sitrep: my assumption was wrong and I am a little miffed.
So I saw on PBSpy that Xist had done some whips, but not a ton. Looks like a lot of that was spite whipping Mediolanum down to size 1. He also popped a Golden Age.
So what are the odds of a fresh 12 strength mounted unit against a Praet in a weakly defended border city? Only 31%! Now I am actually onboard the nerf Rome train going on in the CtH thread, what the fuck. A cuir is only a tiny bit stronger than a Phract, it shouldn't be getting this bad odds against a dinky 45h ancient age unit.
Still, there was nothing to do but press onward:
Lost 2 phracts and killed the other praets to capture the city. Came with a granary and a market and a heap of gold, so it was at least worth the blood.
Moving the other Phracts forward revealed this mini stack (plus an extra unit you can see killed in the combat log), which I decided to go forward and attack as well, having 70% odds or greater. I lost one phract on a bad dice roll and wiped the rest...
Revealing this bunch of reinforcements. From what I have seen of Xist's land pre war this is his main mobile army and he would be down to garrisons without it. I decided to move the rest of my healthy phracts on the hill rather than letting my surviving phract be picked off - I do not think he has enough to take out the stack on the offense. Unfortunately it looks like Xist is putting his army in my direction rather than Aetryn's. Not much I can do about that though.
I am feeling less sanguine about prospects to push further. Xist has a large strategic depth and Praets on hills are a much bigger pain in the ass then I realized. Put them down to 7 str!
But hey, at least we grabbed a city, and we'll take Arpinium next turn.
