The voting:
Option | Votes | |
|---|---|---|
| Activate Cassius, use Velites to attack Epirote MI | 1 | |
| Activate Falco, recover | 2 | |
| Activate Falco, attack Philocles | 3 | |
| Activate Drusus, move to opposite flank | 1 |
We're pretty evenly divided between preparing Falco for next turn and striking while the iron is hot.
I had a lot of "misread orders", with folks wanting to use Cassius to issue a line command to get the Roman second line moving. That can't happen, as Cassius is more than two hexes away from any possible line.
Using Cassius to attack with the velites is an interesting variation on the theme of attacking. But Cassius is still stuck issuing Individual Orders, and assuming that he himself needs to get into position for next turn (and that you don't want to waste one of Laevinus's orders making that happen), you've only got two IOs remaining.
As to Falco, I personally would vote for recovery rather than attack. But I'm not about to vote to cause a tie! The need to rout some Epirotes quickly is certainly understandable, but I worry about those units getting out of Falco's command range, and they can't route all of the Epirote LC. Still, if Falco doesn't attack, Philocles certainly will. We'll see what happens....
First blood goes to the Romans, as the flank LC tries a Reaction Facing Change (70% chance of success) and fails with a dieroll of 8. Simultaneously, Philocles OWs to safety.
Reaction Fire pings a hit on the Roman cavalry with two hits; now it's got three.
Pre-Shock TQ checks add another hit to the unlucky Roman cavalry with three hits; now it has four, one less than its TQ.
In subsequent Shock, Fortuna positively frowns on the unlucky RC, who only gets a 2(4) result, routing himself but not his opponent. The other shock has the RC smartly routing his opponent with a 2(6) result. Subsequent pursuit sees the RC attack again, but the routed defender passes his Pre-Shock TQ check and inflicts two more hits on the RC before routing off map, with the RC right behind.
After advancing after combat (I'm assuming that 8.41 covers rout due to Reaction Facing Change), we're left with:
Offmap, there's the AS/XV Ex RC with 4 hits.
The Rout Point totals are now Romans 35 (limit 185), Epirotes 28 (limit 120). Percentage-wise, the Romans are actually winning!
Leaders waiting to be activated now are: Cassius (3), Drusus (3), Laevinus (5), Philocles (3), Socrates (3), Leonatus (4), and Megacles (4). No momentum is possible, due to Pyrrhus's earlier trump.
So, it's now the Epirote turn. Who should activate, Socrates or Philocles, and what should that leader do?