Aquila

No health bar. No hit points. Two small companies meet on a hex field and hit each other with metal. Every number in Aquila comes from the real world. How hard a swing lands depends on the muscle behind it. An edge has a width in millimetres, and armour has a real strength that a blow has to beat. Whatever gets through cuts skin, fat and muscle in turn, opens the blood vessels in them, breaks bone and reaches the organs underneath. There's no bar to wear down. There's a man, and the question is how much of him still works. How a man goes down Blood. Open an artery and he's losing blood every turn. Lose enough and he faints. Lose half and he's dead. A man who has fallen keeps bleeding where he lies. Shock. All of a blow's pain lands at once. When the total is more than his will can take, he drops senseless: helpless, not dead, and he comes round as it fades, unless someone finishes him first. Legs. Cut the nerve at the hip or break the shin, and he's on the ground and out of the fight. The killing blow. A caved-in skull, a split heart, a blade through the neck. These are rare, and armour is there to make them rarer. Nerve. Men watch their friends fall. They break, they run, and sometimes they rally. A man who has run is as gone as a dead one. Short of any of that, every wound still costs him something. A cut arm swings weaker, a heavy blow knocks him off balance, and a blow to the helm leaves him dazed. How a battle is won You don't have to kill everyone. A company has lost when none of its men is still on his feet and willing to fight. Its men may be dead, fainted from blood loss, down on legs that won't hold them, or gone from the field. A man knocked senseless doesn't count as out, because he'll get up again. Kill him or keep fighting until nobody else is standing. What's modelled Materials: a copper edge bends on iron; steel doesn't. Armour: plate spreads a blow out to its edges, mail only gives a ring's width, padding just crushes. Anatomy: every body part has named vessels and nerves at known depths. A blow cuts a line through it and opens whatever that line passes. Physique: the same grams of muscle decide how hard a man hits and how much a blade has to cut through. Reach: every weapon fights best at its own distance, and a dagger is no use until it gets past a spear's point. Guards: four guards from the German fencing manuals, each blocking two lines of attack and leaving the third open. Your first battle Muster: arm up to eight men within your budget, or march with the company you're given. Form up: pick a formation, or place each man on your own ground. Fight: choose an attack, a guard and where to aim, then click the man you mean to hit. Select anyone to see what has been done to him. Keys: 1–9 attack · R guard · A aim · [ ] turn · C close in · X break away · F shoot · W hold · E end turn · Esc cancel. Click the game once first so it has the keyboard. Best on a desktop browser. English and 简体中文, chosen on the muster screen. Made by Y&T Soft.