A game variant that allows heroes to lead armies to battle.

Tell me what do you think.

Basic Rules

During the Strategise order, if a hero is present in an area containing at least 4 friendly units, a player controling him may place one influence token from his own pool on that hero if said hero has no other influence tokens on him. That hero becomes a General. A player may also discard all influence tokens from an existing General.

1) A hero is considered a General if he has at least one influence token placed on him.

2) Any time that hero is not in an area containing at least four friendly units, all influence tokens he has on him are discarded.

3) The General may move during the Mobilize and Conquer orders, as long as at least 4 friendly units move out ofhis area, and he ends his move in an area containing at least 4 friendly units

4) Each time a player controlling the General wins a battle in that General's area, that player may place one influence token on that General

5) When a player controlling the General loses a battle in that General's area that player must retreat that General to any adjacent area (Rule #2 applies)

6) During the calculate final strength step of a battle, the General's Army recieves bonus Strength equal to the number of influence tokens placed on the General divided by 2, rounded up (maximum +3). Only one general may contribute this bonus.

7) At the start of a battle in the General's area, that General may duel one enemy unit. Normal duel rules apply. Both the General and the unit he dueled retain any damage they sustained. Only one duel is permitted per side in one battle.

8) If two opposing Generals are in a battle, a player controlling one of them may start a duel against the other General.

9) A hero who is a General may only heal during the quest phase. He may not move, complete quests, train, or start duels.

10) A duel may be started against a General by another hero during the quest phase.

Optional Rules:

Morale Impact - death of hero who is a General has following efects:If the general was controlled by a Good race, the General's controller must rout 2 standing units in that General's area if able; If the general was controlled by and Evil race, the player who killed the general may stand up to 2 of his routed units (these units may not be in the killed General's area)

Declining Duels - A player controlling the General may decline a duel initiated by another General at the start of a battle. If he does so he must immidiately remove 1 influence token from his General and route one of his standing units in that battle. Neithter General may duel in that battle.

Attribute Sensitive Generals - The Strength bonus provided by the General is equal to his (Wisdom/2) rounded up. Insead of duealing at the start of the battle, the General duels on his initiative, equal to 5 minus the General's Agility (on 0 he acts as in basic rules, on any other normal rules for having multiple types of units on the same initiative apply). The General may dual a number of times in a single battle equal to his (Srength/2) rounded up.

Reaping the Rewards - As a supremacy bonus for Aquire Power, a player may remove all but one Influence token from any one General he controls, and place those tokens in his pool. Best played with Attribute Sensitive Generals.

Jkb said:

On the whole these rules seem fine if you want your heroes to take a more active role in army combat. The above rule seems silly to me, though. In my mind, an army unit is not a single soldier, it is an entire regiment of soldiers. The idea of a general "duelling" an entire regiment of enemy soldiers is just ridiculous to me.

I also don't see why a general would be disallowed from starting a duel with an enemy hero in the same hex if he wanted to.

Ridiculous to some, epic to others I was thinking on lines of Roland and such... de gustibus non est disputandum

I placed it there so that if a hero finds a cool weapon he can use, he can make the best of it, even when there are no other heroes worth fighting. I like the idea of a hero dueling a Chaos Lord for example.

As to not being able to initiate duels in summer, I wanted for a player to make a choice: either he has a questing hero or a general. As for flavour, I though of it like this: the General sits in his tent or whatever and doesn't have time for roaming the countryside searching for other heroes to duel. If a duel is initiated against him, it's like an assassination attempt.