Abilities
Proelium - The Proelium is the cornerstone of the Carolingian battle board, and nearly all the advanced SAGA abilities rely on the number of dice left in the Proelium in some way. How it works is fairly straightforward. You leave up to three dice on the Proelium, each showing a different symbol. You'll probably want to keep them there as long as possible, since your abilities are more powerful the more dice are in the Proelium.
Combat Bonus - A very strong basic SAGA ability. You add attack or defense dice equal to the number of dice in your Proelium, then discard a die from the Proelium. Needless to say, this is significantly better than most factions' Combat Bonus, though the returns diminish each time you use it until you can fill up your Proelium again.
You should think about using your Combat Bonus every turn, usually late in the turn, and if my recent Mathaga post can be trusted, usually on defense dice. You probably won't use it more than once, and you shouldn't use it more than twice, since replenishing the rare Proelium die is more costly than the other two.
Domine - Domine is very strong if you have the rare die to spare for it. It can be used to trigger any of your single-die melee, shooting, or shooting/reaction abilities, and it allows you to double up on a given ability. Using Fortis twice in one turn, for example, can cause terrible damage, while keeping you safe. Using Vinco or Potentia twice at range can also do a tremendous amount of damage.
Apart from using it to double up on a powerful ability, it can be used to react to your opponent's decisions as you see fit. If you're unsure what your opponent will do, it's good to be able to choose from among your abilities. You'll probably pick Fortis in melee, but Defensor can be used against shooting.
Paratus - Paratus is worthwhile for recharging the rare die in your Proelium, or for ensuring that you can use Damnatio. Often using Domine (or Fortis) isn't worth two dice, but in the right circumstances, it can be. Damnatio is extremely strong, however, and keeping your Proelium full is always a priority.
Damnatio - An expensive ability, but a very good one. Select an enemy unit to use it on, and fill it with attack dice. If your Proelium is full, you'll be able to affect most units your opponents will field, so keep the Proelium full.
You'll mostly use Damnatio on a target your ranged units can reach. Frankish archers and crossbows can wreak havoc with a +1 to hit bonus. After softening up the enemy, you'll send in a melee unit, mostly likely mounted hearthguard, to finish them off. This will be a little different for Merovingians, who will use more javelin shooting, and might finish the enemy with a charge from mounted warriors, but the principle is the same: pick a unit, and throw as much fury its way as you can.
You should use Damnatio any turn you have a good target for it. A unit within range of multiple archer units and at least one cavalry unit is enough to make Damnatio a priority ability. Note that Damnatio does affect mercenaries if you've taken them.
Vires - An odd ability, and one that's tough to get the best use out of. On its surface, it seems like you'll want to empty out your Proelium at the start of your opponent's turn, and put 4 dice on your various (primarily defensive) abilities. But all of those rely on having dice in your Proelium. So if you want to use Vires as an Orders/Reaction, know that you'll be putting at least one of those dice right back into the Proelium. That's not a bad thing if it lets you get dice on the defensive abilities you need after your own turn. You'll just lose out on a couple dice worth of abilities so that the abilities you do trigger will actually work.
Alternately, you can use Vires in your own Orders phase to get more dice. You might want to put a couple of them back into your Proelium, or you might want to put them all into activations, and suddenly have a very active turn. A lot of your battle board will spend the turn out of commission if you do that, however.
If you're missing a symbol from your Proelium, Vires gives you an opportunity to reroll, which could be good.
Overall, I'm not sure I'd take a risk on Vires, especially if I know my full Proelium will serve me. I'll have to get into a game situation, and see how it goes.
Illusio - A good ability that lets your units get into melee at long range without building up fatigue. It only works on small units (up to twice your Proelium), but it can be quite powerful.
I see this as mainly an ability for hearthguard, which warriors will use against targets a small unit can handle. Hearthguard should be able to handle most opposing units with it. In my mind, it's one of the better reasons to take hearthguard with the Carolingians, and works especially well if they're mounted. Use it whenever it'll get a good unit into melee with something it can beat up.
