Kas'trum Campaign details, details, details.

So having a broad goal in mind, let's put some structure around it. Drawing inspiration from the Too Fat Lardies At the Sharp End campaign supplement for Chain of Command, as well as earlier ideas of how Kas'trum fits in to the broader fluff of Space 1889, I came up with a rough ladder campaign as shown below. Each number refers to the "rung" hex two rows down. Each hex is notionally 20 miles across representing one day's march under normal conditions though this scale will be stretched or compressed as required. Movement for earth forces along the canal will not be too difficult as there is easy access to water. Moving deeper into the desert will create severe transportation problems as the amount of water needed by pack and draft animals rapidly outstrips their ability to carry it.  Martian forces will be much less constrained.

The "Ladder"

At the left on the main  north-south canal we start with Roogie's Landing, a minor backwater of a hamlet surviving quietly under Human occupation. Unfortunately, the earthers have discovered that the inhabitants have been carrying on a bustling trade in black market goods of Crocean origin. What was not immediately clear is how the goods were being smuggled in, that is until it was revealed that Roogie's Landing was not just a simple village in the wetlands but that it was the endpoint of a heretofore unknown canal going to who knows where.

To the east of the landing is campaign location 1, a stretch of Martian desert with not major features. Location 2 features some ruins, or perhaps not depending on how much terrain I want to make. Three will have some sort of temple or monolith. Four is more desert leading to five, an as yet unnamed small village providing respite for smugglers as well as farming for trade. Six, seven and eight are all variations of endless sand and stone. Nine is a border village between swamp an sand. Ten is swamp, allowing for possible naval action bringing us at last to Kas'trum proper.

I sat down with an rand() function and the Soldier's Companion book and came up with the table below:

Proposed specs for Kas’trum - randomly generated

Population	10 = 100,000 inhabitants
Government	Weak Prince   Strong Merchants
Corruption	Honest
Economy	Mixed
Economic Vitality	Wealthy
Army Quality	Good
Mercenary Quality	One level better so Excellent
Army Size	9
Fleet Quality	Trained
Fleet Size	10
Fleet Value	400K
Attitude	Very Friendly

Not bad and about what I wanted but Kas'trum should be a minor power and not a major city state.

So let's tweak it a little. In actual lead, I have six bands of Kas'trum foot with another of mounted, possibly borrowed from Crocea. In addition, I have a company each of Hill Martian foot and mounted, a smattering of artillery and of course Antevaax' flying hordes. By the book, each population number provides two bands infantry, one of mounted and two guns. Wealthy cities  have one additional band each of mercenary cavalry and infantry and an additional two guns per number.

I'm ok with recycling units to a degree but that's usually reserved for the barbarian hordes so let's drop the numbers a little. I also don't think Oh'ktava'an, I mean the merchant's guild or should that be the Prince would really be "very friendly" to the locals let alone off world invaders, so let's tone that down too.

Revised specs for Kas’trum - Final

Population	4 = 40,000 inhabitants
Government	Weak Prince Strong Merchants
Corruption	Honest
Economy	Mixed
Economic Vitality	Wealthy
Army Quality	Good
Mercenary Quality	One level better so Excellent
Army Size	3
Fleet Quality	Trained
Fleet Size	3
Fleet Value	140K
Attitude	Indifferent

So there we have it. Now I just need to re-stat my existing units and we are good to go.

City Troops:

Oh'ktava'n's Experimental Company - The Stalwarts: Regular E0
Kas'trum Fencibles: Irregular X0

First Kas'trum Marines: Regular V1S

Loyal Kas'trum Company: Irregular T2
Kas'trum Civic Guard: Irregular X2

Red Caps and Blue Bonnets: Irregular V1s

Foreign troops and Mercenaries:

Num'da's Raiders: Irregular V2

Kas'trum Scouts: Irregular V2

Second Oenotrian Lancers - The Canal Terrors: TBD

British stats will be pulled from one of the stock units.

Lots more to come.

Kas'trum Campaign

Kas'trum

One aspect of history and war gaming that has always interested me has been the underdogs, the ordinary, the forgettable and the forgotten. It's easy to get excited about the heroic, the dashing, the elite troops with all the kit as well as the skills and attitude to go with it. But I was never into the easy.

