Equipment

Slots

Every man has the same nineteen slots, worn in layers:

Part	Slots
Head	Coif, helmet
Neck	Aventail (a mail cape) or gorget (a plate collar)
Body	Padded coat, mail shirt, breastplate, surcoat
Arms	Arm harness, gloves
Legs	Mail or plate legs, shoes
Hands and back	Main hand, offhand, sidearm, back, pack, quiver at the hip
Horse	Barding, saddlebags

Each piece is one of five tiers: crude (village-made, scrap or a peasant’s own), poor, common, fine or masterwork (a famous maker’s, a great lord’s own). Crude pieces look dull, grimy and patched, masterwork ones bright and gilt. Gear does not wear out. A man is drawn in his outermost layer on each part.

Each piece has its own page. Armour: Coif, helmet, aventail, gorget, padded coat, mail shirt, breastplate, surcoat, arm harness, gloves, mail leggings, leg harness, shoes. Weapons: arming sword, falchion, longsword, rondel dagger, hand axe, great axe, flanged mace, war hammer, spear, lance, halberd, bill, pike, longbow, horse bow, crossbow, javelins. For them: arrow quiver, bolt case, javelin holder. The rest: shield, banner, barding, pack, saddlebags.

Armour

Each layer stops its share of what gets past the layers over it, on the parts it covers. So padding under mail guards more than mail alone. Against a common piece, a crude one stops half as much, a poor one two thirds, a fine one four thirds and a masterwork one and a half times. No part is ever more than 85% covered.

Overheads land on the head, thrusts on the body and side swings on the arms. Men on foot reach only a rider’s legs.

Weapons

Each weapon has its job against armour, a weight, and one or two hands. Against a common arming sword:

Weapon	Hits	Reach	Slower by	Hands	Against armour
Arming sword	1	the measure	the measure	One	Cuts and thrusts; mail and plate stop it fully
Falchion	1.15	0.1 m less	0.05 s	One	Cleaves: padding stops half as much; a weak thrust
Flanged mace	1.1	0.2 m less	0.1 s	One	Crushes: mail and plate stop 40% as much; never cuts
War hammer	1.05	0.15 m less	0.1 s	One	Crushes; its overhead spike punches plate
Hand axe	1.2	0.15 m less	0.1 s	One	Cleaves
Rondel dagger	0.55	0.9 m less	0.2 s quicker	One	Weak cuts; hard into the gaps of a man down
Spear	1	0.05 m more	none	One	Thrusts, weak side blows; braces against horses
Lance	0.9	1.4 m more	0.35 s	One	Couched in the saddle over 10 m/s, it strikes with the horse’s speed behind it
Longsword	1.3	0.35 m more	0.1 s	Two	Cuts and thrusts
Great axe	1.7	0.3 m more	0.3 s	Two	Cleaves
Halberd	1.6	0.9 m more	0.3 s	Two	Cuts; hooks riders; braces
Bill	1.4	0.8 m more	0.25 s	Two	Cuts; hooks riders; braces
Pike	1.1	2.6 m more	0.35 s	Two	Only its point; braces 2.55 m further out than a spear
Fists, or a banner	0.25

Shot or thrown, carried on the back, each from its own case at the hip (a quiver of 24 arrows, a bolt case of 18, a holder of 4 javelins, more or fewer by its tier):

Weapon	Hits	Range	Between shots	From the saddle
Longbow	1	40 m	1.8 s	No
Crossbow	1.5, its bolt punching mail	44 m	4.5 s, truer	No
Horse bow	0.75	28 m	1.4 s	Yes
Javelins, four a man	1.8	16 m	2.7 s, truer	Yes

A crude weapon hits 0.6 times as hard as a common one, a poor one 0.75, a fine one 1.25 and a masterwork 1.4.

A two-handed weapon leaves no hand for a shield: it stays slung on the back and guards nothing. A weapon heavier than an arming sword costs more breath a swing, and one over 2.5 kg that misses leaves its man off balance a while. A weapon reaching 0.3 m or more past a sword snags when swung sideways into a tree, a wall or a man of its own side close by; overheads and thrusts never snag, so in a narrow lane a polearm thrusts. A halberd’s or bill’s unblocked blow from a man on foot on a rider drags him from the saddle half the time.

