Clicks of a mouse

All being well, the Ilkley Lads' demo game for Sheffield Triples (21st & 22nd May 2011) will be the Battle of Lake Trasimene 217 BC. Although I still have plenty of figures to paint for the battle (the bright bits of paper under troops show the footprint of these figures) and some terrain to make, I thought it was time to roughly set out the troops on my table to get an idea of the layout I'll do.

Please forgive the very rough looking hill shapes, the terrain colour and the lake edge (the white strips of card), but eye candy was not my prime concern here. I'll cut out the actual hill shapes (over which I'll throw a green cloth) and make the lake closer to the event. There are no trees on the table either, which will change the look quite a lot.

I think this is the basic layout of the battle I'll use, but if you have any observations or suggestions that would make the game better, I'd like to hear them.

This is the overall deployment. The Romans are centre left and just climbing the hill in the foreground, the Carthaginians are in a crescent surrounding them. The lake is on the extreme left (white card border).

The head of the Roman column. Here the extraordinarii are beginning to climb the hill to engage what they believe is the Carthaginian rear guard of skirmishers. The first Roman legion and first ala have deployed into three line battle formation to support this attack. Hannibal's veteran Spanish and Libyans are lining the hills immediately to the right of their skirmishers.

The Roman column marching up the defile with the Carthaginians lying in wait on their flank. I have decided to include Sempronius' force (remnants of Trebbia) at the rear of the column for a total of 6 Roman legions / ala. They are only mentioned by Livy(and Mark Healey's Osprey?), but I've included them to increase the 'mass' of the column and give the Romans a better chance. The Gauls can be seen occupying the gullies and spurs in the centre of the Carthaginian line, "Zulus, sir, thousands of 'em....."

The rear of the column has entered the defile and the Spanish and Numidian cavalry are deployed to close any escape route to the rear.

OK. So what do you think?

Are the 'terrain lines' about right?

What do you think of the deployments at the head of the column - do they look like a reasonable hypothesis of what would be happening following the initial contact by the extraordinarii?

I've used most of my reference books as sources, picking and choosing the bits I want to use from each. A list of the books can be found in this blog's 'labels' section (see book lists).

Your thoughts please,

James

Figures are almost all Renegade 28s, The table is 12' x 6'. One figure represents about 60 men (ish).

At the beginning of June I posted my painting schedule for my Punic Wars project. The plan was to paint 720 figures by the end of November. It is now the beginning of January and I've only managed 464. Why?

I could claim excuse for several reasons, but most would be dismissed by a right minded boss without hesitation (work load, family, etc.). The real reasons are three fold:

I committed the cardinal sin. I got side tracked by things new and shiny (see WWII stuff).
I committed to several other wargames related activities (articles, etc.) and found my spare time too thinly spread.
Thirdly, I got bored with things Punic.

The last thing is not something new, I often get bored half way through a project and it is a 'lull' I build into my overall deadlines. But, the new shiny stuff and the articles gave me an excuse to escape the project for longer than usual. Big mistake!

I can't change the overall completion date for the whole Punic Wars project (or, why have one?) so I finished the WWII stuff to a good break point (22nd Armoured Brigade Group) and then put it all away. I got back into the Punic Wars saddle and took out a batch of Gauls. As self punishment I made it a big batch. I finished it on my Birthday (New Years eve). It has done me good - I've already started the projected cavalry and aim to finish them quickly. The project is still do-able, but I can't take another break now.

Anyway, the new painted stuff.