Space 1889, and its mass battle rules The Soldier's Companion, is  human and European focused. There is nothing wrong with this but to me at least, it is unsatisfying. Martian culture is supposed to be very old - older than that of Humanity in fact, yet it is presented as a culture in decay. The Martians, even when allies of Earth, are plot points or antagonists with the odd NPC thrown in for interest. Where are the stories from the Martian perspective? Why must they be two dimensional?  From the classical colonial perspective this makes some sort of sense, The Canal Martians stand in for the Raj with the Hill and High Martians taking on the roles of Steppe Tribes / Plains Indians and slightly exotic barbarians respectively.

Over hundreds of years of inter city conflict we are expected to believe that the Martians lack any technical finesse, any sense of strategy. At the very least, flying ships are something they know intimately while the Earth empires are just trying to figure them out.

It is also somewhat unsatisfying to see that in the fluff the British campaigns are held up not because of any skill on the part of the Martians but due to human incompetence. The Zulus and afghans got more respect than this.

I need to change this narrative so I give you the Kas'trum Campaign. this will be a series of battles fought using a ladder structure rather conveniently based on a British expeditionary force moving up the canal. The British force will be somewhat automated. It will receive support as its fortunes ebb and flow. The Kas'trum forces will be more fixed, with compromise required to get assistance from the hill tribes or High Martians as well as the larger city states in the area.  The aim of the game for Kas'trum will be to maintain its independence while driving back the invading Earth forces. This could be through a negotiated peace with the Earthers or causing them enough casualties to make them withdraw.

More to follow in the coming days.

Martian Muster

This past weekend, I set up my games table in the garage and got all my Space 1889 bits out to photograph and inventory. A fair bit of this has appeared before in different configurations but everything is now mustered into more or less fixed units, and colour coordinated too! Taking the inventory also allowed me to figure out what pieces needed to be repaired and based up and where I needed to add some rank indicators to bring the units in line with the morale rules.

Oh'ktava'n's Experimental Company - The Stalwarts

All armoured with shield gunners in the first half company, cutters in the rear. Regular V0 or E0

Kas'trum Fencibles

An armoured front half company with a mix of cutters and shield guns backed by an unarmoured half company of cutters. Regular T0 or V0.

First Kas'trum Marines

A regular pure shooter company, under strength but equipped with rifled muskets. Regular V1S 

Loyal Kas'trum Company

A very conventional city state unit with shooters and cutters. Irregular T2

Kas'trum Civic Guard

An irregular unit with mixed shooters and cutters in the front and pure cutters in the rear. Irregular T2 or G2 seem most likely. Though they might get a boost for their fancy black uniforms. 

Pier Worm Roaster's Guild Social Club and Civil Defence Force "The Red Caps". (Left)
The Gentleman's League of Redweed Harvesters and Patriotic Rifle Corp "The Blue Bonnets" (Right)
His August Eminence and Grand Master of Secret Societies (Centre)

The Red Caps have been described elsewhere.   The Blue Bonnets are new comers who claim their constant battles against the armoured mud-crab make them far better shots than mere slug poachers. The Grand Master has his fingers in most occult goings on including the Ground Cleansers and possibly even the Cult of the Worm.   X3S or V3S. Rifled muskets.

Second Oenotrian Lancers - The Canal Terrors

After the dragoons were rotated out, a stronger contingent of lancers was sent in as replacements. Armoured and (obviously) equipped with lances, the Terrors are regular V0H so lots of close combat bonuses.

Num'da's Raiders

Boosted by brothers sisters and cousins in search of booty, the slightly under strength Raiders are Irregular T2.

Kas'trum Scouts

Again seeing an influx of mercenaries from the hills, the scouts have a half company of shooters and another of bow. Irregular T2.

The Horde of Antevaxx

The Ochre Horde of Antevaxx Rules for their use have been laid out in an earlier post. Irregular V1 or E1 for King's Guards

Mixed artillery

As mentioned in a previous post, the canal Martian gunners are used to mark when field pieces are on the Martian side manned by Askari crews. New additions are two howitzers, four RAFM Greek fire projectors re-purposed as light guns and two ancient ballistae - stats for which I have not yet settled on.

Moeris Lacus Dragoons

A new unit of light cavalry with musket and sword, the Dragoons are Regular X2. Alternatively they can act as Light Horse or mounted infantry.

Moeris Lacus Trucial Company "The Prince's Own"

Recruitment efforts have boosted the Prince's Own to a full company. As before they can also play on the Martian side as Askari deserters. Or they can act as Dragoon dismounts. Regular X2

Gerneral Sir Not Appearing in this Film

Ok he was still in the box when I had the rest of the Earth forces out to photograph.

