Conquest 2011: Medieval Competition

For the second day of the competition I fielded my Komnenan Byzantines; they are probably the most competitive of my Book III/IV armies, and quite a change from the plodding armies I normally field. I used them at the Worlds, so I’ve had a fair bit of practice with them now.

• Andrew Taylor (IV/82a French Ordonnance)

First up I faced Andrew; I’ve played him a few times now and am yet to win, but I fancied my chances with the match-up here. He didn’t lay down masses of terrain, and I felt my cavalry would be able to handle his archers, being able to concentrate on one wing before he could react.

Initial deployment against the French.

After the two swaps; the bow move sideways.

I set out to win on the right wing; unfortunately this involved the commander facing a round of shooting before I closed for combat. At 4-4, I figured the risk was OK, but once his archers moved into range it was 2-4 and more nerve wracking. Well, I rolled a 1 and it was game over, 1G-0, with first bit of shooting. Something of an anticlimax!

• Jared (IV/66 Later Polish)

My second encounter was against a Polish army that was extremely mobile: knights, cavalry, light horse, a war wagon and some crossbowmen. Jared had only had a couple of games the day before, when he and his friend expressed an interest in playing as they were browsing the competitions.

Initial deployment, after the swaps aimed to get the archers facing his knights

I got off to a very lucky start on my right flank where my light cavalry, fired up by the sight of the camp, chased off both the Polish light horse and even managed to get rid of a cavalry. The game seemed assured, but the crossbowmen swung the balance, shooting up an element of cavalry and then an archer (on it rear rank, I think). Meanwhile, I’d lost two light horse against the Polish cavalry to give Jared a 4-3 win.

The final scene, as the massed crossbowmen break the Byzantine archers

• Kees (IV/59a Post-Mongolian Samurai)

My last game before lunch was against a Japanese army. I was apprehensive about winning when he lay down a lot of terrain and deployed in it.

Initial deployment to get clear of the hills.

However, Kees chose to come out into the open and fight. I was still unpacking from column when we contacted, but in a reversal of my first game, I took out his general with my knights when he rolled a 1. Game over. A bit of an anticlimax in some ways, but more time for lunch!

The knights advance after breaking the Samurai commander (note the general's more conservative deployment!).

• Andrew McGregor (III/77 Scots Isles & Highlands)

After lunch I faced an army I didn’t expect to be much trouble—massed blades without psiloi support against mounted should be a doddle! However, it’s never wise to underestimate one’s opponent, and I advanced too fast, trying to get my light horse away from his archers. He made contact and fled some of my light horse leaving my commander exposed. He closed the door on him and it was a 3G-0 defeat! I did help Andrew to the extent that I pointed out his options (as like Jared he was new to DBA), but my mistakes were all my own doing!

The Varangians and Normans never saw combat before it was all over on the right flank! What was the point of gaining control of the wood if I didn't sue it to anchor a flank?

• Arne (III/74 Fanatic Berber)

In my last game of the day I faced Arne, making some nice symmetry, facing the same opponent for my first and last games. I was the defender against some insanely aggressive Berbers. It was an open board and the two armies were well matched.

Initial deployments.

Arne advanced two psiloi into the wood behind my horse, forcing one of my cavalry to shield them and prevent them from going after the camp. Meanwhile, I soon lost my knights and got my light horse into quite a jam ahead of the army (the general was still with the bow thankfully). However, I had the PIPs, and Arne didn’t have many for a while, to retire my light horse out of the mess they’d got themselves into. Arne sent his knight against the cavalry guarding the woods. I was very lucky to survive being overlapped by them, but with light horse support I destroyed the knight. Meanwhile my archers started to shoot up his light horse. I’m a bit hazy how it ended now. I think I retreated one of his elements into the rear of one of mine making it 4-4, but I managed to get one of his to win a very close game.

Finishing on a win was a good way to end, but given that I’d had two very quick games that were over almost before they had begun, it was good to finish with a really close and interesting game.

I need to be a little more cautious with the Komnenans; the Varangians never saw combat, which is suggestive of my not really working out how to use all 12 elements; the archers did see action in a couple of games, but in others I rushed into action without them. I’m better at not getting the LH into a fix with wild moves (though it was only luck against the Poles that saw them survive), but getting them to work with the archers is something I’ve not really sorted out.

