Oft times when a commander saw the forces opposing him he would make a change in his line up, "Seeing the infantry on Hannibal's left, Marius had his equites placed opposite them."
To add depth to deployment strategy I suggest this:
When the last unit is placed the opposing player then has the option of moving one of his units to another location, or swapping two unit's positions. This will cost him one Command action. If he elects not to do this the game proceeds to the orders writing phase. If he does elect to Move or Swap his opponent then has the option of paying a Command Action and moving or swapping, after which play proceeds to the order writing phase. Alternately, he may simply begin the order writing phase.
The Command Action thus spent is subtracted from the first available Command Actions.
That procedure is used in a standard setup. If agreed to by the players, this version may be instituted for Blind Deployment games:
As above, with the player who would have deployed last, going second in the Move and Swap phase, and the Move and Swap procedure continues until both players pass concecutively. No unit may be moved and/or swapped more than once. If no legal units are left to Move or Swap then the player must pass. Mark each unit when it Moves or Swaps, indicating that it may not be Moved or Swapped again. An upper limit of as many CAs as are available in one turn, i.e. 4 in a 2000 point game, may be arbitrarily set as the upper limit. Although, if your opponent wants to Move all 12 of his units and begin the first three turns with no CA's, maybe you should let him try.
I'm thinking this second "Blind Deployment with Move or Swap" might prove to be a popular alternate battle beginning.
