The second campaign battle of turn 2 has Hannibal in Southern Italy with a couple of armies facing three Roman armies. This post is just covering the set up of the game, and the game report will follow once the imaginary Battle of Vigiliae 215 BC gets to be played.
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| Roman armies prepare for battle. |
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| The campaign map - the area of focus is Southern Italy where Hannibal has two armies vs. Rome's three armies. |
The tabletop layout was determined by terrain cards. Four terrain features were randomly picked and added to four blank cards. These were then shuffled and six cards placed to represent a 6x4 foot tabletop. If there is no opposing feature on the flank sides, then the feature is moved to the middle.
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| Terrain cards are revealed. |
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The flanks did not have opposing features and the features will be positioned equal distance from each table base edge. This approach of centring does not apply to the centre, even when there is no opposing feature.
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| The tabletop is setup. I have added some rocks to the hills so they stand out in the photos. |
A coin flip gave Rome the option of choosing sides. They picked the side with the large centre hill. While Carthage won the deployment flip and opted for the Roman commander to begin deployment. The deployment rules can be found here.
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| The first lines are deployed. |
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| Second line deployment. |
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| Third line deployment. (Hannibal is with his heavy cavalry top right.) |
The final step was to prepare the chance card decks for each army. I began with the standard deck for each army. There are slight differences between decks for "initiative", "rally", "confusion", and "no ammo" cards (see first photo). These then get adjusted for the campaign situation. For Rome they get two additional "Rally" cards replacing two "no event" cards for having two additional armies in the region.
Carthage gets one additional "Rally" cards replacing a "no event" card for having one additional army in the region. They also have an exceptional leader in Hannibal and will replace a "confusion" card with an "initiative" card.
Note - while the campaign only has exceptional leaders. In a game with good leaders one "initiative" card would replace a "no effect" card.
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| Basic chance card setup Carthage is blue and Rome is red. |
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| The chance cards after adjusting for armies and exceptional leaders. |
The game is now setup, and I now need to spend some time out in the garden to reduce the number of weeds. All being well I will find some time later to play the game.
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| All set for a game. |
I really like the three-line deployment, and look forward to trying them, although I would likely have to go back to smaller 12-figure foot units to make it work (or double the number of painted figs).
ReplyDeleteIn these games I have 7 units per side. I find this number works best with the larger units and size of tabletop. I did have to paint some extra bases so each unit can have 3 bases.
DeletePeter, that looks an interesting situation. The rule for centred terrain when unopposed is a gem. Hope it pours down with rain so that you can abandon the weeding early :-)
ReplyDeleteThis approach addresses the one challenge with terrain cards where you don't get terrain features mid point between armies. The mid point terrain feature gives the armies something to fight over. No rain and the weeding is a never ending task at the moment.
DeleteWeeding is, indeed, a never ending task.
DeleteA bit like painting the lead pile ;-)
DeleteThis is a great intro and setup for your game.
ReplyDeleteThanks. I do like having the deployment rules as they add another layer to the game.
DeleteWot no elephants?
ReplyDeleteHannibal will have his work cut out as that Roman heavy infantry looks pretty immovable on that hill.
I was thinking that in your card swapping for extra armies you could choose to ignore newly raised armies or risk using untrained troops and replace a 'no event' card with either 'rally' or a 'confusion' card (on the toss of coin)?
I too was disappointed not to have elephants after seeing the Roman position, but that be the fickle nature of dice rolls. Including risk of newly troops into the cards is an interesting idea, not just for this but for some of my other games where chance cards are used.
DeleteI'm anticipating another thrilling battle, it will interesting to see how the presence of the great Hannibal affects things.
ReplyDeleteIt will be interesting to see how the chance cards play out with an initiative card replacing a confusion card for Hannibal's forces.
DeleteLooks great, especially with only having 7 units per side!
ReplyDeleteI am enjoying playing with seven unit and particularly like being able to field larger units.
DeleteI'm looking forward to this very much.
ReplyDeleteAll being well it should be a good game.
DeleteYour ideas are always interesting! Table looks good, too.
ReplyDeleteThank you kindly.
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