All in all, it was a great two days. I enjoyed playing all my opponents. It reminds me why I like DBA; whereas other competitions at Conquest had awards for good sportsmanship, such an award for the DBA one would be redundant, as there was not a backdrop, whether only implied or not, of dodgy players to make such an award meaningful! A big thanks to Keith for organizing the competition and soldiering on through it despite being under the weather.

Conquest 2011: Ancients Competition

I had a few games of DBA in the last few months. The Syracusans had a couple of outings. At the AWC against Philip’s Muslim Indians they almost won and at the Auckland City Guard against Joel’s Lysimachids they seemed set to win when they fell apart. I then tried my Seleucids against Joel’s Marians. I tried the ‘d’ list of the Seleucids and was doing pretty well from memory before losing yet again. My last game before Conquest was against Craig, visiting from Brisbane; he took the Seleucids who cut the Carthaginians to pieces decisively in two rounds of combat. I attacked. my opening attack was intended to gain an overlap; it went one better and destroyed its opposing element. I then took a risk and attacked with my psiloi-supported spear against the SCh. My luck deserted me and lost the two elements. I was lucky to survive that round, but in Craig’s round I lost 6-1, I think!

I got to Conquest for the third time now. Next year is the tenth anniversary of the competition (not the DBA part of it), so I’d be keen to get along again. Keith very kindly put me up and we had a game of DBA the night before the competition. My Seleucids were victorious against his Graeco-Bactrians; the Scythed Chariot was unstoppable and took out three of his elements from memory.

• Arne (II/23a Later Pre-Islamic Arabs)

At Conquest, first up the Seleucids faced Arne’s Later Pre-Islamic Arabs. This was his first time using this freshly painted army. I took the 3Ax option, but I think the 3Cm or the 3Cv would have been better. As it was these 3Ax refused to die for quite a while and I came close to winning this battle, but I think I lost 4-3.

Lining up against massed camels.

• Andrew Taylor (I/20a Ugaritic)

My next opponent went for a lot of terrain; not quite the hills of Cappadocia of the previous year, but still pretty bad. My deployment was frankly inept and I hung on for a draw. The psiloi advance on the hill was forced to retreat after one died and advances on the right flank were forced to retreat by light troops in the woods. Eventually the SCh died after chasing some Ax up the hill and the elephant, after running into the midst of the enemy to create some room for the rest of the army, also died. I was lucky to finish with a draw.

Wallowing around in confusion in the woods and hills of Phoenicia.

• Stephen (II/64b Middle Imperial Roman, East)

I then had a bye, my most successful outing to date, and refreshed by a longer lunch break, I faced Stephen. His Romans had beaten my Carthaginians a number of times in the past, but these were later ones, and seemed to be under some curse. After eyeing up the terrain I decided to risk the equivalent of a littoral landing by sending half my army up the road. I hoped he’d struggle to redeploy and I might get his camp. Given that I put my elephant in the front, I was lucky he didn’t causing some squashing!

The Seleucid armoured column prepares to trundle up the road.

Luck was on my side (or very much not on Stephen’s!) and I got one of his cavalry. He then started shooting at me with his archer and artillery, but I shrugged it off and recoiled his general into the camp to record my first win.

The first Roman cavalry is despatched.

The Roman general stumbles on the camp and breaks.

• Keith (II/36a Graeco-Bactrian)

Against the Graeco-Bactrians high PIPs on the first turn lead to a charge by psiloi on the hill on the enemy’s flank. I sent all three as I wanted to outnumber his Ax. However, I then had terrible PIPs (2 a turn for ages) and could only manoeuvre these slowly as the Graeco-Bactrians advanced at speed on my main force. By the time they made contact I had only just started to catch up. So much for the psiloi peeling off his rear support! Instead I was overlapped on that flank and soon lost the pike whose own rear support was turned. Despite this I managed to kill his general and in a final combat that was at even odds I lost and was defeated 3G-4.

Psiloi on the left flank eye up the opposition hill.

Pike fail on the left flank, but the right flank sees Scythians broken by Cataphracts, though the other Scythians fend off Camels and a flanking Scythed Chariot.

