Battle priests and mages are often tasked with granting powers to warbands or select units of the army. Only those who have the Battle Magic Edge may use the rules presented below.

Casting a spell via Battle Magic costs +5 Power Points. Only powers with the Additional Recipients modifier are eligible, though that modifier is not used when casting via Battle Magic. (It may be cheaper to use Additional Recipients with a small number of allies—that calculation is left to the caster!)

Spells may only be cast on characters with identical profiles, i.e. a unit of archers, a troop of cavalry, etc.

Resistance: Make a group roll for the defenders if the power is resisted.

Range: The Range of all Battle Magic is 100 yards.

Maintenance: Powers may be maintained normally, meaning that once cast, a caster may maintain boost Trait (Shooting) on a unit of archers another five rounds for a single Power Point.

Battle Magic Penalty: The arcane skill roll suffers a penalty based on the number of troops affected, as shown on the table below.

Example: A wizard casts puppet on an enemy formation of 400 orc warriors at the height of a climactic battle. The wizard’s total, after the −6 penalty, is an 8. The orcs resist with a group roll and get a 6. The wizard is successful and decides to make the orcs stand idly for five rounds (if he tries to make them attack their fellows they get another roll to resist, as described in the puppet power).

Later, the same wizard decides to grant protection to an embattled troop of 50 cavalrymen. That’s a −2 penalty to his Spellcasting, so he needs to roll a 6 for a basic success and a 10 for a raise.