Pre-game terrain maps

 The Optio pre-game is a way of choosing terrain that corresponds more to reality - generals marching and countermarching until they found a bit of ground they were happy to fight on. This is a way of turning those complicated and arbitrary rules for dicing for terrain into an operational game in which players try to manoeuvre their opponents onto terrain that favours them. The game usually lasts about 5 minutes and is not complicated.

In the pre-game a player's army is represented by a block with another block as a scout and two blocks as dummies. I'll do a post on it some time. Just a quickie for now (Christmas Day and all that).

Here are a few examples of terrain maps. A big square is a battlefield (with perhaps some columns of small squares on either side. Once two army counters enter the same big square that becomes the battlefield, with the terrain orientated in the direction the second army entered the square.

Very open terrain

Open terrain

Average terrain

I'm working on mountainous terrain, wooded terrain and cultivated terrain. That should be enough. Maybe also desert terrain come to think of it.