Knight on knight with no room to recoil. The Scythians had been defeated, but the Seleucid agema break when attacked by the Graeco-Bactrian mounted.

• Brian (II/3 Classical Indian)

My final battle saw Classical Indians on the defensive and wary after facing pike in a previous battle. Given bad terrain and no desire to rush across it the battle was a stalemate.

The pike might have been better more central here. Instead things became a stalemate across the swamps.

That night the Seleucids got another chance to meet the Graeco-Bactrians. On a billiard table against an all mounted army, their ‘c’ option was defeated by light horse. In the encounters between LH and Ax, Ps or Wb I didn’t roll high enough to recoil them into each other and went down without breaking any of the enemy.

All in all, it was a very enjoyable day. I didn’t play that well. I guess I’m still getting the hang of this army, which looks extremely strong, but doesn’t like bad terrain, especially as the SCh and El struggle to manoeuvre around it.

SBH with SDS factors

John and I tried out SBH with two warbands that were mostly Q4/C2. It played very differently. In particular, gruesome kills were much more common, as factors were lower, and caused more panic, because quality was also lower. My warband was:

Gordon (Leader) Q3/C3 [60 Points]
Leader

Duncan (Magic User) Q3/C1 [40 Points]
Magic User

Gavin (Standard Bearer) Q4/C3 [29 Points
Shieldwall, Standard Bearer, Steadfast

Brian and Calum (Archers) Q4/C2 [2x30 Points]
Shooter (L), Forester

Donald, Fergus, Malcolm, Douglas and Alistair (Warriors) Q4/C2 [5x17 Points]
Shieldwall

Angus and Dougal (Dogs) Q5/C1 [2x13 Points]
Animal, Long Move, Dashing, Greedy

John’s warband also had 12 figures. I had a wizard and two archers; John had three archers. I had a block of five warriors that had the Shieldwall skill, while some of John’s warband had heavy armour. I lost a third of my force to two gruesome hits from shooting (I rolled two 1′s to aimed shots). For the first, I rallied to the standard; for the second my two Q5 dogs scarpered. I was very relieved when my wizard managed to transfix an archer that one of my own archers then shot. At this point it should have triggered a morale test, but the rules don’t make it clear that a doubled transfixed figure is the same as a doubled fallen one. As the two types aren’t identical we decided not to do the test. Things didn’t get much better for me, but my wizard was lucky enough to transfix another figure that an archer did the honours on. Again it was doubled, but we didn’t have a morale test.

John was beginning to make his numbers tell when my leader made a silly attack and was surrounded and killed. Two didn’t run, the steadfast standard-bearer and a warrior next to him, clearly inspired by his example. I decided to fight on, and the standard-bearer succeeded in gruesomely killingly one of the opponent’s dogs. This caused them to rally to the flag, but after that, disgusted at this gratuitous violence to animals, no mercy was shown and the last two of my warband were cut down.

It was a fun battle and had my two shootings caused morale checks, it might have been closer. However, it seems that gruesome kills may be too frequent when low quality warbands are used. Neither of our warbands were ‘shooter’ ones, yet shooting had a disproportionate effect and the fight was largely decided by a quarter of our warbands that had ranged attacks. Otherwise, the average Q4 made for a more interesting game, as turnovers were more common and getting three activations for a figure was chancier and rarer. The warband was even more concerned to cluster round the leader than normal!

I note that for Song of Drums and Shakos (SDS), a gruesome kill is classed as an outright kill (in contrast to an incapacitating wound), and only ‘Green’ figures are affected by seeing one. Something similar might be needed if the average combat factor for SBH was lowered. However, as it is, Gruesome hits are a key element in bringing about a victory, so it’d be a shame to see be marginalized like this.

Anyway, I’m keen to do more SBH, as is John and I’m preparing to get a 28mm warband for a series of Dark Age games at the Auckland Wargames Club. Doubtless the range of plastic Dark Age figures will increase very quickly, but it’s not quite there yet. I’ll just have to go for Vikings and call them Hebrideans or Islemen!

The Hammer of the Scots

Last Thursday I got my second game of Hammer of the Scots with Chris. This time we knew the rules and it played very differently. I was the Scots again and went for the same strategy as last time, securing the Highlands and trying to work down from there. I had bad luck when a herald failed to get the Comyn to join me and I had to do it the hard way. I also failed to take Buchan when I had 6 counters ready to attack on the last turn of the year and Chris played a Truce card. After that I was driven backwards into the highlands and when Wallace was forced to go into the discard pile I was entirely eliminated on the next turn.

