Category: games

Fall-In 2010: BBDBA Doubles

JM and I formed “Team Red Meat” at the Fall-In BBDBA doubles competition.  The name was inspired by a combination of factors: we’re first time competitors, aka “fresh meat;” and I really enjoy the Red Meat comic.  Unfortunately I never remembered to say “I hate you, Milkman Dan!”

Larry heckled us a bit for planning ahead and bringing a document describing our plans.  Yes, we were inspired by the Two Davids who make similar documents in preparation for their battles.  However, our goal was not primarily to win.  We only wanted to fail to make utter fools of ourselves, and I think we succeeded.

Planning ahead allowed us to think on our own time instead of wasting our opponents’ time, and gave us a baseline to measure what worked and what didn’t so we could learn more quickly.  Neither JM nor I have a very strong knowledge of historical tactics used by real generals, and neither of us have much experience in BBDBA or other larger scale Ancients games, so planning was also intended to offset our deficit in experience.  I’m glad we did it and we’ll likely do it again, for similar reasons.

There were eight entries in this tournament.  The field was split by army year into two groups of 4, and everyone played everyone else in each group.  The winners in each group played the finals some time after the convention was over; I never heard the final result.

We fielded Warring States Chinese: Chao (II/4c).  As seen in earlier posts, I painted two of the armies and JM painted the third.  No one noticed our use of 3Cb instead of 4Cb or our single Russian light horse stand in with the Chinese; though neither had any effect on gameplay.  Our command split was the same in all our games:

  • Mid PIP (C-in-C): 2xHCh (gen), 3x2LH, 6x4Sp, 3x4Cb, 2x2Ps; 16 elements, breakpoint 6
  • High PIP: 4xHCh (gen), 3x2LH, 3x4Sp, 3x4Cb; 13 elements, breakpoint 5
  • Low PIP: 3x4Sp (gen), 3x4Cb, 1x2Ps; 7 elements, breakpoint 3

Stooges: Larry and Will

Our first game was against Larry and his honorary Stooge partner Will.  “We came all this way to play against you?”  They brought Seleucids (II/19), which combined the elements that posed our greatest anticipated challenge: pikes and elephants. We forgot about the possibility of Scythed Chariots, and they were the killer this game.

We defended, and set up terrain as planned: three small central hills with a road the long way behind one.  It wasn’t much, but we placed it where we hoped we could take more advantage of it than our enemy.

The plan for elephants was to avoid them, or try to shoot them with bows.  Larry had an interesting command structure around his elephants: he combined three elephants and three scythed chariots with one other element.  Since the expendible chariots don’t count towards the break point, the command needs to lose 6 of its 7 elements before it’s destroyed, providing additional protection for the elephants.

Death by Scythed Chariot

For the pike, we wanted to outflank them with light horse and peel them apart.  Unfortunately, they used their pike in passive defense of a well defended position.  We decided to win elsewhere, and didn’t approach the pike.  I’m not sure if this was a good idea or not.

Our failure and prompt demise came on the opposite flank.  Will’s scythed chariots totally destroyed our line, and then broke through to the road where they could kill whatever they wanted.  These things are called “expendibles” for a reason: they aren’t supposed to live very long.  Will rolled really well a few times, and that provided him with the tactical advantage to roll us up.  This was our fastest loss in the tournament.  One important lesson I learned here, was to pay attention when to let your broken command flee.  They’re only useful when they’re still in the way; after that, they’re screwing up the high/low/mid PIP die rolls.

Two Davids: Kuijt and Schlanger

In the second game, we faced the Two Davids: David Schlanger and David Kuijt playing some kind of Romans (Early Imperial, I think) with an ally (Arabo-Aramean, I think).  Their army didn’t have any particularly problematic elements, but the Davids are very good players.

We defended again, and placed a waterway to reduce our time to contact.  It did an adequate job of that, but probably wasn’t really necessary since neither of us was particularly fast.

They refused our left flank with their artillery and forced us to play our attacking force on our right.

