It seems being able to achieve a flank march with anything else rather than Formed flexables or Sugs is nigh on impossible.

You get punished
1 for not having the units on the table,
2 having a smaller break point to your army
3 not able to use the tokens as a discard, to at least have some control over the battlefield initiative

On the weekend had a flank march with a talented general and 3 units of loose formation cavalry, to not appear for the whole duration of the game at least 12 turns.
It took approximately 4 turns to even get 1 red that is a cycle of 16 cards
then the rest of the game no red for another 8 turns that's a cycle of 24 cards

As currently written flanking is really a waste of time to try to implement as a tactic.
If the tokens could be at least still used as a discard (imagine the army is buying time for the flank march to appear) it would still be better than now.

So I ask those who are much more talented than myself in maths what are the odds of 1 general talented able to get 2 red cards if there are 8 generals in play with a total of 28 cards that can be dealt a round (including the flanking general)

The odds are probably even less than a mathematician may calculate, because quite often players start hoarding red cards rather than playing them when they see their opponent has a flank march. 

Quote from: accard on August 15, 2022, 07:40:11 AM
The odds are probably even less than a mathematician may calculate, because quite often players start hoarding red cards rather than playing them when they see their opponent has a flank march. 

Well, on the plus side, at least it stops your opponent from using those red cards.

Assuming your opponent is not hoarding red cards (and you remembered to discard any reds your other generals didn't use):

The chance of going 3 turns without a red is about 20% - slightly more likely than rolling a skull on a green dice.

The chance, when you have 1 red in hand, of going another 8 turns with no 2nd red is about 4%.

So you were pretty unlucky.

Surely flank marches come into their own when your opponent has some dense terrain that their using as a defensive feature to give them an advantage. 
The flank march can be used to get in behind it and nullify the defensive feature, plus they're unlikely to want to voluntarily give up such an advantageous position to launch an attack of their own.
Granted you rarely seem to see such dense terrain in tournament games which is probably more to the point of why the flank march seems like such a poor option.

Quote from: LawrenceG on August 15, 2022, 08:52:56 AM
Assuming your opponent is not hoarding red cards (and you remembered to discard any reds your other generals didn't use):

The chance of going 3 turns without a red is about 20% - slightly more likely than rolling a skull on a green dice.

The chance, when you have 1 red in hand, of going another 8 turns with no 2nd red is about 4%.

So you were pretty unlucky.

Spot on.  So flank marches by flexibles with a competent+ or cavalry with a talented are very likely to come on.  Don't flank march foot with a mediocre! Odds of not getting a 3rd red = 100%

If the board is closed down with terrain and secure flanks why flank march? If the board is open why flank mark off table? You can achieve the same on table.

Quote from: rayfredjohn on September 03, 2022, 01:49:34 PM
If the board is closed down with terrain and secure flanks why flank march? If the board is open why flank mark off table? You can achieve the same on table.

Apart from Deep Water you can still arrive with a flank march onto a secure flank; people often seem to forget or discount this and so if there is a suitable route it can work nicely.

On an open board it would probably depend on how wide your opponents army can be.

As you know, it's too easy to close off the flank in your own half if you put a max size piece of terrain down as a secure flank.

You don't need to come on in the opponents half for a flank march to be effective.

Also you can come on through the terrain and if, for example, Flexible horse archers coming on in Skirmish formation this can mean a reasonable move depending on what terrain is down. Again, something I think people don't always think about and it can surprise them.

Flank marches worked pretty well for my last tournament - but I did use a TuG of flexible Mongols with a competent general.

Only time I've used a flank march was before I'd read the rules properly. Sent two units of Pictish chariots around Simon's flank. Clearly ignorance has its benefits. They arrived and charged into Simon's  rear. Unfortunately with half a base to break Simon's army, he broke mine.

I did two flank marches with a competent general ad the 2 Hunnic Tugs in my Foederate Romans.  Both took some time to arrive but did in the end and helped decide both games.

Unless playing a scenario it really is the domain of mounted skirmishers and flexibles - which is surely right.