Played another game last night with the Skirmisher house rules found
Here. The mission was Breaking Point.
I took Carthage again, because I'm much better at that faction that Rome (which is ironic, because when I first got the Punic Wars, I much preferred Rome. Can't fight Fate!). We also played using the Disrupted rules for shooting, but not any of our other wacky house rules (which is why his cavalry went through the hills).
Deployment:
Bottom to top, his deployment was: 2 Skeleton Cav, Zombie Trolls, double-stacked (d-s) Zombies, two sets of d-s Abomination & Skeli Bowmen, d-s Zombies, Zombie Trolls, and Ghouls (taken because he had like 136 pts left).
Bottom to top, my deployment: Libyans, Slingers, d-s Libyans & Slingers, Slingers, Libyans, Libyans, d-s Hannibal's Chosen & Elephants.
From the get-go my plan was hosed. I'd taken the slingers to hold the hills, but once I found out he had cav, I knew that wouldn't work. Unfortunately, in order to draw out where he was putting the cavalry, I had to place my Libyans. Which reduced the ability to respond to where he was putting his skeletons. And he was very clever in putting down the abominations & bowmen plus the back up zombies first. Meaning my options were, put the skirmishers in front of the abominations to get shot at, or risk putting them across from skeleton cavalry which'd go right through them. Even with the def bonus vs shooting, it wasn't a great choice.
But first, a bit of humor. I had to expend a CA to tweak some order or something early on, I forget what, but the point was I had 5 cards by the M&C phase of turn 2. Here is my draw:
I swear, I shuffled them...
Here's where Scott won the game:
Okay on the bottom of the picture of sheer panic. I have a Libyan Foot and a Slinger trying to hold off two units of light cavalry. My only hope here is to charge in with the Libyans and blow through a unit of Skeleton Cav, accepting that the other one is going to hit my flank, and then pinch with the slingers. My hope is for mutual annihilation.
But at the top of the pic is something you won't see bear fruit for a couple of turns. I used complex maneuver to pull back my three line units, to get the elephants in line. This way he can't pinch me with those Ghouls (which he'd absolutely sacrifice if it meant he pinches my Hannibal's Elite with a Zombie Troll and Ghouls).
Scott uses my own move against me and DCs his Zombie Trolls to go sideways to match up with the Elephants, while sliding out the d-s zombies to come at my Libyans and Hannibal's Chosen 1 on 1. If I've got a Might or a Force in my hand, he's hosed. But what it does is gives him the matchups he wants and there's nothing I can do at this point. Because if I shift to match, he comes forward and catches my units in a traffic jam. If I pull back to reorder, he simply copies me, and all the while his bowmen are whittling down the center of my line. What I should have done is instead of pull back my line, advanced a little slower and curled my Hannibal's Elite back a bit to protect their flank while keeping up the pressure on his line to prevent him from switching. It was a brilliant move on his part and/or a boneheaded one on mine.
Here is my gambit on the hill:
He had to get close to pressure my Libyans to act before the skirmishers got up there, so he ate a charge. I got what I wanted, and one-shotted his cav. I took the flank charge, and managed to play Stubborn Endurance to have 1 Red box left.
But it was not to be. I failed to do enough damage and he Reanimated his way out of it. He whiffed on some dice, only forcing a Cge check (which I passed), meaning he was delayed from coming down the hill, but he had won that flank.
And here's the result:
Note, the Elephants fighting the Zombie Trolls at the top of the screen. The other clever thing he managed to pull off was that my Hannibal's Elite were out of FR range of anything, so I couldn't even get a pinch. Meaning he managed to get the matchups he wanted and get a turn delay for his zombies engaging my most expensive unit.
Also note in and around the center, one of the units of Slingers is gone. It was brought down by a combination of charges by the abominations and a couple turns of long range shooting by the bowmen. In the later turns, the bowmen would shoot the Libyans in the center because since the skirmishers rout in the pre-combat courage phase, the Libyans were the closest come time to determine targets.
Basically the game is over and I'm clawing for as many points as I can get. Yes, at the bottom is a unit of skirmishers about to be charged by Zombies, Zombie Trolls, and Skeleton cavalry. I DC'd them there to slow him down one extra turn.
