior troops must apply a -1 to their grading but only  V Superior

The play sheet states that the -1 is applied in any bound and against any troop type

Can someone please help clarify this as it sounds like the rules differ to the play sheet?


Many thanks in advance


Russ

[LawrenceG1]

What it actually says on p37 is

If superior (S) in close combat in enemy bound:
+ 1 if scoring more; and mounted against foot
+ 1 if scoring less; and foot against mounted or foot

- 1 if Inferior (I) troops scoring less

The blank line separating the (S) adjustments from the (I) indicates this is a separate item.  If you look carefully you will see that each case is separated by a blank line, i.e.

(S) in distant

(S) in close, own bound

(S) in close, enemy bound

(I)

(F)


This is one of several things in the rules that are obvious when you know what is intended, but are otherwise easy to misunderstand, or just hard to understand at all.

Lawrence Greaves

[HestonFan23]

Thanks for posting this.  I was about to ask the exact same question.  The space between the Superior factors and the Inferior ones is easy to overlook. 

I have to say that my understanding of the rules has increased exponentially after I lined up some troops and rolled some dice.  The rules are very easy to understand...but difficult to interpret. 

It reminds me of the school scene in Monty Python's "The meaning of life".  John Cleese gave complicated instructions about what the boys were supposed to do with slips of paper.  That is how the DbMM 2.0 rules feel at times. 

[ironchicken]

Many thanks for your help on this Lawrence, it's all very clear now!

Regards


Russ