Ancient campaign turn 2 game 2 - Battle of Vigiliae 215 BC

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. 

Roman armies prepare for battle.

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. 

Terrain cards are revealed.

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.

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.

The first lines are deployed.

Second line deployment.

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.

Basic chance card setup Carthage is blue and Rome is red.

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.

All set for a game.