This isn't really an issue when it comes to the Battle Rules. (I have had more than a few hiccups here and there, but I've settled on something simple enough to streamline everything for me.) But more the more general issue of making battles interesting for my players, as they're most often the biggest area of concern. I can certainly attribute part of this to those previously mentioned growing pains as we settled into the system, but on some level the "1 round of combat against randomly determined enemies for so many rounds" tends to feel a tad monotonous for some of my players, as they don't seem to have time to really strategize or attach themselves to enemies so much as just hit them as they come. It may be a good way to represent the sheer chaos of a battle situation, but it doesn't quite translate to fun for us.

I'm wondering if I'm missing something, or if anyone has GM tips to help us have a better time with battles, as the GPC is packed with such sheer volume of them during certain periods that it seems like a shame to skip through them.

Are you using Book of Battle or the rules in the core book? BoBattles is more interesting, for sure, and requires some actual strategy. There are more choices and more potential outcomes. There are also opportunities to devolve into individual combats.

I was using Book of Battles, but I was having difficulties with having my players sit through a lot of dice rolling on my part for the big picture strategy stuff while they waited to fight something. Everything involving Battle Intensity and such was kind of going over everyone's heads. My solution was to kind of just scrap the big strategy stuff. (The vast majority of battles in GPC involve the Players being part of someone else's army after all.) Pull up something that can be resolved much quicker, so then we can focus on the unit stuff.

Only problem I've found is that the unit stuff alone also doesn't really hold their attention. Unless I'm mistaken, there's really just the maneuver table, which is mostly just zone hopping to modify the unit intensity which modifies more results which eventually boils down to a single round of combat with a randomly determined enemy (or enemies) that then disappears into the ether.

Maybe I'm reading it all wrong. But it just seems like a lot of rolling for not enough payoff. Oddly enough I actually do really like a lot of the units from Book of Armies, I just feel like they don't have enough going for them to justify all the foreplay.

I have not had any battles on the fly yet, but as I am playing through the GPC all the named battles in it I work out the changes in Army intensity beforehand, so I do not need to think on that during the game. I preselect the changes myself based on the descritpion of the battle, and each change I try to describe rather than say 'The AI goes up 2' or something like that, but can say: 'The enemy pushes forward and your men slowly give ground'. If the PKs did well last round and reduced the AI I can make it:'The enemy pushes forward and them line almost buckled under its stress, but your valiant effort kept the courage up and the men stood their ground.' This way the battle is more descriptive and more entertaining than just numbers.

Furthermore I try to bring in 1 or 2 rounds where something happens that the players can react to (which is played out in an extended round). Some are obvious, like Prince Madoc going down in the Battle at Terrabil. My PKs managed to get in quickly and one of them killed Duke Gorlois in one heavy stroke (he got the short straw, but managed to roll critical while the duke failed to do so). He was henceforth named Dukeslayer. While the rest of the battle was just a back and forth this event is what is remembered of the battle.
If there are no special events: You could bring in some units where they know the enemy unit leader. This could give opportunity to create an extended round, where they try to capture or kill the unit leader. It will make it more personal and probably more entertaining.

A whole different approach of battles:
From the a D&D3.5 book called Heroes of Battle: In the book they approach the battle as a dungeon. There is a sort of tree of possible encounters. Depending on the choices of the PCs they move through it. During the encounters they can pick up victory points when they succeed in the encounter. Depending on the number of victorypoints the outcome of the battle is determined.
Encounters are things like capturing a key position, capturing or killing a leader, blocking a unit from flanking an friendly position, etc.

I have not had any battles on the fly yet, but as I am playing through the GPC all the named battles in it I work out the changes in Army intensity beforehand, so I do not need to think on that during the game.

When it is not a scripted battle, where GPC pretty much tells you what is happening round per round, this is what I tend to do too. I don't use Book of Battle personally, but do Battle vs. Battle of the commanders (or battalion commanders), and if the PKs do well, maybe I will shift the result a bit on the fly.



Furthermore I try to bring in 1 or 2 rounds where something happens that the players can react to (which is played out in an extended round).

