TROOPS

Light Infantry includes foot soldiers with little armor protection, often armed with missile weapons and/or swords.

Medium Infantry is made up of foot soldiers that are moderately well armored, usually wielding spears and shields or carrying pikes or other pole arms.

Militia or Levy troops are armed and armored much the same as medium infantry, but are different in game terms because they are not professional soldiers and thus are not capable of assuming a regular formation.

Heavy Infantry is composed of foot soldiers wearing chain mail or plate armor and generally utilizing large swords, halberds, or other powerful weapons in combat.

In the BATTLESYSTEM game scale, each infantry figure represents 10 soldiers of that type. Generally, you will need infantry mounted on various-sized bases, or stands, containing one, two, or three figures. (Putting more than one figure on a stand makes it easier to move large units across the battlefield, but you will still need some single figures in the unit to make it possible to remove casualties one figure at a time.) You can mount larger numbers of figures per stand if you favor large units in battle (and if you have lots of miniatures). Guidelines for base sizes are given on page 11.

Cavalry troops represent, in general, soldiers that ride into battle on the backs of mounts. Those mounts might, incidentally, also be combatants. Lancers on horseback, orcs riding giant boars, and goblins atop wolves are all examples of cavalry troops.

Light Cavalry moves quickly, because mounts and riders wear little or no armor. The soldiers are armed most commonly with bows, javelins or light lances, and swords.

Medium Cavalry riders typically wear chain mail, but the mounts might not be as well protected. Medium cavalry can operate in regular formation, using lances and swords in combat.

Heavy Cavalry is primarily composed of knights armored in plate mail and riding steeds protected by heavy barding (armor for mounts). Though such a group is slower than other types of cavalry, very few units can stand against the crushing charge of these knights and their lances.

As with infantry, each cavalry figure represents 10 soldiers of that type. For most units, cavalry figures should be mounted on individual bases, or two per base. However, if you have (and want to use) large numbers of cavalry figures in your battles, stands of three or more figures are quite workable.

Special is a catch-all troop classification for anything that can't qualify as infantry or cavalry, including vehicles (chariots or wagons), siege machinery (catapults, ballistae, etc.), unusually large or fantastic creatures (elephants, giants, dragons), and unique individuals (army leaders or heroic characters). Special troop types are mounted on bases that conform to the overall shape of the figure (which will most often be square or rectangular, half as wide as it is long). Information on the use of special troops is introduced in the intermediate and advanced rules, and in the scenarios and appendices.