Quartermaster's supplies and missions

Hi!

I’m about to start a Band of Blades campaign and I have a few questions you, starting with Quartermaster’s supplies.

The Quartermaster has the ability to spend supplies to boost a mission’s engagement roll and equip legionnaires assigned to the mission. The rulebook and resources, however, are slightly unclear as to who gets equipped.

The Quartermaster’s playbook states that after the Quartermaster spends a use of Black Shot, Religious Supplies, or Food, Specialists on the mission equip Black Shot, Reliquary, or Supplies for free – respectively. The rulebook says as much on p. 140. That would mean that any Soldier or Rookie assigned to the mission does not equip those items for free.

Compare with p. 131 of the rulebook: it states that the “Quartermaster may expend one use of Black Shot to equip all troops on the mission with a unit of Black Shot” (emphasis added). This would mean that Soldiers and Rookies on the mission would also equip Black Shot for free. P. 131 remains consistent with p. 140 and the playbook relative to Religious Supplies and Food.

The rulebook remains inconsistent on that point in the example mission (pp. 230ff). On p. 233, the Quartermaster spends both a use of Black Shot and Religious Supplies, and says that “everyone” should mark uses of Black Shot and Reliquaries on their playbooks. Everyone, in this case, refers to two specialists, a soldier, and a rookie.

So what do you think? On one hand, I feel a use of Black Shot or Food should be enough to outfit all Legionnaires. If one use of Food can feed thirty Legionnaires over a week or two, it should be enough to feed 6-8 of them over a few days. I didn’t get that Black Shot was so rare that a single use of it by the Quartermaster means 3 to 9 bullets. However, I wonder whether equipping all Legionnaires on a mission with Black Shot might unbalance the game somewhat. I could conceive that Reliquaries would be rare enough that the Quartermaster can only spare a few on each mission, but maybe it would make things too difficult for the PCs?

What do you guys think? How do you run things at your table?

Yeah, this is confusing and contradictory. I wonder if the book is referring to “Specialists” in some instances when it really means any troop or legionnaire.

However, we’ve just be following the Quartermaster sheet. It says to only equip Specialists when you spend black shot, food, or religious supplies.

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Hi Lor

The author (Stras) has answered to this question, for Black Shot, here:
https://community.bladesinthedark.com/t/bob-more-rules-questions-again/790

He said that everyone is equipped.

And as you saw, it is the case in the examples for reliquaries too. Moreover it would make no sense for only the Specialists, but not the squad members, to be mounted on Horses and to have the necessary food supplies in mission.

So I use the “everyone” answer for all.

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Thank you!

Another easy change for the sheets!

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