Heraclea Interactive Replay

Turn 4: Plautius's Activation

All but one voter agreed to charge (the dissenter wanted to shock with the existing melee-ers, the follow up with Plautius). The question then becomes: there are four holes and five units in Plautius's line. So what to do with the extra unit?

The voting:

	Option	Votes
	Attack the northernmost HI [5]	1
	Gang up in the middle	3
	Move two hexes forward to make a 4-cohort line for Rebilus	1
	Refuse the flank vs Megacles	1
	None specified	2

As usual when there's a choice, there's an interesting selection of votes. I'm not sure what I would have done -- I often cheat and don't decide what to do until seeing all the votes! -- but I'm sure that I wouldn't have chosen the majority action here. Why stack? Units entering another's hex have to be placed on the bottom [6.66], and if the top (heavily damaged) unit routs, it takes the relatively unhurt unit with it.

But that's the majority, so here we go:

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

Plautius's move to the front line is probably controversial, but his limited command range otherwise makes it too hard to get both the flank and front-line cohorts engaged. This way, everyone but the AS/XIV cohort (yellow) gets in on the attack. It's late in the game, anyway. Surely this isn't overly risky? (As it turns out, no: Plautius rolls a '7' when checking for a casualty.)

I couldn't find the rules to cover the situation where a cohort advances into an existing engagement. Is it a Must Shock situation? I treated it as such, even though the unit attacking technically didn't move.

All but one of the possible missile attacks hit, in spite of the +1 PH defense drm. Pre-shock checks put another hit on a PH and two on the attacker on the Roman right. Lucky for the Romans he's a TQ7.

The PH in the SE is routed and eliminated for failure to rout. (Can a two-hex unit rout through a single-hex escape route?). Two other PH are routed, and remaining hoplites look like they might be having second thoughts about being in Italy. The Romans suffer one routed cohort and a very bruised line.

I should have asked about Momentum; three people mentioned it, one in favor and two against. I think the "cons" have the right idea. Why give the Epirotes even a slight chance of interjecting a move before Rebilus (and possibly a 3-rated leader after that) can pound them again? So no Momentum.

Current Rout Point totals:

	Side	Current	Limit	Pct
	Romans	144	185	78%
	Epirotes	67	120	56%

So now Rebilus is up (it's a bit difficult to tell who he is from the map -- he's stacked on the velite). He can issue a Line Command to the 2-unit "line" in front of him (should they attack south or east?), or attempt to rally a couple units running away behind him, or ???.

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