I suspect I was wrong to be in such awe of the English early on, and should have tried more aggressively to hold the centre of Scotland, where I’d be able to recruit and repair more armies. The hidden movement makes the English faction look very strong, but most of it is scattered nobles who aren’t that powerful on attack and need to guard their home area.

By contrast my strategy surrendered the richer centre of Scotland leaving me to fight for the highlands which just aren’t as valuable. Also if I went for the centre of Scotland I might just be able to keep Bruce alive for more than one year as well!

All in all, a fun game. Now I just have to find an opponent interested in playing it!

Seleucids and Polybian Romans

Last week Steve got to try out my Seleucids. With their kitchen-sink array of troop types they are hard to resist. However, he did leave the camels behind, opting for 3Cv. I went Polybians, a historical opponent, but also a topical one, as there was a feeling among some of those who played DBA at the club the weekend before that blade armies are too strong.

The Polybians were the attacker and succeeded in getting the terrain where it did no real good. I advanced off a gentle hill and Steve advanced out between two woods. Steve was very cautious in his advance, and I was reluctant to rush into combat, as few of the match-ups were outstanding. I ended up risking splitting my line to extend to the right to get an overlap on his cavlry and psiloi on that end. I had a 3Cv and three blades with a psiloi support facing two blocks of pike, a knight and these cavalry and psiloi.

I managed to recoil the psiloi, giving 4-2 odds on the knight, but only recoiled it too. I then had 4-5 odds on the pike, and was possibly recoiled. My cavalry at 3-2 was recoiled or stuck. There was another indecisive round and I got to repeat the exercise, this time fleeing the psiloi, but unfortunately my blade bottled and rolled a 1, being swept away by the knights.

After this, I was lucky to hang in, and it’s a testament to the resilience of blade (and Steve’s poor PIP rolls). I got to destroy the Seleucid cavalry, after a round of his cavalry facing my psiloi (my useless cavalry recoiled through them as they tried to change sides).

I then managed to get the knight with my general (I forget what support he had) and that exposed some pike. His scythed chariot broke some blade and some more fell somehow, but it was 3-3 when Steve finally got his elephant into combat. My Triarii were locked in combat with his pike and holding their own (indeed, doing better than that when his rear support went!). His knight general destroyed another blade, but my blade got his warband and then his pike fell to my Triarii, giving me a 5-4 victory.

It was very late when we finished, a long game, and Steve could claim victory when his chariot fled a psiloi a millimetre over the edge, but he said it wasn’t a good way to finish and we kept going. On the last turn if he’d kept the warband out of combat (just used it to block ZOC) and done likewise with the pike he would have won.

Poor PIPs allowed me to fight the battle on one wing; I suspect Steve might have been able to sweep me away in the centre or the other wing with more PIPs, so I was fairly lucky, but my aggression on the right wing did tie up what PIPs he got, making this difficult.

Blade are tough, even against all the Seleucid elements that can QK them. However, it was the success of the Triarii against the pike that got me thinking. Spear against pike may not be so hopeless after all; they just need to get into the back rank! After that the odds are 4-3. Now, if I can just find an answer for spear against blade …

Vanilla and Dwarves (an SBH encounter)

Steve and I got a game of SBH last week. It was Steve’s first pretty much (there was one over two years ago) and my first for a year. I have the feeling that playing with warbands that have high factors makes for a less interesting game and also limits the potential for development: before the system breaks down one can’t go below Quality 2+ (the lowest possible) or Combat 5. If you start with Q3/C4 there’s not much room to improve. I noticed that SDS (Song of Drums and Shakos) goes for much more humdrum line figures Q4/C2. I’m working to set a lower baseline to see how things play. Therefore I scaled back the factors of my dwarven warband, making only Beli and his lieutenant C4 and the rest C3. They were up against a warband of Scots led by Duncan, none of whom had factors above C3 or below Q3. I took the dwarves and we faced off in an encounter.

Beli's band approach the humans.

The humans up close. Duncan on the left and his warriors on the right. At the back is a wizard, the standard-bearer and an archer.

