Lost Battles: Setting up Bibracte

I had not planned to have a go with "Lost Battles" yet. I was spurred to it by an email discussion with e-friends about rules for ancients. "I'm keen to try Lost Battles," I said, "but won't get to them for a while yet."

But why not?

I don't have to wait until I have figures painted to do a solo game. While it will not look as good, I can still have an enjoyable game and start to get to know the model in some detail.

So, much of the weekend was spent preparing and undercoating most of my Celt/Gaul warriors on foot so that I could field the required forces for the scenario in the book (and a few more besides). I already had a few part-painted cavalry figures to use for both sides and enough painted/part-painted figures for the Romans.

Overview of the table from the Roman side. I copied the rules section of the book to make a separate rules booklet and also have the Strategos II booklet from the Society of Ancients for the same purpose.

Today I had an unexpected day off, so took the opportunity to clear the table—re-arranging the now 2 470 figures in my active painting queue (which includes the Celt/Gauls), giving the place a spruce up and then setting up the terrain.

The first thing that struck me (and surprised me) is how large the required area is. One of the many clever and elegant aspects of Lost Battles is that they are self-scaling. Using my figures based on their large, 120 mm-wide bases (from Impetus), each zone of 1 000 m  x 1 000 m ends up being 500 mm x 500 mm on the table, giving a total area of 2.5 m x 2 m (width x depth) for the game to encompass the battle's 5 km x 4 km deep area.

In some respects, having the Celt/Gauls only undercoated seems a bit fitting as they appear to the Romans as a big mass of faceless warriors, bringing back distant memories of Brennus. One can spin a story to fit anything...!

To the Romans the Helvetii/Boii/Tulingi force appears as a dark mass of faces scary barbarians.

While to the Celt/Gauls, the Romans are strangely urbane!

For this first go at the rules and scenario, I have set up the armies as Philip Sabin has them in the map in the book. That is, after deployment has been completed by both sides (except for three Roman legionary 'units'). I plan to include deployment, which is a particular strength of Lost Battles, I reckon, in a future re-run.

All going well I'll begin the game/simulation tomorrow afternoon/evening.