Rules question re: Advance action and Critidal on group action

Forged in the Dark Band of Blades
1

Hi all!

So our group is still confused over the mechanics of advancing to next location.

You roll dice equal to your pressure. At the end of our last game at Westlake our Pressure was 2 so we’d be rolling 2 dice. Then there was a chance of the Legion having no boats, so it would have been 4 dice (because of the special rules at Westlake).

So you roll 4 dice, for example, but you take the LOWEST roll, and that gives ticks on the time clock, right?

If your pressure is zero, you roll 2 dice and take the lowest result, which is the only indication to me that lower is what you want on this roll.

I just can’t find where it says in the rules you use the lowest dice result on this roll because everywhere else you use the highest.

Then group actions and critical success. Our Scout was leading a Rookie in a scout roll. My understanding was you take the highest single dice result (that’s what we did in Blades in the Dark) but some abilities give you the option to use multiple sixes and get a critical. That’s fine.

This time, the Scout rolled a critical on his check. The rules say you “count the single best result” and not the highest dice roll. Does the Scout’s critical success count as the highest result, or should we only have used his 6?

And lastly…

I remember text from the Beta rules saying the Legion used to be over 1000 strong, now it’s down to 55. I can’t find these specifics in the full rules. Is this still the case?

Thanks!

2

Hi Whiskeyjack

  • Advance and pressure roll.
    You don’t take the lowest roll. You take the highest roll as usual. But here, the difference is lowest is better… If you roll 4 dice, get 1, 3, 3, 5: you take 5 as a result, that’s 2 ticks on the Time clock. See page 254.
    Indeed, having 0 pressure when you advance is excellent. So you take the lowest dice from 2 as for any roll when you have 0 dice to roll. Say you roll 3, 5. You take 3 as a result: that’s only one tick on the Time clock.

  • Group action. Here “single best result” means only one result, the best one. “Critical” is a result, if the Scout rolled a Critical, use it.

  • The Legion was 1000 Legionnaires strong before the Battle of Ettenmark. This terrible defeat has reduced it to 35 legionnaires (not 55; 30 Rookies and 5 Specialists) plus support personnel and commanders. Check page 125, the “Marshall” section.