This was a very interesting game, I enjoyed it a lot. There was a lot of back and forth on our attacking flank, but the Davids did a great job and I learned a lot.  We had some localized advantages on occasion, but unfortunately I missed our prime opportunity to pull a win from the jaws of defeat.  I had a chariot within striking range of the enemy camp, and asked DS about the finer points of attacking a camp.  I decided not to attack the camp, but in the mean time I missed the fact that I could’ve flanked their commander in chief, which might have ended the game in our favor instantly.  Instead, they broke our high PIP command, then a second command, and won.

A lesson on the virtues of a subtly painted C-in-C

The Davids did a wonderful job of using two of their commands against one of ours, and winning through PIP advantage.  The high PIP Roman command and the allied command were next to each other, and moved into overlapping positions.  This allowed both commands to work together and share PIPs, whether the critical position ended up being in the center or on the flank.  We tried to start doing this later in this game and throughout our next game, but since we hadn’t planned for it, we didn’t do a great job.

I think the Davids’ choice to use an Ally makes this easier: by placing the ally next to the high PIP command, they can always easily tell which elements are a part of each command.  The downside is that ordinary maneuvers are always more expensive since they’re split across two commands and can’t use a single PIP group move.

Team Canuk: Colin Rice and Michael Saunders

Our third game was against Team Canuck: Michael Saunders and Colin Rice.  They played Patrician Roman (East) II/83b, I believe. They had a wide variety of troops, but without any elements that were particularly problematic for us.

They defended and placed terrain: a wall of woods down the center of half the board, a road perpendicular, and the rest of the board empty.  They set up their first two commands in the open area, and left their bad going troops (aux, warband) in their last command.

We didn’t stand a chance in the woods, so we compressed our spears into double ranks against their knights and stuffed ourselves into narrow frontage in the open.  We tried to overlap our commands somewhat, but we limited this to the elements we could tell apart when they stood next to each other.  They deployed their light troops behind their main line, and the entire battle was limited to one half of the board.

They redeployed on their baseline while we ran hell to leather

They ended up spending several turns to redeploy and maneuver their troops without advancing at all, before we made contact.  We were running as fast as we could, but just couldn’t get there before they had time to fix their deployment problems.

Once our lines met, we had an advantage early on and damaged all of their commands, but none to the breaking point. It felt like we had a real chance of winning.  We even had several 4-3 rolls against their C-in-C, but they all failed. 

Finally, the Canadian luck turned, and they broke our commands before we did anything else to theirs.  Just before time ran out for the round, they killed us.

I really enjoyed this event, and I look forward to playing BBDBA Doubles again.  JM and I worked well together, and I think with a few refinements we can increase our expectations to include actually winning a game.  Our plans were not obviously bad, and I’m glad we spent time on them.  Their simplicity helped us implement them correctly.

Neither of us are content with our army choice, but we want to revisit the army “later.”  Warring States Chinese are quite low on bad going troops, and don’t have many different element types available.

Between the two of us, we have enough BBDBA armies to practice together effectively, and with our current level of motivation we should probably start soon.  I wouldn’t want to give any secrets away, so I won’t mention our options for Cold Wars.

Fall-In 2010 Summary

Almost everything went according to plan; at least, nothing went horribly wrong.  JM and I had a great weekend and we both hope to go to more conventions in the future.

Driving to Lancaster always confuses me for some reason, and I found new and different ways to get “almost lost”.  We made it there in time for registration, but just missed getting into Larry’s game (Auxilirama).

Staying at the Lancaster Host was a good idea, and I’ll do it again.  It costs more than the closest cheap hotels, but being in the same building as the convention left more time for gaming between sleep breaks.  We still had to go outside to get to the dealer hall, otherwise I wouldn’t have gone outside all weekend.

Speaking of the dealer hall: I seem to be getting better at not buying things I’m not going to paint.  Between the dealer hall and flea market, the only unpainted figures I bought were 15mm early WWII Russians.  I plan to paint these up for a scenario I’ll run when Mike is in town over the holidays.  I’ll have to fire up the airbrush, since “all one color” is faster that way.  I also bought a variety of other materials and accessories: more bases-by-the quart and adhesive “plasteel” from GF9; a few nicer road segments for DBA; and some cards from an obsolete CCG.

