Attack Skill is an offensive martial talent, most often used in melee combat to determine whether an attack hits successfully. When attacking with a melee weapon, the attacker’s Attack Skill gets a DRN roll added and this is compared to the defender’s Defence Skill plus a DRN roll. To successfully attack and proceed to the damage checks the attacker's total must beat the defender's total (noting the interaction below with shield parry bonus):

• If the Attack result is higher than the Defence result, the attack lands, ignoring the target's shield (if they have one).
• If the Attack result is lower than or equal to the Defence result, what happens depends on if the defender's Parry bonus is what's responsible.
  • If the Parry bonus is what makes the difference, the attack hits the target's shield, and the shield's Protection value is used in damage calculations.
  • If the Parry bonus is not what made the difference, the attack misses completely.

After the attack hits, whether or not it does any damage depends on a different dueling pair of DRN rolls (Damage vs. Protection), and on a different pair of attributes (Strength and Protection).

• Attack Skill and Defence Skill are also relevant for repelling, the art of dissuading a foe's attack with a weapon.
• Fatigue effectively reduces Attack Skill, with every 20 points of Fatigue counting as -1 Attack Skill. This is less severe than the drop-off for Defence Skill (-1 for every 10 points), however, so both frontlines "fatiguing out" will result in more hits landed on both sides.
• Experience stars increase Attack Skill.
• Going Berserk increases a unit's Attack Skill at the expense of their Defence Skill, though only if they have points in the Berserker trait.

Note that these examples include the weapons involved, most of which (other than spears or axes) modify Attack Skill.

Super-high attack skill on troops – over 13 – is not very common, at least since independent troops are rarely all that trained.