The Violent Schoolmaster Tactical Series is CSL’s brand new take on combat from the prehistoric to the late 16th century. 490 BC: Marathon is an introduction module to the series and allows players to affordably experiment with VSTS and to re-fight one of military history’s most decisive moment, the battle of Marathon in 490 BC.

The Violent Schoolmaster Tactical Series is inspired by the Pre-Seventeenth Century Tactical Game System or PRESTAGS from SPI, Great Battles of History from GMT and Battle Hymn from Compass Games. Wings of each army are activated by chit pull; the combat phase is also initiated by a chit pull followed by an ongoing melee phase after all chits have been pulled. While ranged combat uses a traditional CRT type mechanic, melee combat has players rolling a handful of d10’s in search of “hits” against their opponent, dividing the number of dice thrown between all enemy units in front hexes. The base chance for hits depends on the morale of the units involved as well as facing, terrain, the presence of leadership, and more. Units absorb Disruption Points and as they do so, become progressively susceptible to Routing, automatically routing once they reach a level of Disruption Points equal to their Strength Points. Exclusive Rules for Marathon are focused on recreating the various speculative conditions academics have argued about in relation to Hoplite combat, Phalanxes drift to the right when mobile, Phalanxes advance at variable rates towards an enemy, Locking Shields as a tactic to create a more shock-resistant Phalanx, as well as loose-formation rules for Phalanxes which allow for limited stacking combined with more maneuverable units. Many of these exclusive rules, if not all, will be present in the first full game of the series considering 4 Battles from Lacedaemonian (Spartan) history.

-Grant