I've reached the end of the Uther Era and now we head into the anarchy... I'm pretty pleased with the Book of Battle so far and get the feeling I'll be using it a lot more over the next few game years. However I do have a question, what about the losses to the armies involved in the battle?

I don't want to go to town on this as I want the focus to remain firmly on the player knights, however especially when the battles become smaller and less scripted I'd like there to be some feeling that you can't just take your army out for battle after battle, it can and will take losses.

So what I was thinking of doing was something quick and simple with inspiration from the original Boy King campaign and the 5th Edition Battle rules.

That is to say that at the end of each round the army commanders make an opposed battle roll against each other with the same modifiers as originally applied (e.g. outnumbered). This then does something along the lines of the Followers Fate roll but it inflicts a certain % of losses on the other army.

Or....

I might just apply a quick followers fate roll to the army as a whole at the end of the battle with a +5 for a victory and a -5 for a defeat. This is much simpler but could lead to the army commander fumbling, taking a 75% loss and then asking why they didn't notice it earlier as they would have retreated from the field long before those losses.

So any thoughts?

Again I don't want this to be too heavy but just something to let the effects of waging war be felt on counties.

I recently had the same problem. My PKs were part of an army that was involved in multiple battles over the course of several days, without any chance of reinforcement, so I needed to track losses.

The numbers below were taken mainly from KAP5 but with some personal preference added in. Depending on the outcome of the battle, I applied one of these results;

Crushing Victory: 1d3-1% killed, 1d3+1% wounded
Decisive Victory: 1d3+1% killed, 1d6+3% wounded
Tactical Victory: 1d6+4% killed, 1d6+12% wounded
Tactical Defeat: 1d6+6% killed, 1d6+15% wounded
Decisive Defeat: 1d6+15% killed, 3d6+15% wounded, 1d6+12% captured
Crushing Defeat: 2d6+45% killed, 1d6+4% wounded, 2d6+20% captured

How I decided on the exact outcome was relatively simple. In addition to rolling Battle vs Battle Intensity each round, I roll a 3rd die which simulates the actions of the enemy commander. This is opposed vs the roll of the PK Battle Commander and the result recorded. It has no actual affect on the battle itself but it is relevant when determining victory conditions.

If the PKs win more Battle vs Battle rolls than they lose but Battle Intensity never gets to zero for two rounds, it's a Tactical Victory. If they lose more rolls than they win it's a Tactical Defeat.

If Battle Intensity does get to zero for two rounds, then the Battle vs Battle rolls determine whether it's a Tactical Victory or Decisive Victory. Just for fun I added the Crushing Victory and Defeat Outcomes; these occur if the PKs manage to get BI to zero for two rounds or more AND win *every* single Battle vs Battle roll. The enemy suffers the mirror opposite result; so if you have Tactical Victory they have Tactical Defeat, etc etc.

I added the third roll rather than just counting the results vs BI because BI is modded by local intensity (what zone you're in etc) and is therefore not a fair barometer of overall commander effectiveness.

It's not bomb tested but it worked for me and sits well within the system as is.