I was hoping someone could point me in the right direction to tackle my scenario.

A client wants to sell his wine, but wants to provide a discount to a case (12 bottles) of wine. Also, he wants to provide free shipping to purchases of 3 or more bottles (including cases).

Scenario one:
I was thinking of setting up 2 products types: an individual bottle and a case, but had a difficult time trying to create a shipping rule that would not only recognize the # of items in the order, but also the type of item (bottle or case) in the order. For some reason, when I tried to add "type of item" in cart to the condition, it didn't properly recognize the type of product and therefore did not apply the correct shipping price. In this scenario, if I cannot differentiate between bottle and case, then it will count 1 case of wine as one item and therefore charge for shipping, when it should not.

Scenario two:
I was thinking of just setting the store up with one product type: bottles. This way I can easily set up a pricing rule to discount a case of bottles (12) and provide free shipping for 3 or more bottles. But, this doesn't quite work if someone buys 13 bottles (or a case and one bottle). I was planning on just providing a discount for 12+ bottles, but the client may not totally like this. He may want a discounted price on only cases and charge full price for individual bottles, so 13 bottles would be a discounted case and a full-priced bottle of wine. This does solve my shipping issue though...

Any pointers or suggestions someone might have would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks a ton!!!