The dwarves; on the left are the two crossbow shooters and their dog, on the right is a cluster of fighters.

The dwarves gained an impressive victory when Steve rolled a run of 1s at the start. Although he killed a couple, he was so out-numbered after the bad start he never had a chance. In hindsight I think he might have found the dwarves easier. The magic user was never able to do much, and he got a little spread out at the start. The slower move of the dwarves makes for more cautious movement and their crossbows are simpler to use.

One memorable incident was when the dwarven dog, Gifr, went after a fallen Scot and killed him. He fell to worrying the corpse (he’s Greedy), but was untroubled by a longbow shaft that by rights had every likelihood of killing him.

I’m keen to get a few more games soon, and to try even lower stats, particularly higher (i.e worse) Quality factors.

28mm DBA Campaign Day at the AWC

Yesterday I got along to a 28mm DBA day at the Auckland Wargames Club. It had been proposed by Jerome, who on the day asked me to organize things. As we had no map and no theme—the armies were what people chose to bring—I went for what I could remember of the system described by Chris Brantley on Fanaticus:

http://www.fanaticus.org/discussion/

We went for random rounds that led to the loser becoming the winner’s vassal. After three rounds there were two equal factions and we decided the winner with a game of BBDBA.

The participants were:

Andrew: Sea-Peoples (I/28)
Alistair: Spartans (II/5a)
Mark: Gauls (II/11)
Steve: Marians (II/49)
John: Marians (II/49)
Jerome: Early Franks (II/72d)
Mike: Vikings (III/40b)
Richard: Ghaznavids (III/63b)

This made for a preponderance of blade armies, making my Gauls a better choice than I’d thought. I’ll only describe my games, except to say all the games came to a result apart from one in the first round between John and Andrew; they started late and their blade were only bouncing each other back when we called time.

In the first round I faced Jerome, who’d not played DBA before. Our armies were fairly similar, except my Gauls had more cavalry. Jerome stayed in a big wood initially, and when he started to move, he didn’t have enough PIPs to get fully out of it. I hoped to contact his general with my cavalry and overwhelm him, but I ended up making contact with my warband on his, and owing to the effects of pursuit it soon developed that I had the edge, as I could get rear-rank support when he was still in BGo. I lost my psiloi on one flank, but got a 6-1 on a double-rank Wb and from there the advantage stayed with me.

The final situation against the Franks.

My second game was against Ghaznavids; it was a match-up I didn’t expect to do too well at, as my Warband would not like his two elephants. However, Richard, had not played DBA since version 1 and didn’t know about the second move of warbands. I was blessed with a plenitude of PIPs at the right time and was able to get warbands into his spear. On the first round my cavalry bounced off his, but on the second I got a pair of warbands against the spear next to his elephant general and a psiloi onto the general. The dice smiled on me; both his spear fell to my warbands and then my psiloi rolled 5-2 on his general for a surprise victory. Richard would not have allowed me to get so close if he’d known about warbands’ charge move.

Warbands triumph over elephants.

For the third round I had the victors meet. I faced Sea People and didn’t get the table edge I’d hoped for. The Sea People deployed between two hills. I ended up losing as I got dragged into fighting in the centre rather than waiting to win on my right flank. This happened as I tried to provide overlap support on the right flank, which drew my cavalry forward to provide it. My one attack on the right flank (which took 4 PIPs to coordinate) was repulsed without success. In the centre my general was double overlapped and rolled a 1, silly chap!

The Gallic general cops out, and it's all over against the Sea People.

At the end of this round Andrew commanded me and Alistair, who had defeated Richard: one elephant recoiled into the other, oh dear! Richard had a point that this was a consequence of the depth of 28mm elephants. What happened was one elephant was recoiled then attacked in it flank. It turned to face, and coward that it was, recoiled again into the other elephant. In 15mm it would have recoiled behind the other elephant. The Spartan camp was a rhino being led away in chains; now they could use an elephant, or at least bits of one!

John faced Steve, and the resolution of this Roman Civil War was that Steve was his vassal as was Jerome, who had defeated Mike. Mike and Alistair decided to sit out the final battle, leaving Andrew and John to attempt to bring their inconclusive opening battle to a result. This time with allies. Andrew was the aggressor, so we got to match up our armies to our advantage. Andrew faced John on the flank with BGo, I faced Steve on the more open flank and Richard’s cavalry and elephants faced Jerome’s warbands with a bit of wood in the way.

