Back to Basic Impetus (1): "In Search of a Quick Game"

I have a quandary. I wanted to put on the Greeks in Peril 480BC DBA Campaign at my local clubHowever the Hartlepool Club I go to have moved on from DBA to playing Impetus (and in 25mm, but that is a minor point as my 15mm kit can make up the required Impetus army lists too). Trouble is (at least the way I play Impetus) a 'tactical battle game' will take longer than an average game of DBA. Thus a question was raised, "Would a game of Basic Impetus play any quicker?" to fight the tactical battle while retaining the DBA style campaign map?

Some Athenians [commanded a nameless bearded democrat to whom I plied alcohol] landed on a rocky Peloponnesian shore to find out the answer by fighting some Spartans [commanded by me] (see the Spartan army deployed below, with a long wooden measuring stick delimiting the edge of the world). The cunning Athenian commander had placed some nasty terrain in the middle of deployment zone, the alcohol had no quite taken its effect yet, so Sparta to my frustration starts all bunched up and in two ranks of hoplites).      

The Athenians are out of their triremes and waiting for us (see below). Six hoplite formations and three light psilio formations (to use the DBA vernacular).

Sparta needs to move and expand beyond the limitations of the bottleneck of terrain (I also have six hoplite formations but only one unit of lights, but I am of better hoplite quality). The blue markets below denote disorder, but a misreading of the rules misapplied them, they shall mysteriously disappear from later photographs. Explanation [Basic Impetus]: If a unit "moves and wheels" it gets disordered, if it "moves or wheels" then it is OK. I had only wheeled my reel units of hoplites therefore I should not have been disordered.

After a conference of commanders we agree that we have over bulked the light formations using four instead of two standard DBA bases, so they "disappear" and we both agree the visual effect is much more appealing. I am still disordered when I should not be but never mind. The Athenian decides to "worry me" with some lights before I manage to lengthen my line (see below):  

The Athenian lights come into their respective missile ranges (different ones for slings, javelins and bows - which could be viewed as flavour or unnecessary complication depending upon your tastes) and we try and work out how lights can fight and evade, without the Full Impetus "evade" rule. If you move and fight then a movement combat modifier meant you could not hit! How do these lights work?

Well we couldn't quite figure it out, I thought it quite deliberately meant that you were supposed to keep to the flanks and just fight other "lights" or hunker down in bad terrain, and basically don't mess with the Phalanx which was historical. The old Athenian looked rather more perplexed and 'could see no use or reason for them' (perhaps the alcohol was now taking effect!). [Footnote: We found after an overnight read the (-1) combat modifier was not to be applied to the lights so they could 'shoot and move away', but this came too late to save the Athenian Lights as you may have already guessed by the plot spoiler below]

Next: Death of the Light Brigade