Morien

While some armor is better than no armor... 1. Those boob-plates will deflect hits to the unarmored cleavage. Lack of helmet and neck protection. No armor on hands nor forearms (often hit). The narrowing of the chainmail skirt towards the bottom is a cause for concern, too. The chain mail tunics tended to flare out towards the bottom, to allow more freedom of movement without causing the hem to ride up. 2. The starting time of 3e is AD 531, which means that the knights are dressed more or less like this (including the helmet behind him): So within the context, yes, her armor is inadequate and has dangerous deficiencies. It would be a good armor for a Saxon in mid-400s, if the chainmail could be laced all the way up and the hem made more loose.

Did you buy them used? Since unless I am badly mistaken, that is the Cambria map from The Savage Mountains. The map in fold-out map in 3e (KA) and 4e should be this one: http://scruffygrognard.com/images/oldmap.jpg

Serfs apparently did not serve, but freemen (yeomen and the like) were expected to be armed (Assize of Arms 1181) and might be called up to defend the realm. In KAP, Arthur issues similar Assize of Arms in 515 (BotW, p. 102-103). BoU p. 25 also makes this distinction, noting "a general levy is summoned, which includes all able-bodied free men". Thus, the numbers for the manorial peasant levy are much exaggerated, since it is based on the total manpower of the manor, including serfs. Rather than 5d20, it should be closer to 3d6, IMHO. And generally no, I don't use it.

This is because GPC counts the 'prequel' battle of the ford as part of the Battle of the Badon Hill, despite it happening at the ford rather than the hill itself. Once you make that adjustment, the 3-day battle makes sense. That being said, BoA goes way over the top for my liking, when it comes to the enemy list. Giant Swooping Hawk, really? Draconic warriors? I much prefer the pathos of GPC last day, with the dregs of the Saxon nobility dying with a song on their lips, slaying before being slain, earning their ticket to Valhalla. 2 and 3: Yep, probably a good idea to clean house. Also, you could even fudge the dice a bit (with the Players' approval) to ensure that those old characters go out in a blaze of Glory (Heroic Death 1000 Glory), which gives them a proper sendoff while at the same time allows you to underline the deadliness of Badon without killing their current characters. Pruning the family trees of deadwood, as well as clearing out some of the NPKs is a good idea, too, IMHO. 4: I have run Badon twice. The first time, we were wrapping up the face-to-face campaign (at least for now), as I was moving across the country (we picked it up later via Skype and IRC, and then Roll20). So everyone kinda knew that it was going to be a Big Finish. So after the PKs managed to survive Day 3 (the actual big battle, where the PKs were instrumental in keeping the Cymric infantry line from collapsing), as they were walking amongst the piles of the dead in the dark of the night, they came upon an old man with one eye, carrying a spear, two ravens on his shoulders and flanked by two damn big wolves. "You have spoiled my plans for the last time..." Worked very well for an epic finish, with one player bragging for years that his PK managed to wound Wotan before getting impaled. The second time, I kinda wussed out since most of the PKs were relatively young still, and killing them off would have left a big gap before the heirs would have grown up. So while they lost an extended melee, I didn't have the Saxons slaughter them all while unconscious, but had the cavalry literally arriving in the nick of time. I think it is obvious from the above, which one I preferred. 😛 (I was drawing heavy inspiration from Twilight of the Grey Gods by Robert E. Howard. And before someone calls me out for having a literal god on the battlefield while pooh-poohing Giant Hawks, well, one fits my mythic narrative, the other doesn't. Besides, the Wotan encounter happened in the night, with just the PKs witnessing it, rather than in the middle of the battle.) 5: I think GPC mentions that Merlin has been missing for a while, in the gossip or something? So no, he would not be around.

Also a bit of a favorite for playwrights for masquerade/crossdressing shenanigans... 😛

My guess is that since the fight is happening in Logres, it would make sense that local (Logresian) peasant levy and garrison troops are brought to the fight, too, whereas the reinforcements from farther away would be bringing a smaller but more elite force. Thus, you don't get common farmers in Cambrian and the North forces, but might get some from Cornwall (Jagent being relatively close to Badon). Indeed, if you have more time than I do, you could count the numbers of knights vs. foot in page 95 and see if the non-Logresian forces have a higher knight/foot ratio than Logres does FOR THIS BATTLE. It does not mean that in general Logres has less knights per capita than the other regions. You would indeed expect just the opposite, since many of the other areas (Cambrian mountains, Highlands) are still tribal rather than feudal.

Depends on the squire (and their age/prowess/Player-character status). They can take wounds from the enemies in BoB2. They are not calculated in the Unit Results, but then again, neither are NPKs (unless you have just 1-2 PKs). They are part of the Unit, and are calculated for the army size, too.