Yes, and this is something I would recommend for everyone to do. Like you say later on, this is what people remember. Not the round by round 'random enemy', but the time they captured the banner / Saxon King, killed the Duke of Cornwall, rescued the Count, etc...

For example, in the Battle of Terrabil (513), my players' characters finally got the chance to try and take out their enemy-turned ally-turned enemy, the Praetor of Levcomagus (Praetor seemed more appropriate title for this Roman town than Steward, IMHO), while at the same time, saving Prince Mark (ruling Salisbury since Salisbury had been annexed by his marriage to Countess Ellen in 500 or so) from capture. Alas, the dice were not with them, so the Praetor survived (barely), and thanks to the marriage they themselves negotiated in 495, he became the new Count of Salisbury (in fact, not just by law) by the right of his wife, Countess Jenna, and exiled the knights who had fought against him, their legitimate liege lord. Luckily, the now King Mark of Cornwall welcomed such loyal knights to his court of Cornwall...

Hmm, I'm starting to think that maybe what would be for the best is if I just scrap the remains of the battle system that I had tried to retain, and just focus on a more scripted form of battles for the players to participate in.

I don't know. I find the BoBattle system pretty evocative. Sure you can devolve into individual combats, but each round at the unit level there are decisions about tactics and the suspense of whether or not you can pull off that tactic. Ideally, you would like to charge and withdraw over and over. However, withdrawing isn't always that easy and you can get trapped and disordered within enemy lines...which generally sucks and is a good way to die.

I find the BoBattle system pretty evocative.

To each their own, I guess. The thing about the BoB system, I feel, is that you really need to have a good grasp of it in order to make informed decisions. Not that it is any different from other RPG rules in that sense, but whereas the regular Pendragon combat has just a few decisions/tactics you can pick, BoB has dozens (some which have limitations when they can be used, admittedly). I don't know, it just feels a bit... wargame-y for me, rather than roleplaying, if you know what I mean? I will happily admit that if I had players who enjoy that sort of stuff and we had been running with BoB enough to become more familiar with it, my opinion might change; it could be just a familiarity issue.

I am toying with an idea of giving the players some 'goals' to go after each round that they win an opposed unit Battle roll with the average enemy counterpart unit (i.e. mostly other knights). For example: Sir So-and-so's unit is being ganged up by two enemy units! Do you go and help, or do you instead take this opportunity to try to charge down a weakened enemy unit for easy Glory and potentially get some prisoners? The obvious problem is that you have to do more work beforehand to set up such occurrences, and it might become a bit repetitive since it is only so many things that you can do in a battle. But it is easy to come up with at least 3 'rescue' flavors to start with: two-vs-one, unhorsed, save captives. I am sure I could come up with more ideas with a bit of time to think about it.

Perhaps what we need is a good card-based battle resolution, similar to the Book of Feasts card sets? Then there is both player agency and the decisions are "on the table"?

Just noodling. The main question is... what do you want your Pendragon battle simulation to do? IMO there are two objectives, not necessarily active at the same time:

1. Portray a scenario of scripted plot importance. In this case you want the script to advance, while at the same time giving some opportunity to the players to live long enough to both garner Glory in the middle of it, and see the event/resolution in question.

2. Portray a sufficiently realistic clash of arms. In this case you want to carefully balance the objective of Glory versus the opportunity for death, pretty much like any other encounter at a small-scale. The story being told, however, is one of the PKs, so it should be balanced toward their opportunities for survival, or at least Glory in the creation of "story moment" that are seen "on screen", so to speak. Note that the "sufficiently realistic" part means your 50 spears versus King Lot are going to be a cinematic slaughter/capture of your army, for the sake of remembrance to heirs.... Further, battle should "feel right" to the portrayal of the period and technology: in other words the best option will almost always be a heavy cavalry charge, turn, and repeat.

If I may be so bold, any battle system that gives enough narrative seeds to guide dice rolls and scene expression has fulfilled the purpose for the table. Everything else is coverage for the GM, so he doesn't appear unduly biased.

--Khanwulf