In the center, some Libyans managed to break through the zombies and instead of going after the Ghouls, I flank charged the skeleton bowmen. It was basically 150 free pts, it prevented them from shooting my Libyans getting beat up by the Abomination, and I figured even if I took the charge from the Ghouls, I could fight them off because of their single Green box (which I did).
This is about where we stopped because a rout question came up that drastically affected the game. As in, if it goes one way it's a draw, and if it goes another way its a 4-2 win for him. (More later in the rules forum)
I had crunched his Bowmen with my center Libyans, then charged an Abomination in the rear (finishing it off), then charged the second unit of bowmen and killed them. My Libyans had been flank charged by the second Abomination that had chased the skirmisher for a large part of the game, and was about to triple pinched by rallied Ghouls and Zombies. At which point I blew my Courage check (it was like their 3rd or 4th, so I can't throw my hands up or anything). He failed to do any damage on the free attacks and I routed.
Meanwhile at the top, his Zombie Trolls routed my Elephants, and then were flank charged by my Hannibal's Elite.
If the game ends there, he wins a 4-2. If it doesn't, my elephants come back and kill his zombies clawing me to a 3-3 tie by bringing him just under 1,000 pts.
I managed to get it close to a draw, and I did have some bad turns with the Libyans & Hannibal's Elite vs their respective Zombies, but he also did have some bad luck including not doing any damage when I was routing at the end and not finishing those slingers a turn earlier with his cavalry. I also think he should have spent a card or two on the Abomination when it charged the Balearic Slingers. If they'd failed their rout check a turn earlier, then he could have pinched.
But that is not to take anything away from him. Even if it ended in a draw, he outplayed me at just about every part of the field. He got the matchups he wanted on both flanks, and pinned me into making decisions that were the least of two bad options.
My analysis: I think the skirmisher tweaks has real potential. I'm not ready to call this one a win just yet, but I have a feeling it might be. At first glance it feels wrong to have a 75 pt unit tie down a 150-200 pt unit for two turns of the game at a crucial point, but having been the guy doing it, I don't think its as comfortable as you think. First off, you're basically committing yourself to spending 1 CA per unit to get them back in the fight. If you take two skirmishers and they last 2 turns (which assumes they both blow their first rout check), that's 4 CAs you've spent on this trick. I thinking being down 4 CAs has a ripple effect elsewhere on the field. Second, you're basically putting your whole plan on a unit with 6 boxes, a Def 1/0, and a Cge 11. If those guys go pop, your flank is exposed and while the game may not be over, you're in deep trouble. Third, you're
real matchup sensitive. If he gets some fast guys on them, here's not a lot you can do.
And of course, what I like about making it the dice is that you opponent has more control over the situation than you'd expect. He can always increase that chance of forcing that rout check to one the first turn if he wants to expend a card. Which, even if you pass, puts you in a position to be taking that Red check next turn, which he can count on you failing.
Plus by being dice instead of auto-points, certain units that you'd expect to be really good at running down skirmishers actually are. Woe to the guy who puts skirmishers out only to see Ravenwood Wolves...
As for the modified shooting rules, we actually got some good data from them despite them not being what we were testing. The Skeleton Bowmen + Abomination combo felt right, and in our opinion it returns what I think is a pretty cool combined arms build.
And as a final word, I strongly recommend that if folks try out the Disrupted rules, they do so with the modified combat phase order. Having all ranged fire go first (basically all ranged fire have the Pila ability), adds a new element to the game. Players will sometimes think about dropping a card on the ranged attack supporting a fight because it has the added cookie of, if it puts a guy in the Yellow/Red, it peels off an attack from the guy. In this game we had at least one instance where his bowmen killed a Libyan Foot before it got to attack, and at least 3-4 times where he stripped off a die from my guys by doing that last box. This tweak gives a little bit back to ranged fire and alters the game in subtle ways that you wouldn't think at first glance. In fact, it takes 5-6 games to really get an appreciation for it, but remember, subtle doesn't mean insignificant.