Royal Marine Light Infantry

Still in need of an officer. These can, in a pinch, sub in as some sort of foreign European force. Regular V1.

3rd Civil Service Rifles - "The Paper Clip Boys"

A slightly over strength company of riflemen from the Dominion of Canada. Regular X2S.

The Queen's Own Something or Others

Good old regular line infantry. The blue facings suggest Guards but these can be used for any British unit as required. Regular V1

Gatling gun and Pack Options

Just a Gatling gun and a couple of types of pack animals to lug it around. Charging at the elephants gets a +1 down hill bonus - these are big castings.

Tri-wheel Draisine

An armoured rail vehicle to patrol my monorail.

Ewing System rolling stock

A quickly put together locomotive and rolling stock for my monorail. On the flatcar is  another tri-wheel that remarkably survived a fall to the garage floor. It is going into the shop for a re-glue and re-paint.

The To Do pile

From left to right, repair, rank and re-base.

All The Toys

All the toys on the table. It is 4' by 7'. I think I have enough for now....

Adventures in (table) Space - Developing the Space 1889 solo campaign

So a while back, I posted how I was going to wedge Kas'trum into the existing Space 1889 map of Mars. With work quieting down, I have had some more time to develop my thoughts.

Now according to the Soldier's Companion, a unit on foot in good terrain can make one hex or about 10 miles per day. According to canon, from Crocea to the swamps of Gorklimsk is about 200 miles which is far enough to make things interesting for the Imperial side.  However this raised the question of where exactly any given encounter will take place in that hex.

To address this, the first question is how much area does my 4x6ish table represent ? After poking around with some complicated math, I re-read SoC which said that 1 foot on table is one Sky Galleons of Mars hex and Sky Galleons is compatible with Ironclads and Ether Flyers, and I&E says that 1 hex = 1 cable or just over 200 yards. so a 4x6 table is 800x1200 yards or .45 x .68 miles so breaking down the 10 mile campaign hex into 1 mile sub-hexes means I can fit 2 tables per mile with lots of wiggle space.  So now I have an idea of what level of detail I need to provide before setting up each battle.

As a side effect, I got to thinking about scale. I may have missed it but SoC doesn't say much about ground scale. With the information above we can nail it down. 1 foot = 200 yards so the ground scale is 1:600! Our 25 mm figures are comparatively massive. Or are they? The Soldier's companion makes two things clear: the figure scale is 1:10 and infantry should be based on 3/4" washers (or equivalent). How well does this tie in with ground scale? Three quarters of an inch is 37.5 feet on the table. Divide that by 10 to get space per man and we get 3.75 feet, or just about spot on for arms length dressing. In open order that's 7.5 feet per man - again not too bad for open order. These two figures are a reasonable compromise between Napoleonic and modern practice.

However, it breaks down a bit when we start looking at artillery. Your bog standard BL 12 pounder has a range of 6 feet in game which translates into 1200 yards; much less than the actual maximum range of  5,000 yards. That seems to be a large discrepancy but  makes sense in light of direct fire artillery practices of the time and supports the common gamers' desire to get toys on the table.  Besides, who has space for a 25 foot table?  The Lee-Metford range of 32"is fairly close to ground scale (1600 yards vs 1800 yards actual). This means the guns are a little more vulnerable than they should be, but not by much.  Oops made a math error here. 32" on the table translates to 500 yards. This is quite  bit under even the historical 800 yard effective range, but not enough to worry me. As a side effect, it makes the artillery a bit more effective. Interestingly, the rifle musket at 12" is bang on for effective range of a Baker rifle and the 8" range for a smooth bore musket is quite a bit more than the 6" one would expect for a Brown Bess. It looks like the Earthers have been nerfed a little and the Martians buffed.

If a wonky ground scale good is enough for Flames of War it's good enough for Soldier's Companion.

So what does all this mean? Despite initial appearances, the ground scale has been well thought out and is accurate but artillery ranges have necessarily been truncated. Some method must be created to figure out where in a 10 mile campaign hex a given encounter occurs but raises the possibility of flanking movements or actions within a hex and large multi-table battles.

I assure you that I find all this math very interesting and not the least bit boring as I expect some of my readers might.

Reinforcements for the forces of Kas'trum

Thanks to the current Federal Election in Canada (If you are Canadian, please go vote) and the resulting overtime, I have been able to make a sizable upgrade to the forces of Kas'trum.

