#30 Mercenary Companies
This supplement clocks in at 23 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page SRD and 2 pages of advertisements, leaving us with 18 pages of content, so let’s take a look!
I *love* Ultimate Campaign. It’s one of my most favorite PFRPG-books and I just don’t get why, in spite of Legendary Games’ expansions being rather popular, there hasn’t been that much support for e.g. kingdom-building, mass combat and downtime rules. And here we go to partially remedy that conundrum – Liz Smith delivers a total of 30 different mercenary companies as armies to drop and insert into your campaign – which btw. includes mixed population-rules for companies.
The respective company statblocks feature information on the respective resources, banners and even come with lore-DC and proper descriptions of the armies in addition to the basic army statblocks for the companies. Now what makes these entries actually nice to read beyond the crunch would be the fact that the descriptions are provided in well-written in-character prose a DM can easily paraphrase to introduce the companies into his/her game.
From cadres of vile killers to buccaneers, chivalrous knights, dwarven cavalry and even a cadre of guardian lycanthropes that demand their tithe in the old and sick, the pdf’s respective companies run the gamut from uncommon and at times, even suffused with a very subtle rumor here and there – sorcerors, eagle + griffon riders…we receive a cool, diverse array of creatures herein.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are very good, but not perfect – I noticed some minor glitches, but none that made the content harder to understand. The pdf comes fully bookmarked for your convenience and the pdf comes with thematically-fitting stock art that fits perfectly with the theme of the pdf.
Liz Smith delivers herein -with glorious sample units that not only provide statblocks, but also fluff and story-hooks galore – the armies herein are fun and unique and deliver hooks and ideas beyond the obvious utility of the statblocks. In the absence of complaints or the like and thanks to the great writing and more than fair price-point, I’ll gladly settle on a final verdict of 5 stars + seal of approval for this pdf. Any campaign using mass combat should get these.
You can get these cool companies here on OBS and here on d20pfsrd.com’s shop!
Endzeitgeist out.
