This is the basis for the movie/comic "300".  The story is that 300 Spartans held off a million invading Persians at a narrow pass between the ocean and the mountains.  The truth from wikipedia is still pretty amazing:

A Greek force of approximately 7,000 men marched north to block the pass in the summer of 480 BC. The Persian army, alleged by the ancient sources to have numbered over one million but today considered to have been much smaller (various figures are given by scholars ranging between about 100,000 and 150,000),^[6][7] arrived at the pass in late August or early September. The vastly outnumbered Greeks held off the Persians for seven days (including three of battle) before the rear-guard was annihilated in one of history's most famous last stands. During two full days of battle the small force led by Leonidas blocked the only road by which the massive Persian army could pass. After the second day of battle a local resident named Ephialtes betrayed the Greeks by revealing a small path that led behind the Greek lines. Leonidas, aware that his force was being outflanked, dismissed the bulk of the Greek army and remained to guard the rear with 300 Spartans, 700 Thespians, 400 Thebans and perhaps a few hundred others, most of whom were killed.

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Seems like if you could capture the few against many dynamic it could be a good wargear map, but I'm not sure how to do it.

Make it a duel map, top down or isometric, Draw the hot gates, put 300 greek defenders in them, and give them attack and defense bonuses (you'd have to do the math to get the balance right) and then surround them with the Persians on all sides, and get the persians to have some auto-factory triggers, if the greeks can take the factory triggers and kill the rest of the persians, they win, if they can't they go the way of history. 

You could also make it a hex map, and give the greeks the several to one border types that come with owning three hexes "surrounding" another one.  

I'd like to see someone capture a good naval battle, or even a good dogfight. I know M57 had a board that was intended to be a dogfight, and he changed to hungergames, but I don't think it went anywhere...

http://www.300spartanwarriors.com/battleofthermopylae/battleofthehotgates.html

ratsy wrote:

Make it a duel map, top down or isometric, Draw the hot gates, put 300 greek defenders in them, and give them attack and defense bonuses (you'd have to do the math to get the balance right) and then surround them with the Persians on all sides, and get the persians to have some auto-factory triggers, if the greeks can take the factory triggers and kill the rest of the persians, they win, if they can't they go the way of history. 

You could also make it a hex map, and give the greeks the several to one border types that come with owning three hexes "surrounding" another one.  

Maybe Ephialtes would be the key of the board, if the Persians get to him first they discover the hidden pass, if the Greeks get to him first, their secret is safe and they win the day

ratsy wrote:

I'd like to see someone capture a good naval battle, or even a good dogfight. I know M57 had a board that was intended to be a dogfight, and he changed to hungergames, but I don't think it went anywhere...

Yeah, I tried to make it work, but the design really requires Unit Range Limits.

http://www.wargear.net/wiki/doku.php?id=designer_workshop:proposed:unitrangelimits

Some of the new factory capabilities might make some kind of game play possible on that map, but I haven't quite figured it out. 

I wanted to do a Custer's last stand board once but didn't get too far -

I think that I will attempt a Gettysburg board for this competition.

wow! Emu's can take 100 rounds from a machine gun... 

ratsy wrote:

wow! Emu's can take 100 rounds from a machine gun... 

Wow, thank you for that one. 

And, I thought I knew every major war in history... 

Kjeld, didn't Cram already have a Gettysburg map in the work...or was that a Revolutionary War battle?

Historically battles would tend to be duel maps. The question is to twist it so it's not just another duel.  Not sure how you'd do it, but maybe a map that captures troop mismatches? Artillery vs Infantry vs Cavalry. 

Like maybe Agincourt?

French having the dice advantage moving forward (Knights), but English having excellent artillery (Longbow).

Maybe a naval battle with advantage to broadsides or boarding actions...

There are some good multisided wars from Chinese History (China Civil/2nd Sino-Japanese, 3 Kingdoms period, Warring States).  

There are some good multi-sided Civil Wars that you could tweak by giving different sides certain advantages or end goals.  Mexican Civil War, Spanish, Russian, and whole bunch from Africa.

I love the new War of the Roses map.

Thingol wrote: Kjeld, didn't Cram already have a Gettysburg map in the work...or was that a Revolutionary War battle?

He had a Bunker Hill map, if I recall, and an Alamo. I don't recall a Gettysburg.

Correct. Bunker Hill, it was.

After getting steamrolled by kjeld on a simulgear board, I was thinking about how it is hard to have any kind of comeback on a simulgear map - a marginal edge becomes an insurmountable edge after maybe one or two successful turns.

I was thinking there should be a way to do simulgear WWII Northern Africa - where long supply lines meant winning new territory often made you weaker.  (Or, anarchy-style, make your enemies stronger)

Mapmakers - can it be done?

Have you tried my Kursk map BT? (in answer to your first paragraph)

I started a discussion on reddit's history community about 'interesting' battles.  I thought it might give some ideas for us here:

http://www.reddit.com/r/history/comments/1z6pjq/most_interesting_battles_in_history/

Also, I just want to clarify - 'historical battles'  I assume this means fictional battles are not historical?   What about recent battles?  Are they still historical?