The 2/3 Dragoons will get an upgrade to a full squadron of lance and musket armed gashant heavy cavalry. Num'da's Raiders will also be increased to a full squadron of gasahant light cavalry. The Kas'trum scouts will get a bow armed platoon bringing them to company strength (and allowing them to double as  Boer style mounted infantry / dragoon dismounts in conjunction with the Raiders). The Pier Worm Roaster's Guild has also been on a recruiting drive bringing them up to company strength  -or- perhaps a rival merchant group has also taken up the worm hunting challenge? 

On the artillery side, two pairs of Greek fire projectors will serve as sweepers and a brace of 1841 pattern light howitzers has been acquired along with  the requisite Trucial and Martian crews. These crews will allow artillery on both sides.

Those keeping track will note that the Earthers are seriously outnumbered in all areas, this is by design. To simply get within charge range of magazine rifle armed troops requires an awful lot of open order troops to screen the heavies. The Martian cavalry should encourage the Empire player to pay attention to the flanks (though there is a small unit of Sikh Lancers in the queue).  The artillery will encourage the Earthers to move up and engage rather than be shelled to pieces as well as giving the Empire something to break up any fortified rebel Martian towns. I will also have enough troops for Martian on Martian battles with Earth forces playing only a supporting role - if any role at all. 

With this purchase, my Space 1889 project, at least on the figure side, is as complete as it is likely to be. Any more figures and my table is likely to 1) Look like a FoW armoured battle with wall to wall figures and B) collapse under the weight of lead.

And a picture:

   

New Terrain for Space 1889

Just a quick post. Life has been crazy busy since the Spring and is even more so now Canada is in election mode. I was however able to put together a bit of terrain for Space 1889 and Gruntz:

The spiky things are the seed pods of Fuller's Teasel, a roadside weed that used to be used to fluff up wool blankets. Add some card bases a little sand and some flock (dyed tea leaves) an I have a dozen or so spiky Martian bushes for Oh'ktava'an's troops to hide behind.

Thoughts on Kas'trum and Old School Game Design.

The scenarios in Space 1889, especially those in the core books, have received a lot of criticism for being on rails. Some modern commentators have rightly remarked that players and game masters both are locked into a single story line. For example, if  On Gossamer Wings is played out as written, no matter what the players do to fix Professor Grant's ether flyer, they will always crash - no exceptions and no player input.

So too is much of the rest of the Space 1889 background. When working up possible organizations of my Martian lead pile, I found that the options I wanted to use did not fit into any of the published city states and especially not Oenotria. Instead, I put them in the previously unknown city state of Kas'trum. I wanted to put Kas'trum off to one side of the main British advance preferably in the swamps between Crocea and Gorklimsk. According to known maps, the only way the British can get to those swamps by water is through Crocea with canal routes further north blocked by mountains. Crocea itself is still powerful enough to block any raiding red men coming down the canal and the British are close enough to its walls to make shoe-horning in a decent sized city state difficult.  So what was I going to do? After much hemming and hawing, all I had to do was remember how we used to do things. I'll let Frank Chadwick speak from the designer's notes for the Soldier's Companion rules:

Let me close with a piece of general advice to players and referees alike. Miniatures gaming is a form of entertainment, and these rules are intended to provide you with the means of putting on an entertaining game. It is foolish, then, to let the printed rules stand in the way of your enjoyment. The bulk of this book should serve as testimony to the effort put into making it as complete as it can be, but a set of rules is sterile without an active set of players. If you disagree with anything in these rules, please feel free to modify it to suit your own tastes. Just don't argue about it while the game is being played. During the game, the referee's word is absolute law, above even the printed words of the rules.

So with a plan refreshed by this wisdom Crocea is going to get moved further south, new canals dropped into place and Kas'trum will be put exactly where it needs to be so nothing stands in the way of my enjoyment.  Besides, the Earther maps were likely wrong to begin with.

To no particular scale - but around 3.14159 miles to the hex.

This is entertainment. If you are not re-fighting particular historical battles or you are not playing in a tournament where consistent rules are a necessity, throw out the canon and rewrite the rules until you get the enjoyment out of the hobby that works for you. It's what we did in the old days so there is historical precedent.      

