The (Unofficial) Great Battles of History
I'm experimenting with new map graphics, in hopes of making the setup maps a bit more helpful. The color scheme of the units might take a little getting used to; be sure to let me know what you think.
This scheme differentiates units by type -- arguably the second most
important unit characteristic, after TQ -- rather than by nationality
or background color of the cardboard. As a result, each side will
probably have units of the same color. This won't work for
interactive replays, but for setup maps the units generally start far
enough away from each other that this isn't a problem.
The general idea here is that "heavier" units have more saturated colors. Conversely, and easier to remember, lighter units have lighter colors. Infantry uses the blues, cavalry the reds.
The Romans don't fit to well into this organization, but I've tried to make do. Like the counters in the game, each legion has a unique rim color (and the new maps use colors closer to those of the boardgame). The color in the center of the unit tells whether it's a velite (a type of LI, so uses the LI color), triarii (ditto for HI), or an LG (which uses brown, like the boardgame counters).
Since Roman cavalry fit into the standard cavalry scheme no better than does the Roman infantry, I broke down and just tried to match the counter color.
I gave cavalry the NATO slash, just to help the color-blind or anyone that has trouble remembering which color is which.
Phalanxes, chariots, and elephants get their own colors; I put a wheel symbol inside the chariot as another memory aid. I couldn't think of a good symbol for elephants, and didn't bother for phalanxes since the double-sized unit image is a good tip-off.