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Every unit would need to be weighed on whether it would be better denying the enemy victory points by killing, or retreating as quickly as possible. If a powerful unit can kill 2 weak units, then it's already both made back the VPs it might lose by not escaping and denied the enemy 4 potential VPs, and with a turn 1 charge available, that powerful unit is not going to struggle to kill something. I don't think either full retreat or full attack would be viable strategies compared to using stronger, slower units to take out and screen enemies while weaker, faster units retreat.

But however the lists are built one player has to have fewer units, or both players have equal units, meaning that one or both players will need to attack to win. So while the fleeing side might use their deployment rules to get away faster, the attacking side could similarly use those deployment rules to block the retreat.

I suppose I should have been clearer that the narrative aim of the battle is to retreat in good order to have an army capable of redeploying elsewhere rather than rushing away in a panicked rout, so if fliers/striders chose to break and run it would be because they were abandoning their comrades and making it every man for himself. Also, you make a good point about the specific distances; they could use more playtesting. Since the number of units decides whether you're best fighting or fleeing, the idea was that the side with more units (i.e. the fleeing side) would be forced into the tremor radius while the smaller side chasing them would be better able to dodge the effects, but perhaps the side areas are too generous.

Thanks for the feedback. The intention was that the side with fewer units would need to attack or they would definitely lose, creating all the necessary incentive on its own. Plus, both sides will need to resist the temptation of a first-turn charge with their best units. You're not the first person to say it looks like both sides would just immediately retreat though, so obviously that's not communicated very well in the text.

I really like the idea of the line between objectives having an effect on gameplay. Immediately visually obvious and a solid incentive to inform objective choice and unit movement. Sounds like elegant rules writing.

Well, that's sort of the point. If both sides run, the one with more units automatically wins, so the side with fewer units has a strong incentive to attack instead. If this was a whole-army activation game it'd be more of a problem, but since it's alternating activations the fleeing side can't possibly remove all their units unscathed.

Outstanding formatting and rules clarity here. Very clean presentation, and easy to read and understand.

Thank you for the feedback. The intention was ambiguity about which event came first, to give the impression that this is part of a cycle of revenge attacks, so it's important to know whether that was actually conveyed well enough to pick up.

You asked for more brutally honest feedback on the Discord server so I'll outline my marking scheme.

Concept & Originality: I partly rate this on how it fits into the universe, since many stories can be Warhammer with a few name changes. Characters acting outside of the way their faction "should" behave is no bad thing, but the concept of a Dark Elf pulling rank, so to speak, and leveraging their father's connections is something that seems to fit more into the WH40k canon than that of One Page Rules. At best, the scene had nothing in particular that made the dwarf uniquely dwarven nor the dark elf uniquely dark elven. It was just any dad murdering any man who had attacked his daughter. As for the concept, well, an angry dad revenge fantasy on his daughter's assailant is pretty well-trod ground. From my marking scheme I gave this 2 stars: "Very standard story with no new elements".

Flow & Clarity: The flow of the story is not my favourite, simply because the elf being hit by a hammer once while the dwarf shouts about how angry he is about his daughter would have been plenty for me to grasp the situation. Perhaps a time jump to where the characters are explaining the political reality, and thus what the dwarf is sacrificing by choosing to kill the elf, would have broken things up, but as it was it felt like we knew the elf was losing the fight from the first paragraph, and too much time was given to describing a concept I already understood. Grammar and spelling, however, had no problems. I rated this 3 stars: "3. Obvious errors or flaws in pacing, but not enough to impact understanding of the story."

Adherence to the Theme: Not only was the theme of Consequences addressed, it was addressed on two levels - both the consequences of the elf's actions and the consequences the dwarf is choosing to accept. This was about as closely adherent to the theme as I've seen so far, so I gave it 5 stars: "Theme the most important part of the story and explored on more than one level."

I really liked the set-up of the God-Queen's vision and the unexpected payoff.

I see we both submitted a story about backstabbing in Vincian acadaemia. I hope this doesn't end with us taking credit for each other's work and sending assassini after each other.