Guidance needed on first game with multiple players.

[JasonBury]

Greetings,
I am wanting to run a big Italian wars game at the club. Now none of the guys have used the rules before and we want a good introduction to the rules. How big should each players command be? Overall how many points should the armies be?
Any tips and tricks for multiplayer games?

cheers
Jason

[Blathergut]

I would design the battle so each player had two or three BG to use. Might be horse on a flank and a dragoon BG or a couple foot BGs in the centre plus the arty. That keeps everyone doing something and able to focus on a small area. Too many BGs and new players don't know what to do with them all.

[deadtorius]

We ran a 900 point game at a local convention today, we have done the same with ancients in past years with 3 new players a side it works pretty well. Go with Blatherguts advice and give them all a small part of the army to command, that should give them all a good chance to see how things work, perhaps you could give overall command to players who have played before and might have an idea of how things work so they can guide the new players.
good luck on it, it is a good game and lots of fun