With the armies set down and the players arranged round the table pick sides. Be sure that there are enough units for each player to push some decent amount of lead.

At San Francisco Conquest 2005 I had twenty players in my first Homeric Hack Game. I had set everything up and ready to start then night before. The players arrived. First I gave a two sets of rules away by a die rolling contest. Kids got free rules for being kids.

The players choose their sides. I next ran through the basics using the Q.R.S. sheets. The first thing I did was to explain the basic use of the casualty calculation matrix. I explained how to inflict casualties using this for shooting and melee. If they could grasp that initial concept the rest would be cake. Then I went through the basics turn sequence. Done in fifteen minutes. Do not over explain things. I have a tendency to over explain.

With all this done I asked if anyone had to leave early. About five players said they had to leave early. Great. I had these players take the dueling Heroes who would be killed off in two turns at most. Those who would remain pretty much watched with interest. With the heroes killed off those who had to leave left. I was done to fifteen players. These now grasped the turn sequence and the game was over in two and one half hours. There were about five units per player. From what I heard it was a great success.