VISUALIZING BATTLES
1201. The most significant aspect of visualizing a battle is to be aware of how long it will take your - and your opponents - troops to cover the ground between them.
1202 Normal heavy foot start at 10 MU in, and so will take (48-10)/3 = 13 turns of uninterrupted movement to cross a totally blank board. Cavalry will take 6 turns, MF will take 10. Every situation where your troops enter into combat will add at least 2 turns to the time taken to move from A to B. Every piece of terrain that slows down adds delay and time. In a "normal" 3.5 hour game it therefore may be difficult for an infantry army to move completely across the table even with only light opposition - worth bearing in mind if your plan involves capturing the enemy baggage.
1203 If you plan depends on getting key troops from A to B you must work on creating opportunities for them to double move - allocating them a general, and making sure than an enemy cannot move up to prevent their 2nd move. When making 2nd moves, you will be forced to stop 6 MU short of any opposition - meaning it can be a further 4 turns of melee before the new arrivals are in a position to contribute to any ongoing combats. Reinforcements can therefore easily end up arriving too late, and it may be better to sacrifice units to delay the enemy and move the rest of your forces away rather than try to throw more troops into a weakening area.
1204 If your troops move faster, or even as fast than the enemy, they can often simply turn and move away from bad matchups. This will draw an enemy out of position as well as buying you time to win elsewhere.
1205. Often terrain will create clear and obvious routes for an enemy to attack down - and most times they will take that route. If you are going to try and be clever and outflank an approach route, remember that you still need to be able to oppose and slow the enemy's main thrust to create time to outflank them - and that even overcoming a lone enemy unit occupying key terrain can be a time consuming process in itself.
1206. If your plan involves the classic "delay in the center, crush the flanks" approach, be conscious that it can take a long time to win on a flank and turn into the center. Even for drilled troops it will take 2-4 rounds of combat to achieve a victory, possibly 1-2 phases of pursuit, and then 2-3 phases of turning and moving back towards the middle. This can easily be more than enough time for your opponent to crush your center and move on, and can take even longer if you are trying to envelop with undrilled troops.
1207. If you are delaying in the center, few if any troop types can expect to fight against the odds for long periods of time. Delaying therefore usually means "avoiding fighting whist still posing a credible threat". Just because the Gauls in Hannibals army managed it at Cannae doesn't mean your troops can hope to do the same in FoG.
12.08. Bear in mind the actual table width. In FoG deployment zones are measured from the back of the table, not the center. An oversize board will mean your troops start further apart - adding to the time it will take for troops to cross the table, which can be important if you aim to pin back the enemy or push them off the opposite side.
Visualizing the start of the Game
1230. One of the key decision is whether to attempt to move first or choose terrain. Your chances of affecting this depend mainly on whether you take an IC (for +2 in initiative) or if you have the option to tweak your mounted numbers top be over/below the thresholds of 12 (+1) and 24 (+2).
1231. Winning initiative does more than just allow you to control the deployment of terrain. They also get to see all of their opponents deployment before deploying key troops, and get to see their first move to get an idea of their battle plan. A highly mobile army with large numbers of mounted can then react quickly to counter any enemy battle plan.
1232. Losing initiative has its uses if you can move first to pin the enemy back. But in general many armies with low initiative inevitably have not enough quality mounted to advance in a solid line. Their most forward troops will often be light foot that can become unsupported due to moving too far forwards. The probably lack of an IC also means any shooters will struggle in a shooting battle as they will be missing the IC Umbrella.
1233. Chariots or MF are often the best troops for advancing rapidly with low initiative.
