He unrolled a second, blood-stained sheet. “Maceman. Cost: 20 gold. Attack: 25 (crushing type, ignores 2 points of armour). Speed: 14. He’s weak against arrows. But against a slow, armoured Templar? He lands three hits for every one of the knight’s. It’s not power that wins. It’s frames .”

“Exactly!” Al-Rashid’s eyes gleamed. “But the counter is not what you think. You would send archers. But archers have a pierce value of only 20. A Templar’s armour negates it entirely. No. The true killer of a Templar is the Maceman .”

He rolled up the parchments and handed them to the Emir.

“My lord,” Al-Rashid whispered, unrolling a massive, meticulously drawn parchment. “I have finished the calculus of blood.”