The Forces of Kas'trum for Space 1889 (and Happy Holidays)

In the swamps between the cities of Crocea and Gorklimsk lies the independent town of Kas'trum. Though out of the thick of the current war against the Earthers, Kas'trum provides an important gateway to the High Martian liftwood groves to the north. The exact details of this town are not yet known, but below is a brief report on the military forces thought to be under her control.

I sat down the other day to look over the new acquisitions as well as my existing troops and come up with some reasonable units. Unfortunately, RAFM packs provide figures in multiples of three while the official Soldier's Companion organizations are in multiples of eight. Eight and three don't factor well so it took a bit of thinking to make it all work. Ratings are all conjectural at this point but more or less follow the book.

Canal Marines

Marines simply because I like the blue scheme I used for the originals. A little light with only 15 in the unit rather than the usual 19, these will be pure shooters with rifle muskets or possibly breech loaders. I am thinking Regular V1S or E1S.

The Stalwarts

My conception of  Oh'ktava'an's experimental shield gunner company. One half company each of gunners and cutters, all troops get the +1 defensive bonus for being armoured. This is a defensive rather than offensive unit. Regular V0 or maybe even E0.

Kas'trum Civic Guard

Basic city infantry with the usual smooth bore shooter/cutter split. Irregular T2 or X2

Kas'trum Fencibles

A mix of armoured (+1 defensive bonus) troops  armed with shield guns and choppers in the front half company and a twelve man over strength cutter company in the rear. Another defensive unit Irregular T0 or X0. I might try splitting morale with the front half company getting V0 and the rear T0  or even G0

Kas'trum Volunteers

A mishmash of civic minded militia. Mixed shooters and cutters in the front half company with all cutters in the rear. These boys are enthusiastic but Irregular G1 or at best T1 armed with a few smooth bore muskets.

Pier Worm Roaster's Guild Social Club and Civil Defence Force "The Red Caps". 

Well known for their marksmanship but better known for their drinking, the Red Caps began as an informal gambling league when the Roaster's Guild started taking bets on who could pick off the most marsh slugs - rapacious predators of the pier worm. Marsh slugs have excellent vision making them a tough prey to tackle. The Red Caps bright head gear and garish clothing show in part their contempt for the eagle eyed slug.  Irregular X3S or V3S. Rifled muskets.

Second Troop, Third squadron Crocean Heavy Dragoons

A Gashant unit on loan from the city of Crocea, the 2/3 Dragoons give Kas'trum some mounted support. Regular V0H

Num'da's Raiders

A Hill Martian light cavalry unit hired by Kas'trum to provide long range scouting. Irregular T2

Kas'trum Scouts

Another half band of Hill Martian mercenaries, the Scouts provide reconnaissance and skirmish capability to the city forces. Irregular T2

  

Moeris Lacus Trucial Company "The Prince's Own" 

 A dual purpose unit. As loyal sepoys, The platoons can be split up and assigned to red forces to provide a much needed native scouting capability.  As mutineers, they can be used to give Martian forces a much needed boost to their fire power and morale. Regular X2 (I love these sculpts)

The Rest

Left over figures who will serve as overall field commanders, rebel leaders and other roles as required.

This will give me five possibly six companies with some supporting troops as well - note that the two Martian Whitworth guns are not depicted here. Hopefully, they will be able to take on a British platoon, maybe even two.

In any event they give me much to paint over the holiday period.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you all! May your pier worms always be well smoked!

More Reinforcements for Mars

A bit of overtime came through from work so it was off to the RAFM site to order up some much needed reinforcements for the forces of mars.  This time around, it was two more legions of Mars and enough Colonial Martian Infantry to bring the existing platoon up to full company strength.

This will give me just under 6 warbands of martian infantry, a troop of heavy canal martian lancers, a troop of hill martian light cavalry, a full warband of high martians in both flying and on foot configuration (or 2 if I don't worry too much about mixing), two Whitworth rifles with Colonial or Martian crew . The colonial company mentioned above can fight either for the Great Red Queen across the ether or switch sides in true Sepoy style and help to throw their oppressive masters off the beloved red planet.  In addition I have a troop or so of Boer War era mounted rifles I plan on doing up as German mercenaries in the service of a Martian prince or as British colonial irregulars.

With all that in place, I might just be able to take on a British rifle company and survive.... maybe if the dice gods are kind just maybe....

Oh'ktava'an will likely be back over the Christmas holidays. While attending to his - uh - ablutions the other day he realized that while shield gunners can press forward against bows and spears, against rifles, they are far better as defensive troops receiving a charge with their scatter guns at close range. He has also received information from Earther sources suggesting that the British ability to use cover is not as good as many Maritian units. Many red units are unable to spot concealed troops until they are well within charge range. 

