Heraclea Interactive Replay

Turn 4: Pyrrhus's EIO Activation

Last turn I forgot that El changing facing costs 2 MPs, so the position of the leftmost EL in the picture isn't correct. But that doesn't invalidate any of the votes, because the could still reach the cohort flanking the PH.

The voting:

	Option	Votes
	On left: move EL back right. On right: Pyrrhus attacks with EL + HI	1
	On left: attack w/EL. On right: Pyrrhus attacks with one PH, 2 EL, 1 SK; recover LC	1
	On left: attack w/PH[3] + EL. On right: Pyrrhus attacks with whole PH line	1
	On left: recover PH[3], EL attacks. On right: Pyrrhus moves HI[4] to safety, ELs attack	2
	On right: Pyrrhus attacks with HI, SK, EL; recover LC	1
	Pyrrhus jogs right, shifts EL left, recovers HI, jogs left	1
	Recover PH + HI, move another EL west, Pyrrhus left, attack w/SK	1
	Recover PH[3], EL attacks. On right: shift 2 EL left, attack with HI + last EL	1
	On left: attack w/PH[3]. On right: Pyrrhus recovers, shifts EL left, shocks with engaged PH	1
	On left: attack w/EL. On right: Pyrrhus advances PH[1]s and attacks with EL	1
	On left: attack w/PH[3]. On right: recover HI, advance EL vs RC	2

This is the kind of vote I absolutely hate, as you guys were all over the map in terms in strategy. I don't see any good way of pulling a consensus out of that. Even the two moves that got more than one vote have different ideas of what to do on both flanks. (It's not that I don't appreciate the votes, though!)

After spending many days procrastinating how to resolve this, I've decided to roll a die and implement the resulting vote. If you're not happy with this, just figure that you probably wouldn't have been happy with whatever mish-mash move I came up with, either.

My dieroll says use the sixth respondent, who lucky for me sent in a fairly explicit move:

Routing, not shown: AS/VII LG: c,h. AS/XIV RC: a
In Pursuit: AS/XV Ex RC (w/ 4 hits)

If you're counting arrows, the "missing" moves are recoveries performed on the LC flanking the Roman left.

A few folks worried about elephants rampaging, but the Heraclea Elephant Surprise rules -- no pre-shock checks on entire first turn of attacks, +3 PSCk for defending infantry -- make rampage pretty unlikely. For now, at least.

But those rules don't help the Epirote infantry: the HI rolls a '9' for PSCk, while the doughty Romans dice a '0' and hold their ground before the tuskers. But the shock still routs the shaky cohort and the velite. As the HI advances, the now adjacent cohort tries a Reaction Facing Change, hoping to put the nearly-routing HI in ZOC to force a collapse check. But the gambit fails, with a dr=6, so now there are three newly routing cohorts. The dice were not kind to either side.

Now it's Plautius and/or Rebilus up. Tell me which should go first, and what he should do. We'll resolve that and then pick up the other one in a few weeks.

Note that both are within five hexes of Laevinus (Rebilus only thanks to Orderly Withdrawal this move), and hence eligible for an automatic Line Command. But only Plautius is in within two hexes of anything that you could really call a line.

Mail me.