Initial resources in mission 0?

Forged in the Dark Band of Blades
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Hello:

For the life of me, I can’t find the basic setup for the campaign phase in the book. :frowning:

Each of the Chosen have a debriefing indicating a few things to do after the mission (start with 1 time if you won, or 2 if you lost, etc.) Still, I have a few questions about this:

  • Food. No Chosen says anything about food. Does the QM start with absolutely nothing in the first campaign phase, not even food or supplies? That would trigger morale losses, I’m sure I’m missing something.

  • Time and pressure: after completing the initial mission, the Legion must advance to the western front. Does the commander still have to tick time and pressure as per the Time Passes step, or are we meant to skip the Time passes section for this first move?

  • For that matter, if there’s 0 pressure, we roll two dice and take the lesser one for time advancement, right?

All in all, it’d be an excellent thing if the book had a step by step setup for the first game. The info is there, but it’s scattered around different sections in the manual. A similar thing happens with the Campaign phase, someone created a step by step list of all the actions and consequences that would be great to have in the book (again, the info is there, but it’s written in different chapters).

Most of the players come from D&D / Pathfinder, and they are loving the shared medieval imaginery but really different tone and role playing options. For me, it’s also so different from BitD even when sharing the same basic concepts. It’s really something special.

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Hi Zanchito. Don’t worry. After six months of reading and playing this game I still ask stupid questions.

A few answers here. They can be completed/perfected by others.

  • You create the Legion Roles (Commander, Marshall, QM…) after the completion of the first mission, but before time passes.

  • Each Chosen playbook (or in the rulebook: “Starting mission” section, pages 168, 174, 180) will tell you how to answer to the Roles questions after this starting mission, regarding Time, Pressure, Morale, Supply, Materiel.

  • THEN, go page 135, “Quartermaster” section. Here you see that you are allowed 1 box of Food (3 uses) and five boxes of additional Materiel (including more food if you wish).

You should be good then.

After that, you do a normal Campaign phase, just as you will do after the Following missions. No difference here. Except you have to advance. See page 254.

  • So you tick time, pressure and food as for any “Time passes” phase.
  • You do your Campaign actions.
  • You advance to the Western Front (you have to roll the Pressure)

“For that matter, if there’s 0 pressure, we roll two dice and take the lesser one for time advancement, right?”

You’re right.

2 Likes
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Thanks, A_B, you’re a lifesaver! I’ll have to create a wise NPC to honor you in the game. :smiley: