May / June 2015 Lite Challenge: Training at the River Bend

[RedKettle]

Well, I guess I can get the party started!

I have been looking for an excuse to do a battle map for a little while now, and this looks like a good excuse for me to jump in and figure it out!

The idea behind this entry comes from a story I started writing a few years ago. There is a world with magic where a magic user is drafted into a Roman Empire-ish army. He's not happy to be there but tries to make the most of a bad situation. The first real campaign he is on he is in charge of about 160 soldiers, with about 1/4 being new recruits. To get the recruits used to moving while shielded by the magickers, our officer does the responsible thing and sets up some training sessions in open fields as they march towards the border of the empire.

During this training session, some of the higher ranking officers get annoyed that this guy is always drilling his troops, so they set up a larger impromptu training session, bringing in troops from other units of the army. To make sure our intrepid young officer learns a lesson, and to ensure their own victory, they plan an ambush from both flanks in the middle of the now expanded exercise.

I've quickly drawn out a diagrammatic graphic below for those like me who are just here for the pretty pictures! :p

The 'main defending force' in blue are the original participants. The attack forces in red and the one blue force on the west side of the river are all troops that show up as part of the later larger exercise. Originally the 'main attacking force' is the only one visible to the defenders. The defenders are tasked with defending the bridge while their aux. force crosses to join them. Once that force crosses the bridge the attackers spring their ambush, revealing their two ambushing forces. By this time our officer is taking the drill much too seriously and ends up freezing the river into a big ice wall flooding the main attacking force and creating a sheltered retreat path for his troops back to the west side of the river.

### Latest WIP ###


I imagine there will be about 4 different positions I want to show for the different units of troops, but I don't know if I want/can fit it all on one map, or if I should break it up into 4 separate maps.

I probably won't update this until about mid-week next week, so hopefully I can figure out what this will look like by then!

[ChickPea]

Hey, welcome to the challenge! This looks interesting and I like your backstory. I'm feeling sorry for your main guy drafted into a situation where he doesn't want to be LOL! Looking forward to seeing your map fill out some more.

[JefBT]

That's a good start! And very good backstory!

[Bogie]

Welcome to the challenge, interesting idea, can't wait to see what you do with it.

[RedKettle]

Thanks for the comments ChickPea, JefBT and Bogie!

A little bit of progress, I have 'cartooned' out the action into about 4 steps.

I would have turned these into an animated .gif but I have never made one of those before and don't want to distract myself too much!


I realized after making these that the troops will have to be a little smaller relative to the terrain I have marked, so for now I am switching to showing the soldiers diagrammatically.

I have begun redrawing this, and my goal is to see if I can get all 4 steps of the action squeezed onto the same page somehow.

I am still not sure what style I will do yet. I am thinking about maybe making it look like an after-action report done by one of the officers involved, summarizing the exercise. I feel like I will have to see if I can find some maps of battles with the right symbol types to make sure I don't lose too much clarity, as I can feel that this will already be tough to follow visually. Any suggestions on this front are welcome!

### Latest WIP ###

[ChickPea]

Wow, you're certainly putting in the work! I have no experience with battle maps and am not sure what's the best direction to take. Deciding what to include and what to leave out is one of the challenges of map-making, because you don't always have space for everything. Hopefully someone else will have some suggestions for you.