Sidearm

A one-handed weapon (not a lance) can hang at the belt or saddle in the sidearm slot. On the character screen (I) you hang one there, and Q swaps it with the weapon in your hand. Soldiers swap when it suits them: a lance put by once unhorsed, a pole for something shorter with a foe close, and a mace or hammer for a blade against a man in mail or plate. Knights carry two weapons of their choosing.

Named blades

Each king bears a named masterwork blade, a longsword, falchion or arming sword with a name such as Stormfang, fought with at tournaments and named on the Realm screen.

Shields

Block with a shield and a blow from the side you raise it to is stopped whole. A blow from either side next to it is partly caught:

Shield	Catches
Crude	30%
Poor	40%
Common	55%
Fine	70%
Masterwork	80%

A blow from the side across gets through. A shield covers 120° either side of where you face, against a weapon’s 100°, and a raised shield turns arrows coming from inside that cover.

Barding

Barding is the horse’s armour. It stops part of a blow that comes up at the rider from below, from a man on foot, an arrow or a braced spear:

Barding	Stops
Crude	8%
Padded caparison (poor)	15%
Mail (common)	30%
Plate (fine)	45%
Masterwork	55%

The horse carries its 20 kg and goes 5% slower.

Carrying

Each man carries up to 25 kg, his own gear included. What his kit leaves of that adds to the train’s room. Gear over 25 kg slows a man on foot, 4% a kg, down to half pace.

Piece	Carries
Pack	25 kg on his back; slows him on the field, so set packs down before a fight (K)
Saddlebags	25 kg on his horse; no slower, and they stay on in a fight

A banner is carried in the hands in place of a weapon. Its bearer fights with his fists.

Role follows gear

Nobody is hired as a role: a man’s role is only what his kit and his seat make him. A longbow, horse bow, crossbow or javelins make him ranged, and a horse makes him cavalry; a man with both is ranged cavalry, and one with neither is infantry.

Role	Starts with	Weighs
Infantry (spearman)	Poor helmet, common padded coat, poor shoes, common spear and shield	15.5 kg
Ranged (archer)	Common padded coat, poor shoes, poor sword, common longbow and quiver	10.5 kg
Cavalry (horseman)	Common helmet, padded coat, mail, leg mail and shoes, fine sword, common shield, poor barding	28 kg, 20 on the horse
Ranged cavalry (mounted archer)	Poor helmet, common padded coat and shoes, poor sword, common horse bow and quiver	12.2 kg
You	Poor padded coat, shoes, sword and shield	11.5 kg

Prices

Money is counted in gold, silver and copper: 10 copper make a silver penny and 100 silver a gold piece (see Economy). Below are common pieces at a trader’s usual stock, in silver. A crude piece costs 0.15 of that, a poor one half, a fine one three times and a masterwork ten times. Prices rise as a trader’s stock runs low and fall as it piles up.

Trader	Pieces
Armourer	Helmet 160, aventail 80, gorget 80, mail 1,200, plate 600, arm harness 400, mail legs 300, plate legs 400, shield 16, barding 1,200, pack 24, saddlebags 24, flanged mace 24, war hammer 30
Tailor	Coif 8, padded coat 60, surcoat 24, gloves 6, shoes 6
Weaponsmith	Arming sword 40, falchion 30, longsword 80, rondel dagger 10, hand axe 12, great axe 24, spear 12, lance 20, halberd 30, bill 15, pike 12, longbow 18, horse bow 36, crossbow 60, javelins 6
Stables	Mule 100, wagon 410, spare horse 180
Tentmaker	Tent 36 (sleeps six; crude 5.4 to masterwork 360), bedroll 6, firewood 6 the 100 kg

Mail costs more than a breastplate, as it did: a mail coat is tens of thousands of riveted rings. A common sword costs a spearman twenty days’ wages and a common mail coat six hundred, so most men fight in padded coats and helmets, and good armour comes from loot, ransoms and lords’ chests. Traders keep fewer of the dearest and slowest-made pieces (plate, longswords, crossbows, horse bows) and more of the tailor’s cheap cloth and leather.

Dressing your men

The Party screen’s train tab has Outfit, which puts gear from your train on your men, worst-off first, and puts what they wore back in the train. Best for all hands out the finest pieces first. It costs nothing. I opens the character screen, where you dress yourself from the train. Neither works while your army fights or flees, or while its train is taken.