I played with my new toys for the first time last night. Mark D, Dr. Ken and Graham H came round and we played Trebbia using bastardised Command and Colours (board game) rules.
The game went very well. It was over to full conclusion (we played for 10 flags each) in two hours, which is not bad for a game involving over 40 units. If it had been a one on one game it would have taken half an hour less - at a guess.
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The bolt on rules for moving command groups, rather than units, had a few initial niggles. But these were soon resolved. The extra rules for pilum, veterans, skirmish, 'out of ammo', strong / weak units and manipular formation worked very well from the off. All in all, I enjoyed the battle very much; which considering it was the rule systems first outing surprised me a little. I put this down to the very strong core mechanics of Command and Colours rather than anything I did.
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The biggest change I made to the rules, was to do away with table sectors. Instead, groups of units (some groups were just 1 unit) were brigaded together into commands. Each command was given a sector title (e.g. the 4 units of velites were brigaded as a command and given the prefix 'centre'). Command groups could move for a single activation providing a unit was within 3" of another - 'linked'. If the gap widened the unit was 'out of command' and cost a separate activation. 'Battle' was treated slightly differently: Regardless of the commands activated, the number of units that could battle was equal to activation points (e.g. the four units of velites could move for a single activation, but if the card was 'two units centre' only 2 units of velites could resolve battle). This allowed, especially early on in the battle, whole chunks of the battle lines to advance - which to my mind looked more historical - but slowed down the wholesale slaughter very nicely.
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The Carthaginians (Mark D and I) won the battle ten flags to six. The Romans, having had a dice knocked off their combat ability for being cold, wet, hungry and tired, could rightly claim a 'game draw' - but I'll claim a Carthaginian victory anyway.