Cairns - the shape of napolean's hat in the picture above is nice, but i must say the stretched transformation seems more like a safari hat. The concept is good, but keep the shape of the original, maybe rotate it 35-40o (degres) so that the point is down on the left a little and going across the page (if some of the corners get chopped off i wouldn't say that's a problem - so long as the shape, i.e. what the image is, can be discerned - the present transformation truly is a little misleading) - ultimately, at the same time as providing the space for the field of battle, it would be really nice if it could be only so slightly discernable as a transparency {if you could get it to not interfere with the practical bits of the map}, this would also help the case for not needing to see the whole hat.
P.S. - the battle took place on a hill didn't it? - If it's at all within your sights, i'd love to see a bit of a foreground/background setting, i.e a little more three dimensional (though not necc. 3D), i think the setting of this battle certainly urges it.
My thought is, that, Wellington's troops, placed a little to the north west of the map (i.e. within the hat that run's the opposite direction as mentioned above) would be presented as the highest point in your graphical representation, moving down to Napolean's army to the south east. (it seems the diagonal/slant would be a good way of representing slope)
Ahh, if this is the case, then the landscape, of the hill, could take up your whole map, though the playing area could still reamain within the hat, which now, is more of an outline - though still inclusionary(of the playing field)/exclusionary(of the bonus info and left over land etc). Here, the landscape outside of the hat could be shadded/dimmed/whatever's appropriate. This would also give you the chance of keeping some of the original hat's graphics around the unused verges.
