Monday 25 March 2013

Return to Delium 424 BC : New Terrain

As a bit of a break from the WWII 'battalion attack' project I decided to take a fresh view of my recent BBDBA battle of Delium 424 BC in the Peloponnesian War. My last attempt was fun but suffered from a 'magnetic draw to the middle', as opposed to three separate [wing:middle:wing] engagements. I decided it would be fun making a bit of 'bespoke terrain' from the scraps and bits and bits and pieces lying around after the 'battalion attack' board making frenzy.

See below for the "Hill of Delium" and the flanking areas of 'rough' (I chose not to try and include the rivers diorama style as I wanted to keep the terrain simple for the novice players I intended to play it with) that separated the flanks from the hill:  


I mocked up what the overall battlefields should look like (see below):


As a start-up condition (non-standard BBDBA) deployment I was thinking of forcing the lights and cavalry of either side to deploy as a contiguous group to the left and right of the areas of rough group (see the next two photographs below):  


Note: The green cloth was just a "handy" mock-up prop that was not quite big enough but sufficed. 


If the historical Theban Phalanx option was chosen then the Athenians would have a gap to exploit on their right flank.

I was quite pleased with the 'look' of the terrain and the approximation to the challenges of Delium, but what would the players make of it?

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