Flank march

[John Meunier]

Okay, so it was an April Fools joke, but I liked the fake flank march rule too.

Aggression 3 or 4 armies can hold 0-4 elements back that can then enter on a flank if they score 6 pips.

I always liked the flank march rules in DBM. Of course, I like hidden deployment too.

[imported_JamesLDIII]

I wouldn't limit flank marches to aggression 3 or 4 armies. These are armies that historically invaded their enemies, which is not the same thing as historically conducting flank marches/attacks.

In my heretical rules variant I had each side roll, similar to DBM, to determine what type of battle the game would be. I offered modifiers for better generals, remaining in the same locatiion (for campaigns), and number of scouts. A tie meant an encounter battle, either side winning by a number of points, a set piece battle, but the higher rolling player could have ambushes (hidden deployment similar to DBM) if the defender, and flank marches (mostly as you describe) if the attacker. If the difference was extremely high, the battle would be an ambush.

This gave every army an opportunity to conduct a flank march.

[John Meunier]

You may be correct about lower aggression armies, but in the spirit of full disclosure: I like the idea because I play Later Carthaginian (Agg 3) and believe the tabletop flank march well represents things that Hannibal actually did.