The battlelines are drawn. The Sea Peoples on hte right with the Gauls in the forefront.

From the other end of the field.

On my end of the field I was hampered by low PIPs (1s) for about 3 turns. I decided to try to get my cavalry across my front and around the Roman flank. I was very lucky to do so without getting caught. Meanwhile, the Ghaznavids had lost a light horse to warband who closed the door with their second move. He then advanced against the Romans, hoping to get the elephants at the warband. However, his cavalry were swept aside by the Romans and it was all over in the centre.

I then had great PIPs. I was able to get my general behind the Roman line to attack their psiloi, something I can’t remember ever managing before. The warband had the PIPs to double-move into overlap and combat. It was looking good. The general despatched the psiloi. The cavalry on the flank had overlap from a warband; 3-2 odds and the Romans had nowhere to recoil. They got a stick, sigh! From there it all went wrong. The next combat was no longer 4-4 odds, but 4-5 and was recoiled. The last two were doubled and the Gauls were broken. But for that second combat I might have broken the Romans and kept the game alive. It was a victory for blades; curse their tenacity! Steve’s Marians soaked up the pressure from most of two armies and came out with barely a scratch!

The final result. The Ghaznavids are in retreat and four Gallic warbands have been broken. Meanwhile at the other end of the field little has happened.

This was an enjoyable day; it had a good turn out and all the games were played in good spirit. Some of the players decided DBA wasn’t what they liked; the fast-play rules have their own quirks that need to be learnt, and there is nothing in the rules to allow for better quality troops. Thank you Jerome for proposing the day and Andrew for providing me and Steve with armies.

This is the second such event at the AWC; I hope there will be more. I may try to encourage something similar to be organized at the North Shore Club, perhaps in 15mm and with a theme. It makes for a fun day.

A couple of games

I got a couple of games last month at the Auckland Wargames Club on a Thursday night. There were four of us there playing DBA. Geoff was trying it out with Philip, and they had a couple of Polybian Roman encounters against New Kingdom Egyptians. I played John twice. He used my Seleucids and I went Carthaginians. I went for maximum elephants and two psiloi / two warband. I won both games as the attackers. In both John had a central BGo hill. In the first I occupied this with Spanish and Gauls. My Gauls saw off his mounted who attacked on the flank while the Spanish got the scythed chariot. I think an elephant took out some pike (aided by two overlaps and a good die-roll).

In the second game I had my camp behind a swamp, but didn’t position any troops near it and John redeployed his psiloi and rushed them across on the first turn to sack it, ouch! I dithered a fair bit with redeploying mounted to retake the camp before realizing it was hopeless. I then advanced on a wood that had some pike in it (courtesy of the swap). These didn’t like meeting warband, but before this, I’d survived a SCh attack on my LH that was very lucky. I think I also got a 3Kn to gain a second lucky victory. Good fun! Good to see the Seleucids were so loyal to me!

Today I introduced my brother to DBA, on holiday from England. He’s a keen gamer, but has only played board games and computer games. I think he enjoyed the game. He wanted an army with horses, so I suggested Komnenans. I took Pre-feudal Scots, as the only near contemporary opponent that was nicely based (I forgot about the Goblins!).

Chris was coached by me and went for a flanking raid on my camp. My LH got the rearmost of his LH column and a Ps stopped them for one turn before they attacked and doubled it. Meanwhile on my right flank my commander and two warbands were facing a Norman mercenary knights and an auxilia with psiloi support. It see-sawed a bit, but when low PIPs kept the centre of the Byzantine army back, I was able to flank the knight with a spear, only for it to recoil me. I then attacked the knight with the spear (I had only one PIP). It died, but turned the knight, freeing the Scots commander from its ZOC and allowing him to get the psiloi that had gone for overlap support on the warband.