Ardor - Ardor pays you back for cramming your Proelium full of dice: you can activate one unit per die in your Proelium for movement or shooting, which doesn't generate fatigue. This is extremely powerful, and should be used every turn, almost without exception.
With Ardor, your archers can fire twice without generating fatigue. Your mounted hearthguard units can use Ardor and Illusio to charge into combat from 36" away without generating fatigue. This is an incredible ability, and it opens up your tactical options extremely well.
Defensor - A very solid defensive ability which you'll use quite often. You should put a die here most turns, and use it before using your Combat Bonus. It's excellent for keeping any kind of soldier alive.
You'll probably get the most use out of it when you charge your small units of hearthguard into an enemy which can seriously hurt them. Then 3-4 extra defense dice are great. Use it, then your Combat Bonus to get up to 7 extra defense dice for only 2 SAGA dice (plus one from your Proelium).
Vinco - A very solid ability which can boost your ranged or melee damage quite nicely. Use it early in the turn or melee, before you've tapped into your Combat Bonus to get two extra hits instead of just one. You'll probably use this whenever you have the uncommon die to spare for it.
This is good both in melee and at range. Your archer units are excellent at triggering it, though it tends to do more damage in melee (due to melee defense dice being weaker). It's always worth considering.
Potentia - This is generally at its most useful in melee with hearthguard, where you'll be throwing enough dice for the rerolls to give you a good bonus. In general, you should trigger it whenever it seems likely that you'll miss with dice equal to or greater than twice your Proelium.
In general, Vinco is better, but Potentia is much easier to use, and if you're throwing enough attack dice, it can be equivalent to getting an extra six, which is very impressive for a single die of any type. As with most of your melee and shooting abilities, use it before using Combat bonus, because it'll lose power as your Proelium dries up.
Fortis - What a great ability, and the only real competition it has for the flag is Damnatio and filling out your Proelium. You should almost always choose defense dice if your opponent has any to discard during step 3. If you recall from my latest Mathaga post, it's usually better to gain defense dice than attack dice. Well, it's definitely usually better to take away your opponent's defense dice than their attack dice too, especially when you'll be gaining more defense dice of your own. If your opponent hasn't gained defense dice, though, picking attack is also very good.
This ability can cause a unit to crumble much faster than it usually would. Use it whenever you can with your hearthguard to charge in and break something valuable. It's better than any of your other melee abilities by a long measure. It'll be one of your best tools, and it is worth using Paratus to trigger it on a critical turn.
Overview
The Carolingian battle board emphasizes adaptability, with plenty of ways to add both attack dice and defense dice. Several of your abilities let you choose whether to use them offensively or defensively, including a Combat Bonus that's far superior to what most factions can muster. The abilities you have which are focused on either offense or defense are among the best available to any faction. However, all this power and flexibility comes at a cost: the Proelium. Most of your abilities require dice in the Proelium to function at all, and to function at full power, they need the Proelium to be full.
This means you need to pick your battles. You won't have the dice to spare on activations to do everything you want or need to do. In fact, with 3 dice on the Proelium and one on Ardor (always use Ardor), you have a maximum of four dice for other abilities and activations. Choose a part of the table to focus your power on, unload your excellent offensive abilities, and prepare for the opponent's turn with your equally strong defensive ones. Just a handful of decisive activations where you need them can do a lot for you, however, and if you don't overextend, you won't find your units isolated in multiple combats which you can't sustain the way your opponents often can.
Other than that, your flexibility allows you to react well to any tactics you require, and combined with your versatile troop options, your abilities will let you put the tools you need where you need them. I'm not sure what will give Carolingians and the other Frankish subfactions the most trouble yet. It might be opponents who can swamp them with numbers, or it might be opponents with good reactive abilities like the Normans and Welsh, who can trash a strategy you've set up with your limited activation dice using the abilities which let them reposition quickly during your turn. I'll have to play with and against them more to find out.
Until next time.
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