Tim Child and I fought a game last night with my newly arrived version 2 - which did get slightly scrunched up in the post - Monarch didn't put 'Please do not fold' on th envelopes.
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> It was a straight up fight between Ostrogoths and Early Frankish (Alamanni)
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> Basically, there was a hill on Tim's right, against the Danube, a wood on his left, and a plain in the middle which we fought in.
> Had great fun with Wb on the boats, steaming down the Danube, to disembark and attack some Alamannic Bw I, who were hanging around at the back because of the mass of Wb in the front. The flank of his Wb block was ably defended by the wagon laager.
> Frankish Cv O + Ps S fought against Wb. In the centre, Frankish Wb - 1 rank of S, 3 ranks of O, fought 4 ranks of Wb O - with two S. On Tim's left, my right, was a group of Kn F with a SG, with an ablative shield of Bw I, against my 10 Herul Kn F.
> The game unfolded into a fight where the Wb vs Cv was basically a narrow victory for the Wb - Cv fleeing gives them a real advantage.
> In the big fight in the centre, Tim's Wb proved tougher than mine - bbeing S still does not seem cost effective - losing 1.5 ME rather than 1 makes them too risky, IMO.
> Tim, being more experienced with 1.1/2.0, used an ablative shield of Bw I in front of his Kn F. This meant that the Heruls, despite getting the first charge in, got fled quite often, and the eventual result was a mutual destruction, but the narrow victory in the centre - I needed 2 more Wb to break his central command, but lost 6 elements in one bound of combat, due to overlaps and rolling 1's, maent mine broke 1st.
> A close game, could have gone either way, did show that skirmisher/bow screens are a useful device to get in the habit of.
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Tim Adds:

It was a good fun game, and very close at the end.  Wb vs Wb is really scary, as you die in two ranks all the time, like DBM all over over again.  I'd got used to only going down 1-rank at a time and therefore was very scared as the 4-deep formations thinned rapidly!

Being me I decided to give the "baggage/baggage guards behind TFs"-as-flank-guard a try - I like to do something a little tricksie from time-to-time.  It worked inasmuchas it put Steve off attacking it, but equally it stalled my advance - the camp was effectively 5 elements wide, so my Wb command could not advance past it without opening up my own flank.  As a strategy, you either need something else manouevrable enough to come around and cover the outside, or to use it as a fixed point of a grand army-wheel.

Running a thin line of Bw(I) in front of my own Kn(F) isn't a new idea - it's what I've been doing throughout 1.0 too, in order to get control over the order of impacts.  However, 2.0's (I)-grading probably won me the day on that flank, as my Kn(F) command would have collapsed a bound earlier in 1.0, and therefore might not have had the chance to kill Steve's in return.

The Wb(S)-as-front-rank was an interesting experiment.  As Steve says, he was losing 1.5ME to my 1ME per time.  However, on at least 1 occasion the (S) saved him (new in 2.0), and on 2 occasions the (S) killed my boys (no change from 1.0 there), and I was only 1 kill off losing my army at the end, so it all came down to dice.  In 1.0 I always felt that there was far too much risk putting Wb(S) in the front rank.  In 2.0, the decision is more balanced - I had my 2 elements of (S) in the front rank also, and my generals (to try to get the +1 for generals killing, which I did once), which I would not have dared risk in 1.0.  Actually, the general's +1 with the (S) made his element quite difficult to kill and I felt very happy about having him lead the charge (at least against Wb - I'd not have done it vs Bd or Kn).

The Cv(O) vs 4-deep Wb on the shores of the Danube was a little odd.  I confess that I don't yet know whether I like the effect of that interaction.  The Cv are 4 to the Wb's 3, but flee if beaten in either bound.  Since they're not impetuous, this means that they end up facing the wrong way and are out of range to run back in, and their mates' flanks are exposed.  As it happened, there were no chances to turn Cv flanks as a result, probably because in Steve's bound he was mainly attacking with overlaps at 4:2, so beating him was difficult.  In my bound, however, there were more 3:3s and I fled quite a few of the Cv, and got a few (3?) kills at 3:3 or even 3:2 factors.  If Cv are to take on Wb frontally, they need something else behind that they can flee through - a line of LH would be ideal (or a second line of Reg Cv if the front are Reg Cv), as you want something that the Wb won't KYBOSH if they reach them and that won't die behind the Cv if they end up too close (foot within a base depth will die behind the Cv if the enemy are Wb).

I wasn't convinced by the Bts. I had all 6 and it was too many.  They needed too many PIPs.  1 or 2 would have been just as good I think - all 6 was just a target for Alamannic fire-arrows.  I was really alarmed to find that even a fully-crewed Bts is KYBOSHed by anything, including shooting, when it is in contact with the shoreline.  I had, of course, brought the Bts in to the edge of the Danube to disembark, and was shot at at 4:2(q.k.).  Luckily, Irr Bw(I) take a lot of PIPs to move and so Steve only had one such target before I could get the Wb off (once off, they were in the way and therefore the self-propelling target/shield for the shooting).  I suspect that Reg Bw(anything) could be very effective at preventing a naval landing.