The camp resisted the attacks of the Pechenegs valiantly, and I got the auxilia with the warbands and the general flanking. It was 3-2 to me. However, in the last turn, after an attack on the centre had not done much of consequence, the Byzantines were able to overlap a spear that fell to the Varangians (the spear had got a stick to their disadvantage), and the two warbands were swept away by the knights. However, the camp continued to resist the Pechenegs and the game finished 5-3 to the Byzantines, repelling this unrecorded Scottish crusade (one of those that forgot what side the Greeks were on!).

The final position: the Scots needed heroism from their warbands to equal that shown in the camp. They might have taken out a cavalry on their left flank if they'd lasted another turn.

Carthaginians in Asia Minor

Yesterday I had a game of DBA with Ieuan, the first in a while. He went Seleucids, and I went Polybian Romans. It was over very quickly when I rolled two 1′s in combat first up and got shredded by his pikes and cataphracts. No pictures of this battle!

Today I caught up with an old friend, Craig,  over from Brisbane, part of the Kiwi diaspora. We decided to have a game of DBA. He went Seleucids, and I decided to try the Cathaginians against them. At this point Ieuan decided he wanted to join in and we went for a game of Double DBA. Ieuan took Galatians as allies to the Seleucids and the Carthaginians took some Spanish allies. The Carthaginians were the defenders, but I was pretty sure this was a Carthaginian invasion of Asia Minor after a successful war over the Romans. They had the support of Spanish allies, while the Galatians and Seleucids attempted to repel them. We could have gone for a later Seleucid army, but decided to choose the army that gave the Galatians a SCh. This meant the Seleucids had the ‘b’ list and no SCh (until I buy and paint another one!), but two 4Ax and a 4Wb as their options. The Carthaginians went for two elephants and three psiloi (as all their Gauls were in use!)

The Seleucids and Galatians rush towards the Carthaginians and Spanish a few turns into the game.

The Carthaginians got modest PIPs through most of the game, and they saw their opponents bear down on them very fast.

The whole battlefield from the Carthaginian perspective.

The Seleucids secure their wing with Thorakitai and Thureophoroi in the marsh.

While the Carthaginian elephants go looking for warbands to terrorize a gremlin gets into the photo.

While the Galatians rush forward, the Spanish struggle to get out of line while exiting the wood.

Carthaginian elephants support the Spanish against the Galatians.

The right wing was soon engaged against the Galatians and, despite the Seleucids sending the Cretan archers to support against the elephant, it soon defeated a double-ranked warband. However, on the open flank the Galatians got the better of things, and after chasing off the Spanish light horse, they proceeded to destroy two Scutarii and two Caetrati, though not before losing another warband to that elephant.

The battle hung in the balance for the Carthaginians. They needed to defeat the Galatians quickly, before the Spanish were destroyed or all fled. Fortunately for them, the Seleucid Thureophoroi lacked bite, and the Spanish on that wing repelled them twice. Meanwhile, as the Seleucids manoeuvred to attack the Carthaginian spear, the Carthaginians seized the initiative and attacked themselves. They really had no choice, as a pike block faced their psiloi support and if they waited they could expect this to be recoiled, leaving the two wings very vulnerable to the Seleucid cavalry. On the right flank they recoiled the Agema, but on the left flank, where they faced the commander and had no overlap, they did even better, routing the Seleucid commander with a 6-1! Only then did the central spear element grudgingly give ground to the pikemen.

The Seleucid commander quails before the indomitable Carthaginian spear and flees (the spear in the centre shown recoiled did this after this crucial encounter on their left).

Now each of us had a broken command; however, the Galatians faced a difficult task of facing the Carthaginian elephants. And in the end it proved too much when the elephant attacked their cavalry and got the Numidians as support. They break and with them goes the last spark of resistance in the Galatian army. Hannibal has a beachhead in Asia Minor!

As the Seleucids and Spanish flee, the Galatian horse find elephants supported by Numidians too much and this elephant, which was responsible for the rest of the Galatian loses wins the battle.

• Review:

This was an interesting battle, and a close one, that was decided all too soon by a 6-1. The 3Kn Seleucid general has so far proven a bit wet, and had we gone for a later list, the ‘c’ one, not only would this have fitted better with a possible alternative timeline of a successful Hannibal going east, not as an exile, but as a conqueror, but the Seleucids would have had the cataphracts and camels. Furthermore, the Galatians would have had a psiloi instead of the SCh, and this would have been invaluable against elephants! We may try to refight this battle with those lists.