Just mentioning quickly here that the Book of the Manor investment scheme is totally out of whack, unless you vigorously enforce the 'only one investment of its type' rule from BotEstate. It is still way too generous, but at least it will stop income from exploding upwards exponentially. (I did a quick calculation and the value of the single £10 manor in Uther Period, using the unrestrained investment rules from BotM, resulted in an income of thousands of pounds by the end of the campaign just from investments alone. Assuming no reassessment of the property (see below), of course.) Introducing new investments that you can add for extra income feeds the same problem, although if you fix the above problem, it is a much lesser issue. Also, if you adopt the reassessment from Book of the Estate when the holder dies and the heir takes over, you can rebalance things in each generation, which helps a ton, too.

Also, England is famous for its lack of rain, right, hence the need of irrigation ditches? *tongue firmly in cheek* More seriously, agreed with the previous poster.

Half and half, when you consider that it is knight+squire.

Maybe depicted, but the pike was a two-handed weapon, with the shield slung from the neck/shoulder. Both hands on the pike to allow you to actually use it rather than just hold it in place. It is a thrusting weapon. Sweeping it from side to side would make you hella popular with your mates as you disrupt the whole formation... I believe I mentioned sword and dagger in my original comments about dual-wielding in civilian context. As for medieval art: 🙂

Oh, I am not contesting that. I am not suggesting that the French had 100 000 knights at Crecy, quite the opposite. My memory was that Delbrück tends to go more minimalistic than the modern ones, although the modern estimates are closer to his than to the chroniclers' numbers. And I have a vague memory that in some cases he went well below what the modern consensus is, although I don't have the specific examples at my fingertips. Not contesting that either. Yep, agreed there too.

OK, looks like that they are more like carrying the musket (makes sense, you wouldn't want to just leave it), rather than 'dual-wielding'. Especially when you have it tucked under your armpit like that, sure, you might be able to run into someone, but it is more as a static defense to keep people from charging you. While the sword would be doing most of the attacking. Murchad is a chad, no question about it. 🙂 I think Harald Hardrada is reputed to wield an axe in each hand at Stamford Bridge. Still, exceptions, and heroic ones at that. I'd still argue that in both cases, it is much closer to what Deacon was proposing as his house-rule, than double attacks of D&D. Oh, I missed your Battle Sizes one... Yeah, the Battle Size table in BoB2 seems way way off. I'd argue it is off even for later Periods. The one in Book of Uther (p. 187) is much closer to the reality of Pendragon, given the numbers of knights in Britain (in Uther Period). Now, I could see that number doubling, but the BoB2 battle sizes imply that it quadruples. Sure, the Saxon lands are conquered and trade is booming in Later Periods, but there are still significant areas of wilderness that are still uncleared even at the height of Tournament. Maybe just before Yellow Pestilence you might get there if you are willing to handwave wildly and not think about it too much. But it would logically mean that the Romance Period Salisbury should still have at least double the knights that it does in Uther Period. Based on 4e, it doesn't. Now if we take BoB2 at face value, Greg seems to have intended to change that. It is what we have in print, so I guess the number of all the knights in Logres goes from ~2200 in Uther Period to ~9000 by Tournament or so. As for tournaments, Arthur's Pentecostal Tournament tends to draw over 3000 knights (KAP 5.2, p. 252). So this would imply that the number has gone up some, as even taking the whole of Britain, the number of knights would be just around 4500 in Uther's time, and a minimum of 2/3rds attendance is rather high. Anyway, you do what you want with it.

The highland charge was more of a sword and a targe, i.e. a sword and a small shield. Sure, they had a dagger in the shield hand as well, but the primary function was to parry/block with the shield and attack with the sword. (Individual loadout of course varied, and I don't doubt that some had just sword and dagger. In any case, this would be more the civilian context I referred to, used in the gunpowder battlefield, since armor is no longer a thing.) As for the sword and the rifle, I am not aware of it, but it is frankly physically impossible to fight one-handed with a musket/rifle+bayonet. It is too heavy, heavier even than most short polearms. Having it in the other hand as a clumsy parrying stick, sure, better than nothing to block enemy sword swings, but I think there is a reason why this didn't take off as the new style. Are you sure it wasn't more of a case of the sword being a backup weapon? Fight normally two-handed with the bayonet and then switch to the sword if needed?

I wouldn't give this. Critical itself is powerful enough as it is. On the other hand, allowing a pick of the weapon boni is probably balanced OK vs. the lack of the shield. Indeed, shield + favored weapon is clearly superior against a specific enemy. On the other hand, I might give the dual-wielder a chance to just continue whacking away with the remaining weapon, if one of them is broken by a fumble/tie (I would only cause one weapon to be broken in such a case, not both, since a shield-user doesn't lose a shield). In 6e, both axe and mace use the same skill, so that is not a limiting factor for dual-wielding here. The adventure had a separate dual-wielding skill, but admittedly that one would be overkill vs. the benefits proposed here.

My take: Historically, dual-wielding weapons wasn't really a common thing in the battlefield. You had your spear/sword and your shield, or later on, a two-handed weapon (usually a polearm or a pollaxe for the English knights in particular). Dual-wielding in the sense of having two weapons was much more common in the civilian context where you wouldn't be carrying around a big shield during your everyday life, but might carry a sword and/or a long knife for self-defense purposes. In those situations, might as well pick up pretty much anything you can use to help you parry the opponent's weapon, but it doesn't mean that you'd be attacking with both windmill style, which is what many of the RPG dual-wielding rules tend to imply (double attacks and so forth). It is much more about being able to parry and control the opponent's weapon with one of your own while you are stabbing/cutting him with your free weapon. So bonuses to parry seem appropriate (similarly to, but worse than, an actual shield), double attacks less so.

