Formations, Cavalry and Artillery | Mar de Oro Native Rules

Choosing the scale

Personal Scale: individual characters act, and each one's position matters. Use it whenever the players' own bodies are the interesting variable.
Battlefield Scale: formations and units act, and the interesting variable is the line, the ground, and Cohesion.
There is no middle layer. Choose the scale that answers the question in front of the table, and zoom when the question changes.

Formations and Cohesion

A formation acts once per exchange with one aggregate action, whatever its headcount. The Native Rules fix no unit size.
Formation Type describes the troops and their organisation, such as line infantry, skirmishers, cavalry or a battery. It gives fictional permissions rather than a fixed bonus.
Cohesion tracks whether a formation is still functioning as a formation. Losing Cohesion is how units break.
When the players board, storm, or duel, zoom to Personal Scale for that exchange and return afterwards.

Green
Starting Cohesion
0/4
Effect guidance
Reduce Effect in demanding conditions.
Regular
Starting Cohesion
0/4
Effect guidance
Baseline formation performance.
Veteran
Starting Cohesion
0/5
Effect guidance
May improve Effect in conditions suited to training and doctrine.
Elite
Starting Cohesion
0/6
Effect guidance
Can achieve Great Effect when training, position and fiction support it.

Quality	Starting Cohesion	Effect guidance
Green	0/4	Reduce Effect in demanding conditions.
Regular	0/4	Baseline formation performance.
Veteran	0/5	May improve Effect in conditions suited to training and doctrine.
Elite	0/6	Can achieve Great Effect when training, position and fiction support it.

State is the formation's current condition, such as formed, marching, entrenched, disordered or routing. Let it change Risk, Effect, movement or available actions when it matters to the situation.

A formation profile tells you what the troops can do, how they are organised and what breaks their ability to act together. Type gives fictional permissions; judge the order against the formation's actual training, position and opposition.

Resolve a formation exchange

Name Quality, Cohesion, Type, Position, State, Facing and Objective. Use scenario zones, lines, heights and roads, not converted personal spaces.
Choose one aggregate action: Advance, Fire, Charge, Hold, Rally, Redeploy or Withdraw. A volley is not a roll per soldier.
Establish Risk and Effect from the order, Quality, facing, terrain, morale, support and opposition. The commander rolls relevant Capability with the normal 2d6 engine for uncertain, consequential orders.
Limited / Standard / Great Effect marks 1 / 2 / 3 objective Clock segments. Directly breaking a formation instead applies 1 / 2 / 3 Cohesion pressure. Do not automatically apply full objective progress and full Cohesion loss together unless Great Effect or the fiction supports both.
Describe the new Position and State. Reaching the Cohesion limit means the formation cannot continue normally, not that army HP are gone. Rally restores order or Cohesion where fiction allows.

An exposed flank or rear grants +1 Effect, capped at Great. A Great rear attack adds 1 Cohesion pressure if the formation cannot immediately turn, withdraw or reform. Formation Type gives fictional permissions, not an invented line-fire bonus.

4 segments
Use for
A straightforward but pressured objective.
6 segments
Use for
A contested objective.
8 segments
Use for
A fortified, difficult or multi-stage objective.
10+ segments
Use for
A major operational objective.

Objective Clock	Use for
4 segments	A straightforward but pressured objective.
6 segments	A contested objective.
8 segments	A fortified, difficult or multi-stage objective.
10+ segments	A major operational objective.

Resolve a genuinely unopposed objective from the fiction instead of creating a Clock.

Cavalry movement and battlefield position

Cavalry is a formation Type at Battlefield Scale. Use scenario zones, lines, heights, roads and objectives, not a conversion of personal squares. An ordinary Advance changes position by one meaningful battlefield step. Faster cavalry, columns or unopposed movement may cover more only when the scenario supports that distinction; there is no universal horse speed or cavalry damage bonus.

Charge is a normal formation action to close violently and try to break the enemy position. Resolve one aggregate action, establishing Risk and Effect from the order, Quality, facing, position, terrain, morale, support and opposition. Training and organisation inform credible responses without granting automatic immunity to cavalry.

Cavalry approaches an exposed flank

Scenario-zone schematic · squares are not metres or personal spaces

· open / unthreatened
B / C hostile attacker
→ / ↗ route or sightline
A token / D defender / S shooter / R rider / L line; arrow = facing

C is a cavalry formation in the approach zone. An ordinary Advance changes one meaningful position step toward the road west of north-facing line L. Arrows show the approach, not a fixed allowance. A subsequent Charge can exploit L’s flank only if its facing, state and terrain genuinely expose that side. L may have credible opportunities to turn, withdraw or reform.

Zooming to personal action

Storming a redoubt, boarding or duelling an officer can zoom to Personal Scale with every relevant combatant acting individually. Return to Battlefield Scale when individual decisions stop being useful. Carry facts, not arithmetic: Wounded characters, Fired guns and broken bridges remain so.

Artillery and firing lanes

At Battlefield Scale, a prepared battery is a formation asset using normal formation actions, Effect, Cohesion and Scale Clocks. At Personal Scale, a crew-served gun needs access, loading, aiming and a credible firing lane. A successful direct hit on people, light structures or ordinary personal cover normally has Great Effect, or follows the obvious fiction.

A loaded field gun normally needs a crew and an Action to fire. Reloading is an extended crew task. Under pressure, use a short Progress Clock or one or more crew Actions appropriate to that gun and situation, rather than a one-person firearm Reload.

Personal armour cannot protect against a direct artillery hit. Cover, fortifications and sightlines can determine whether that hit is possible at all.

A screened battery is exposed only if fire or manoeuvre can really reach it. Counterbattery fire, a dedicated flank, cavalry breakthrough or elevated firing lane can do so; engaging its supporting formation alone does not. Resolve defensive pressure on the battery only when it is actually targeted or exposed.

Native Rules, printed p. 67.