Tactical wargame: Movement by card mechanic

I am designing a game similar to Battle Master and I am using Battle Master as a test prototype for certain mechanics.

I want to design a card system that determines which unit will play that is better than the card system in battle master. I have found 2 solutions so far, you are free to comment.

In battle master, each card shows different type of units (ex: Men at arms, archers, cavalry). When the card is played, you play all unit with the matching unit type.

The problem with this system is the lack of flexibility in the army configuration which was not a problem in the original game since both sides were fixed. The second problem is that it incite the player to have the less unit type possible to make sure they can play them most of the time.

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Solution 1

My first idea is that each unit in play will have a unique ID with 3 cards that are going to be placed in a deck. Player will draw X cards and play Y cards on his turn.

X is equal to the number of units in play / 2 round up
Y is equal to the number of cards in hand / 2 round up
(ex: 10 units = draw 5 cards and play 3).

During a player's turn, playing a unit card means that this unit is going to move and/or attack.

When a unit is attacked, the defender can play the card matching the unit attacked ( if he has it) to counter-attack

When the unit dies, they cards are removed from the deck when drawn.

Some cards would have special abilities that other cards of the same unit does not have. The card decide when the ability triggers.

The problem with this system is that I could end up easily with too many cards. For example, If I want 8 races that each possess 8 unit types in a maximum of 4 copies. I end up with 8x8x4x3= 768 cards. So I was wondering if there was an easier way to do this

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Solution 2

My second idea is to have 1 card for each unit to reduce the number of required cards (8x8x4=256). The number of cards drawn and played is the same.

But now the cards would get reshuffled every 2 turns.

I made some calculations, you would play 50% of your units every turn and 75% of them would have received a chance to move or counter attack while 25% would not have been able to do anything.

Now it makes each player much more predictable because you know that if a unit has been played this turn, it won't be able to counter-attack or move again the next turn, which somewhat makes sense.

To make sure a unit does not get stuck not to be able to move at all (like in memoir 44), I was thinking of allowing to play any card to make a unit withdraw or engage an adjacent enemy. This way, the units you do not draw can still do something.

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What do you think?
Do you prefer a method over the other.