Additional Rules

The most important thing about playing Battle Companies is that it should be a fun, story-driven style of play where all players involved can forge a narrative for the members of their respective Battle Companies as they continue on their journey. Battle Companies is designed so that players can use their imagination to tell a story, and this may, and often does, result in a few changes to the core rules of Battle Companies — and this makes for some really fun, unique and personal campaigns, which at its heart is what Battle Companies is all about!

Often, all players in a campaign will implement a selection of additional rules for use in their games, and this is perfectly fine — in fact it is often encouraged! After all, Battle Companies is about playing a series of narrative and thematic Scenarios that further a particular storyline, and so adding in a series of extra rules that helps to accomplish this can only be a good thing.

So, over the next few pages, we will present you with a selection of additional rules that you can use in your games. Some are good for using in almost any situation, whilst others provide rules for slightly more unusual situations that the players in a campaign may want to use for a one off Scenario. There is no pressure to use these rules if you don't fancy doing so, and you are more than welcome to make up your own if you wish. We hope you enjoy them as much as we do!

BRIBES

Some campaigns allow bribes to take place between players as another way of using your Influence Points. Players can give Influence Points to other players in order to bribe them not to attack them, to attack another player instead, relinquish a certain area of the map, or anything else you can think of.

Introducing the concept of bribes into a campaign can really turn it into a game of playing against your opponents as well as their companies, and adds that extra level of immersion into your games.

MAKING ALLIES

Forging alliances in a Battle Companies campaign can change the whole course of your games. Suddenly, you are not just fighting for yourself but also on behalf of your allies, perhaps placing your strongest assets against the opposition in an attempt to hold out for as long as possible; or maybe sending the best equipped companies to capture territories from the opposing sides.

You could allow players to forge their own alliances — simply do it as Good against Evil, or perhaps split it into factions of equal numbers.

PLACING A BOUNTY

Every Battle Companies campaign has that one Hero in that one Battle Company that goes around and kills everyone, and no matter what you try to do to kill them off, they always seem to escape or to cheat fate somehow, and go on to cause even more havoc!

One way to add an extra incentive to players for killing the constant thorn in your side is to place a bounty upon them. To do this, you can spend any amount of Influence Points to place a bounty on a Hero — let your campaign organiser know so that they can keep track of the bounty. Any player can add to the bounty at any time by doing the same — the bigger the bounty on a Hero, the more likely that other companies will focus their energy on killing them. If at any point a player successfully kills the targeted Hero (note that this means killing them outright, not just having them removed from the battlefield in a game), then they may collect the bounty from the campaign organiser and add it to their Influence pool.

HOLDING A HERO TO RANSOM

Losing a Hero in Battle Companies is always a troublesome thing; the hole they can leave in your company's roster is often hard to fill. After a particularly difficult game, you may find that one of your Hero models has been lost in battle; captured by the enemy forces following the skirmish that has just ensued. Normally, the rules would call for the player who lost their Hero in battle to play the Secure the Area Scenario as their next game with their lost Hero as the objective — if they win they rescue the Hero, if not the Hero will perish.

However, you can always play an alternative if you wish in that the other company has captured your Hero and is now holding them to ransom, and will relinquish them if their demands are met. The demands could be set as a standard ransom value before the campaign starts, paying between 3-5 Influence Points to your opponent is around a fair price, or you could set your own demands when the situation arises. This could be anything from a set amount of Influence Points, a piece of wargear available to the other company that your company could not normally get, or even a cup of tea or a cake — whatever you feel would best suit the situation and provide the best narrative!

LEADER'S COURAGE

A Battle Company can often end up having multiple Heroes, which means that when the company Breaks during a game they will all have to take their Courage tests individually, as Hero models cannot normally benefit from the Stand Fast! of other Hero models.

One additional rule you can use is allowing the Sergeants of your Battle Company to benefit from the Stand Fast! of your leader, meaning that your leader can keep your force fighting as one. This also helps to speed up the game, as not every model has to take a Courage test each time you are Broken.

WARGEAR LIMITATIONS

In Battle Companies, Heroes are often limited by what wargear they can purchase. Hero models can only normally purchase a piece of wargear if it is directly available to a member of their warband, or one they could get on the Reinforcement chart.

However, this doesn't have to always be the case if you don't want it to be. If everyone in your campaign agrees, you are free to remove the restrictions surrounding what wargear you can purchase for your Heroes, that way you can let your creative side loose and convert your models with whatever wargear you want.

MÛMAKIL!

Often, players who start a Harad or Far Harad Battle Company will ask if they can have a fearsome Mûmakil for their company. Whilst this would usually be a firm no (it would simply be too strong for a Battle Company to take on), you can decide to play a specific Scenario where one company may ride upon a Mûmakil, and a selection of others are trying to bring the beast down.

In this situation, the player with the Mûmak deploys their company within the Howdah with their leader as the Mûmakil's commander. However, they must take on at least four other Battle Companies at the same time. These other companies have put aside their differences for now in order to bring down the terrifying war beast. If the Mûmak is slain, the other companies are all victorious. If the Harad or Far Harad player can kill all of the models from the other companiesn then they are the winner. Remember that they may only have a Mûmak in these situations! It doesn't have to just be Mûmakil that you allow in your own campaigns, perhaps a Gundabad player would like a Gundabad Troll, or a Rivendell player may want an Eagle to join them; so long as your campaign participants agree on conditions to balance and justify it, it can be great fun to do!

PLAYING TWO AGAINST ONE

As a campaign goes on, you will often find that some Battle Companies' Ratings start to soar, whilst others seem to struggle to advance so far no matter how many Influence Points they gain from the Against the Odds bonus.

One way of counteracting this is to allow games where it is two against one, when the Battle Company Rating is roughly equal on both sides. For example, if two players with a Rating of 150 play against one player who has a rating of 300 that would, in theory, be a fair fight. This will provide the two lower Battle Companies a fair chance of knocking the other company down a peg or two, whilst providing them with a decent challenge along the way. If you do decide to do this, you should count the Ratings of both allied Battle Companies as one for the purposes of working out the Against the Odds bonus.

Hopefully, you have found some of these additional rules to be fun and interesting; perhaps they have inspired you to add them to your own campaign, or even to think of some of your own ideas to use to enhance the narrative stories that your games of Battle Companies create. Whatever you use these additional rules for in your games, we hope they add to the experience of your games of Battle Companies.