The voting:
Option | Votes | |
|---|---|---|
| Activate Cassius, forward and to the right | 4 | |
| Activate Cassius, straight ahead | 3 | |
| Activate Cassius, forward and to the left | 2 | |
| Activate Falco, pick off a skirmisher | 1 | |
My thoughts:
Voter turnout set a new record: ten votes. Great job, guys!
The overall tone of the voting was "let's get those Romans moving!" and Cassius was the overwhelming choice.
A third of the voters mentioned the need for flank protection, and moving the rightmost units in some way to avoid a flank attack.
The advantages of doing so are obvious -- cohorts have nothing to fear from a frontal attack by HC -- but the disadvantage is less so. As one voter pointed out, the hard thing about protecting the Roman right is that it forces you to break up the line, and it'll be a turn or two before any Roman leaders can get over to the right flank to give those units new orders!
A few voters pointed out that Magnus can move to help protect the Hastati flanks, so Cassius needn't be particularly concerned about flank protection.
The two voters who suggested moving to the left wanted to get the cohorts farther from Pyrrhus, but they can't get far away enough -- the HC can still (barely) reach the flanks of the line.
My conclusion from all this that it doesn't matter much where Cassius goes, as long as it's forward.
An interesting option that no one mentioned would be to move the Hastati forward and left only three hexes. Why? That would allow Laevinus to activate them again with a line command. Of course, those units would take another TQ hit for moving, but they could actually get across the river. The line would be broken by the Epirotes in the center, but could probably be restored immediately by routing away the Epirote LI and advancing after combat.
That's what I vote for, anyway, but it doesn't matter because the majority want to move right:
Of those wanting to move right, two said don't worry about the open flank, one wanted to do something to cover the flank, and one I wasn't sure about, so I just moved everyone forward and we can deal with flank protection during Magnus's activation if need be.
The usual "I told you so" consolation prizes will be awarded, of course.
An awful thought hit me that a person or two might have used "right" and "left" as relative to the picture, rather than from the Roman's point of view -- I don't know what to do about that now except urge everyone to make it crystal clear what you're voting for.
No pause for voting here, as the last round asked for the Epirote counterresponse, too.