Seleucids in Egypt

No, they didn’t meet Ptolemy or any of his mob, but rather they ran into some New Kingdom types. I got over to the Auckland Wargames Club, which now has Thursday night meetings (evenings suit me much more than weekends during the day) and played a couple of games with Philip, who’s taking part in the DBA tournament at Natcon later this month. He hadn’t played DBA since the MEDBAG day at the North Shore Wargames Club last year.

I went with the ‘c’ list for both games, taking the 3Cm and the 4Wb for the optional elements. Philip went for the ‘b’ list of the Egyptians, which gave him a 3Wb. In the first game I was the defender and put down two modest pieces of BGo on the edges (but back enough not to interfere with deployment) and a gentle hill.

The Seleucids deployed in front of a small wood.

The Egyptians deployed on the gentle hill.

This battle got off to a fast start, with the Pharoah advancing on the left flank with archers, drawn to the two 2Ps there like a bee to honey. They shot one of them with their first shot; 1-0 to the Egyptians. I then was attacked in the centre, and lost the Agema (4Kn). 2-0 to the Egyptians. My right flank was waiting to be rolled up, but then we unveiled our secret weapon! The scythed chariot powered into the gap left by the Agema, slaughtered the psiloi-supported blade there (now 2-2). The Egyptians tried to defeat it by attacking it with an unsupported blade; no luck (now 3-2). Antigonus had only one PIP, which he used to send the chariot into the rear of some archers. This was evens, but the chariot was unstoppable, and the game ended 4-2 to the Seleucids all thanks to an inspired bit of scythed chariotry!

The final scene. The swathe cut by the chariot is in the top of the picture, as is the Pharoah, interrupted in his plan to loot the camp. We had forgotten to roll for the camels, but they only recoiled the opposing chariots.

Game One was mine owing to some good luck, as I didn’t have anything to stop the Pharoah. However, Philip may have forgotten about command and control issues a little on his right flank too. All the same, the Egyptians got a lesson in what you do with ‘real’ chariots!

The two sides face off along the banks of the Nile.

For the second game we decided to alternate rolls and make Philip defender. He put down a waterway, a marsh and a wood. I got the edge I wanted, Philip didn’t go for a littoral landing, and I deployed on the far side of the wood in my deployment zone.

The Seleucids.

The Egyptians.

I got very low PIPs for quite a bit of the start of this game, and was slow to advance the Elephant; instead I took the Galatians and some psiloi into the marsh. Unlike the quick first game, this one was much more protracted. Things stalled for a while on the left flank, as the elephant didn’t have the PIPs to move. Eventually we came to blows there. This time the scythed chariot had no puff and the elephant went down to psiloi-supported blades. In the centre, my pike and general were having a hard time against archers (one pike element lost to shooting). I was up on factors, but not getting the doubles. Infuriatingly (from my perspective), a bow element shrugged off an attack by pikes with a warband overlap three times! By contrast in the centre the Agema couldn’t see off psiloi at 2-2 odds and went down straight away when flanked! Meanwhile, the Pharoah had been locked in combat with a pike for four combats, all sticks, and then I doubled him—hooray—only to be reminded he just fled!

It was balanced at 3-3 on the last turn; at great effort I’d destroyed two bow and the warband, but had lost the elephant, the Agema and a pike (and the scythed chariot). On the last turn Philip destroyed a psiloi (that I should have withdrawn) and a pike to take the game 5-3. It was a fun game and a deserved win by Philip, who broke up the battle lines to his advantage (there was only one ‘group’ on either side at the end of the game). Also I didn’t get the most advantageous match-ups: his blade avoided my cataphracts, and his chariots my camels. Good fun, and I’m keen to get to the AWC again soon for a similar evening.

At game's end. Note the sole 'group' in the marsh.

• Review:

I’ve had a few games with the Seleucids now, but I’m still getting used to them. In particular, I may want to find ways to deploy the mounted that gives them more options. In the first game the scythed chariot in reserve worked well, but in the second my deployment of the cataphracts kept them from being terribly effective, or mobile. Also, where they were deployed, the pikes might just as well have been in single rank, as they didn’t get the back rank bonus against 2/3rds of the Egyptian army. Still learning how to use pike (and elephants, and …).