Yes on creatures, no on dual-wielding humans. Regular rules don't have dual-wielding, but there are rules for it in the Tales of Mystic Tournaments. It doesn't give you two attack rolls, but it does give you two damage rolls. But you need a special skill too. I forget if BoA has some 'rulebreaking' rule of cool units. I know that some units have a javelin missile attack followed by a melee attack, which is a bit unfair if the knights have to split their skill. BoB2 is not fully compatible with normal combat rules.

I'd add as a quick qualifier that the only book where we have gotten a more detailed look at the church organizations has been Book of Uther. Which is supposed to portray a more brutal, less refined period. So the absence of abbesses in the org chart is not all that surprising, all the more so since BoU mentions that there are apparently no independent nunneries at this time, but that all are attached to an abbey, and hence the abbess reports to the abbot. Amesbury is one example of this. (And yes, I know at least a couple of examples from medieval history where the exact opposite was the case, the abbess ruling over the abbot. But they are very much the exceptions.) I'd expect that independent nunneries might flourish under Guenever's patronage, though.

Lion in Winter is excellent. I happened to watch the two-part TV movie first, and I am honestly torn which version I prefer. Patrick Stewart did an excellent job as Henry II, and I think I prefer his less hammy portrayal to Peter O'Toole's (although O'Toole's Angevin rage is better). That being said, Katharine Hepburn will always be my Eleanor. 🙂 I wouldn't worry too much about the grittiness. If the style fits the GM and the group, it is all good. I deliberately downplayed some of the fantastical stuff during the Uther Period, so much so that Merlin performed no magic 'on camera'. All his 'shapeshifting' could have been just clever disguises.

Depends what the GM and the Players like to play. And the number of players, too. For instance, I currently have 5 players in our campaign. If we focused a lot into each of their families, we would never get any adventuring done. On the other hand, if I were running a solo campaign for just one player, then definitely the family drama would be part of the campaign.

Well, there are currently no 40 meter high walls in the fortification lists, sure. I checked Lordly Domains and the tallest walls were just about half that, 60'. But in principle, there wouldn't be a problem adding such an option. Granted, I would expect it to cost about four times as much as the 60' wall (double the height, double the thickness; x1.5 thickness would be pretty close actually what the thickness is quoted in the Wiki, 16-20', since the 60' wall is 12' thick in LD).

This doesn't mean that the Abbess herself was a knight, just to make that point clear. Just that she was the liege lady to some vassal knights in the lands of the Abbey.

I expect more than our share, given the more (pseudo-)historical setting (in comparison to like Forgotten Realms) and the Arthurian literature tradition stretching back to Middle Ages. As for myself, I don't have any official qualifications, other than a lifelong interest in history (particularly medieval) and fantasy/historical fiction literature. I am actually much less versed in Arthurian literature as some of the buffs in the Forum: HRB & Malory are enough for me. That does mean that my campaigns have much fewer 'easter eggs' for the hardcore affectionados, but given that my players are even less exposed to Arthurian literature, it would be pearls for the swines situation anyway. What I try to accomplish is a world that is internally consistent, one that 'makes sense' to the players and the player-characters. Sure, sometimes stuff happens and faerie magic tends to evoke a string of bad language (from players and PKs alike), but as long as there is verisimilitude and the players are invested in the characters and the campaign, I count that as a victory.

Given that it is paired with murder, I think it is more serious than that. Perhaps things that would outrage the society. Rape, blasphemy? Actually pretty close to what Sax Basilisk came up with: "wicked deeds".

Remember that ALL modifiers apply in 467. So Berroc Loyalists would get -10 for Loyalist and -10 for Berroc for a total of -20. So they will be at Carlion for sure. The split between Non-Berroc Loyalists and Berroc Loyalists in 463 was to make it a bit easier to tell at a glance what the modifier was, rather than have Loyalist -5 and Berroc +15, for Berroc Loyalists to get +10. As for 466, remember that The March did not go through Berroc. So if a Berroc father got stuck in garrison in Berroc, obviously he didn't get the chance to fight against Aurelius. This doesn't mean that he is an Oath-breaker or a Neutral. He is still a Loyalist, just that his duties kept him from the battlefield. Same is true for Ebbsfleet. I know what the design intent was, since I wrote those modifiers for the Berrocings. Just because they didn't get to go to battle 100% of the time doesn't mean that they forsake their Oath. Maybe they got assigned to guard the homeland. Maybe they were sick/injured. My point is that the Berrocings were conceived to stay loyal to the King of Logres, since that was the Oath they took, providing a stark contrast to Hengest's 'Bad' Saxons. Now it is possible that I missed some modifiers (the earlier 451 and 453, for example), giving the Berrocings a small chance to deviate from their envisioned role. YPWV.