Apparently, last year was the first year they started supporting Toys for Tots at Fall-In.  Besides collecting toys, they also get donations of games, models, figures, and supplies from vendors and individual modellers, and either raffle or auction off the donations.  All proceeds go to Toys for Tots… it’s for the kids!  I have no problem donating money to a good cause, so why not get something good out of it too?

So with that in mind, I won two auctions.  One was a set of foam core buildings, 28mm scale.  These were built by hand with a printed veneer to add a great amount of detail without having to actually paint them.  They’re the perfect scale and style for Malifaux, and they’ll complement our existing terrain nicely.  I also won a 28mm Greek Hoplite army for DBA.  It’s not likely to be a big winner in any tournaments, but it’s a better size for demonstrations and kid-sized hands, and it’ll allow me to play in 25mm DBA events in the future.

I played in all of the events I planned to enter, except the Armies of the Americas event on Saturday morning.  It was early: 9am; and I needed a time to dedicate to shopping without a time limit.  Armies of the Americas was very similar to the 1491 event the night before, and I’d have used the same army for both events.  Unfortunately I got sick of playing my all-bow army pretty quickly… but more about that later.

This was my first convention playing nothing but DBA.  I don’t miss “all the random events” very much.  The comraderie of playing a game I know I like with a group of opponents I’ve played with before more than makes up for the lack of variety.  In the future, I wouldn’t mind spending one or two slots testing out some new rules if there’s something that looks really interesting, but I won’t miss it if that doesn’t happen.

Malifaux: Cowboys versus Samurai

Frank and I played a 25 stone game of Malifaux on Saturday. We had a surprisingly balanced outcome compared to most past games, and we played through 5 turns before the end.

I chose my Perdita crew, set up straight out of the box: Perdita, Santiago, Francesco, Nino, and Papa Loco. Frank didn’t actually have any samurai, he chose his Viktoria crew: 2 Viktorias, 3 Ronin, and Misaki. I had the advantage in ranged combat, but Frank’s crew had high mobility and great melee.

Andy was around to watch and learn, so he set up terrain. We flipped on the extended encounter chart and wound up with a Shared Deliver a Message strategy: both of us had to take a (2) interact action within 2″ of the enemy Master, to deliver a message and gain victory points. This ended up having a large effect on the way we played, which means that as a game strategy, “it worked.”

We announced all our schemes.  I chose to Bodyguard Perdita, and to Kill the Protege: Misaki.  I chose Bodyguard since Deliver a Message required Frank to keep Perdita alive; but in retrospect it wasn’t the best choice, as it gave Frank more incentive to kill Perdita as a contingency plan.  Frank chose Steal Relic, which also required him to take an action near Perdita, and Gather Soulstones: end the game with more stones than me.  He started with only 3 stones and I had 2; but he had the option of sacrificing Ronin to get more stones.

For the first few turns, I did the most important thing possible: get Papa Loco as far away from me as possible, and close to Frank; so when he dies, the explosion doesn’t hurt me.  We got surprisingly close to each other on the first turn, and had a bit of a shootout.  Papa didn’t survive, I’m sorry to say, and his final explosion had no effect.  One of Frank’s Ronin died soon after: Perdita shot her for failing to Obey her orders to run down Misaki.

In the mean time, the Viktorias were approaching Nino and Santiago around a building, while Misaki hid behind it.   The two remaining Ronin were on the other flank, seemingly out of the action for now.  The Viktorias hit Santiago in melee, and in response he took 2 actions to Deliver the Message.  Since I completed the scheme first, I got 3VP.

At this point, Santiago survived long odds for longer than I expected. All my remaining guys emptied their guns at the Viktorias in rapid succession, in one huge Companion activation for the whole crew.  Since I was shooting into combat, all of the shots required me to randomly determine which model was the target, but Santiago avoided all but one of the attacks.  Unfortunately, the only luck I had was used up missing Santiago; I also did almost no damage to the Viktorias.

