Having to resolve a combat with 20+ individuals that is too small to abstract with a mass combat system is my most dreaded personal DMing hell. So follows that Kodiak-Game has a solution for such scenarios.
The game ought to have a place for warbands. The fighter should be empowered to bring 20 odd fell-handed armsmen into the wilderness. In Kodiak-Game especially so seeing as magicians are greatly empowered at lower levels compared to most systems. These troops should be effective, or even mandatory, to do battle with other warband sized elements like beastmen. With dungeons recontextualized as “outposts” (see previous post) assaulting them will consistently provoke these intermediate scale battles with between 20 and 100 participants. Magicians are completely unable to lead troops in Kodiak-Game so this subsystem will occupy the same space relative to fighters as the magic system does relative to magicians.
My solution is called “Cohort Scale” wherein troops can be ordered into cohorts of 10 to 20 individuals which fight as one entity to speed the resolution of combat. The difficulty in contriving this system was determining how the general flow of man-to-man combat could be translated to this scale while allowing for the integration of large individuals (monsters) and leveled characters.
Cohorts
Cohorts are treated as a single entity and take up differing amounts of space based on their frontage. This is notated by a pair of numbers indicating the width of the formation and the number of ranks (5x4, 10x2). Undisciplined and unintelligent troops adopt loose formations, in which case they occupy a 20’x20’ area if they are number 10 or less and a 25’ x 25’ region if larger. These formations are less effective in melee but more about more quickly. Cohorts can overlap with obstacles that occupy a man-sized footprint (trees, boulders smaller than 5ft. long, similar objects) without issue. Leftover troops can be ordered into cohorts of less than 10 men but are generally less effective.
The characteristics of a cohort operate on the 80% rule. 80% of the cohort must be equipped similarly and fighting at the same fighter-level (or hit die in the case of monsters). The remaining 20% can consist of “rump troops” who can assimilate into the cohort without compromising its fighting ability.
Cohorts have an amount of HP equal to the average HP roll of the HD of its constituent units multiplied by the number of units in the cohort.
Normal human troops have 1 - 1 HD. The average result of that HD is 4.5 which is rounded to 5. A cohort of 10 troops would have 50 HP. A cohort of veterans (1+1 HD) would have 70 HP.
Cohort Attacks
When attacking other cohorts, an attack roll is made using the attack throw of the cohort. Successful attack throws deal one die of weapon damage per each man in the fighting rank. Unsuccessful attacks deal half damage rounded down. Cohorts whose base unit have a damage bonus add it per die.
A cohort arrayed 5x2 attacks. The attack throw fails, and so half damage will be dealt. There are 5 men in the fighting rank using spears which deal 1d6 damage. The damage roll is 18, so 9 damage is dealt.
If this cohort was comprised of veterans (which have a +1 damage bonus as first level fighters) the roll would have been 23 as a cumulative +5 damage bonus would have been added.
When cohorts attack individuals, whether they are leveled NPCs or monsters they gain a significant bonus to their attack roll (+5) to represent the advantage of an organized squad working against an individual creature. However, only so many men can feasibly attack a single target so less damage is delivered, and no damage is delivered on failed attack rolls. A cohort rolls a number of weapon damage die on successful attack rolls against individuals based on the size category of the target. Man-sized targets equate to 1 die, large targets 2, huge targets 4, any size category larger rolls all possible die as if attacking another cohort.
A cohort of men attack Urgak, the troll chief. He is a large sized individual. The cohort rolls an attack at +5, and are successful. Because Urgak is large, 2 damage die are rolled to deliver damage.
Cohorts taking Damage
When men are fighting together they are able to protect and aid wounded troops and maintain a better fighting front compared to individuals fighting out of order. As a result, cohorts continue fighting until their HP is reduced to zero. This is an unlikely result because cohorts are likely to retreat from combat due to morale before they are reduced to zero HP.
Cohorts reduced to half their HP make attacks at -4.
“Killing” Cohorts
When a cohort is reduced to 0 HP they are defeated and no longer participate in combat. Their fate is determined by which side is victorious overall. If a cohort is defeated and their side loses the engagement, 50% of their members are killed and the remaining are injured or captured. If their side is victorious, 50% of the members are still slain; of the remaining 50%, half are lightly injured and will recover with time. The other 25% are seriously injured and will only recover with access to healers and medicine.
There are some other factors at play with cohorts, like the role henchmen play in leading them, morale, magical spells attacking cohorts and so on but the goal of this post isn’t to copy my entire rulebook draft. That being said the point of posting this is to generate some discourse with the enlightened TTRPG enthusiasts on this board to help refine some of these ideas.