Not sure how to let the players raise their own mercenary company - Conan the Mercenary (pg. 106) states that the number of squads that a character can have in their company is 1 + command focus + their rank in “General.” Doesn’t that mean that a company can only be realistically around 10-25 soldiers? This conflicts seemingly with the passage in Conan the Mercenary, page 95, that states that mercenary “sub-companies” are 50-200 soldiers (10 to 40 squads!), and a full company can have up to 3 of these sub-companies (30 to 120 squads). That means a full company can be up to 600 soldiers! How can I reconcile the 1 to realistically 5 squad limit on players with the typical size of a mercenary company?
I can wiggle around here with the rules to figure things out but I’d like to make sense of how these things fit within the ruleset so any help would be appreciated.
My first thought was that this low limit might be viewed as what the character has direct control over during the battle while the rest have orders that were given and they will follow but new orders? Well, that Command check is going to have some difficulties involved . . .
. . . That might have been my only thought . . . I will add more if I think of some.
It’s been a good while since you posted, so, short of any answers, here is what was my first impulse as a response:
“You find this confusing? Just wait until you get to the Influence rules in Conan the Brigand.”
Or any of the sourcebooks, really. I see you joined these forums pretty recently, so maybe you haven’t yet entered into the legacy discussion of how, even though they are gorgeous objects and useful for lore and inspiration, the actual rules in most of these sourcebooks are half-baked, incomplete, and often incomprehensible.
If you can wiggle these rules into something workable, we’d love to see what you come up with. Please post here, if you would be so kind.