More to follow and a lot more to paint

A Matter of Tactics - Soldier's Companion

Oh'ktava'an reached into the bowel of roasted pier worms and plucked out a particularly plump one. He slid a thumbnail under the carapace and flipped off the shell revealing the smokey golden contents. He chewed contemplatively, savoured the chewy morsel and tossed the empty shell onto an ever growing pile on one corner of the planning table.  Pier worms were an affectation, no a habit, picked up from his days as a young band commander posted to a remote village beyond the end of the canal as the expression went.
Out there, they were the only reliable food source that wasn't marsh root. In the city, they were the food of the poor and the canal rats, too plain, too simple and too basic for city tastes.

That was the problem laid out on the planning table. Since the Red Devils had arrived the forces of Mars had forgotten the basics. What worked for beating down a rebellious hill tribe wasn't going to water the crops here. These off-worlders knew what they're doing and with arms better than any seen on Mars since before Seldon. Far too often, brash warband leaders had charged the Red Men head on, trusting force of will to overcome force of arms. Far too often they had failed - cut down by measured rifle fire. That many of these officers were militant members of the Ground Cleansers was something of a bonus - there is no room for fanaticism on the battle field.

He picked up a sheaf of papyrus covered with rows of figures. They covered every battle and skirmish since the arrival of the Red Men that his agents could find data for. The solution to the off worlder menace was somewhere in those numbers. He had sent a house servant down to the human quarter to purchase an assortment of toy warriors - in metal no less. To live in a world where good metal was wasted on children's toys...

No matter. Beginning with what was known, he laid out the first problem: A head on charge into the Red Men's line.

Unlike the massed unit tactics used in the old wars between the city states, the Red Men usually formed their men into a line two deep facing the enemy

This was vulnerable to being broken through in melee, but allowed all of the rifles to fire.

The Red Men's guns had so far proven to be most effective starting at about 320 paces* This was just beyond the distance a regular cutter column could be expected to charge  in one battle phase. So a measured move of  just under 160 paces would be required to stay out of the most effective range. (regular foot move is 18", close range for rifles is 16")  He shuffled through the sheets of reed paper.  There it was: with the normal unit of 20 Red Devils firing against a column, there was a 1 in 6 chance of each red man hitting something but also a chance each hit would be harmless. (base hit 6, long range +2, target in column -1  for a final to hit of 7 which is 6  with saves on a 1 or less = 20 x .167 (1 in 6) = 3.34 less save of 3.34x.167 (1 in 6) = .5 therefore 3 hits ) So that would be... about 3 warriors taken out of the battle.  Having taken casualties, trained troops can be expected to falter in the attack.... (morale 8 - 3 hits = morale 5 2d6 for 5 or less =27.8% ~30% )  a little more than 2/3s of the time and stand idle and possibly receive round after round of fire until they break and run. (Check on a 6, or 7 - 29% combined, Shaken on an 8+, 41%)

 Not good. But running away might be their best option anyway. If the Red Men gain the upper hand, that is another round of fire for another 2 warriors down and another chance to for them to break and run. Even if the warriors keep the initiative and charge in...  that's 20 rifles with those infernal magazines at point blank range... (base hit 6, target in column -1 and charging -1 for a final hit of 4 or .667. 2 dice per rifle at short range so 40 x .667= 27 hits ) and the warriors are completely wiped out. An inglorious and pointless death whatever the Worm Priests might say.

Now where are those reports - ah here. For open order after the first move we have can expect: (base hit 6, +2 for long range +1 for open order is a to hit of 6 with saves on 3 in 6. This give around two unsaved hits. Morale 8 -2 hits for final morale 6 ~41.6% . As above check on a 7 or 8 ~30% and shaken on 9+ ~28%  ) two warriors injured and a failed attack 3 of five times.  And these numbers are for Canal regulars, the mercenaries would be less steady in the fight. As expected, frontal assault was not the way forward.

The temple bells sounded across the city marking the midday meal and prayer. The pungent smell of smoked river eel drifted up from the kitchen below. Oh'ktava'an neatly stacked the reed sheets.  There has to be a better way, but first lunch.



*Yes, I am throwing a 0 on the end of the range in inches and calling it paces and changing turn to battle phase just to make the story work. ;)