On their turn, Viktoria (no, the other one) killed Santiago, and Frank’s remaining Ronin closed in on Perdita, locking her in combat.  He Delivered the Message for only 1 VP, and then Stole my Relic (so we thought) and started running away.  I killed Misaki.  By now we were both out of soulstones, and the score was at 7VP for me (completing the strategy and both schemes) and 4 for Frank.

But the game wasn’t over yet.  Frank killed Perdita, knocking me down to 5VP.  For him to win, he needed to keep one Ronin alive (giving him 2 of his current 5VP) and sacrifice the other to gain soulstones (for another 2VP).  For me to win, I needed to kill either of his Ronin.

In the final turn (turn 5), my shooting was ineffective but Frank’s was not.  He got initiative, allowing him to get one Ronin out of the way. I wasn’t able to kill the other because it was Hard to Kill, and Frank cleaned out all of my remaining crew with the Viktorias.

So in the end, it seemed like Frank won with 6 VP, and I had 5VP.  But wait! He realized he was supposed to make a Willpower duel in order to steal my relic, but we forgot to do it. The result is unclear; but I think with the cards I had, I wouldn’t have been able to beat him.

I made some mistakes: I spent too much time shooting with Perdita to remember to keep her out of harm’s way.  I expected more from my guns based on their past performance, and Perdita was frustrated that no one would Obey her.

The strategies and schemes definitely affected gameplay and our play motivations.  I put Perdita into danger, counting on Frank not to harm her until he got his strategy and scheme VP’s… unfortunately I wasn’t able to get her out of trouble quickly enough once that happened.  In the end, I could’ve won the game with all my models lost, if I had only killed one more model.  I still really like the Malifaux encounter system, and we haven’t repeated any strategies yet.

I like this crew, especially how different it is from Ramos. I also the opportunity to demonstrate that it was in fact possible to beat them; maybe now I’ll hear fewer complaints about how broken they are.

Minecraft

I started playing Minecraft, but I was hampered by a nearly complete lack of instructions. It’s a fun open-world sandbox game, but it’s easy to get frustrated until you know how to control things.

Here is a basic control summary, targetted for people unfamiliar with normal game controls. It’s based on my limited experience with the Mac standalone executable version Alpha 1.1.2 in single player “free weekend while the website is down” mode.

I’m playing on a laptop without a right mouse button: ctrl-clicking is the same as a right button click, just like everywhere else in Mac land.

The most commonly used controls:

  • Look around using the mouse pointer
  • Move using the standard WASD keys
    • W moves forward
    • S moves backward
    • A slides left
    • D slides right
  • Jump using the space bar: you can jump one block high, to climb hills
  • 0-9 select the on-screen inventory item slots. 
  • Left click to destroy the block (or creature, aka “mob”) you’re pointing at. The most important clue: press and hold the left button to break blocks, don’t click it rapidly.
  • Right click (ctrl-click) to place the currently selected block where you’re pointing
  • I opens your inventory
    • I or esc to close inventory
    • left click to pick stuff up
    • right click to pick up half a stack
    • left click to put stuff down somewhere else in your inventory
    • right click to put down one item from a stack

I’ve also found that multitouch on the Mac scrolls through the 0-9 inventory slots, and it can zoom your screen in and out if you have ctrl pressed. I don’t find this useful, but it was an explanation for why “weird things” happened when I didn’t realize I was resting another finger on the touch pad.

I don’t want to spoil very much, but staying alive for a few days is important if you want to make any progress. Skip this section if you prefer a challenge or know how to use Google search. Penny-Arcade provided a good summary introduction to Minecraft with a good starting strategy for “survival mode” (single player): build a shelter as
soon as possible, without any human-sized entrances. When night falls, wait in there to avoid the zombies.

It’s good to build a shelter near where you started the game, since that’s where you’ll return after you die. You might build a spire above it so you can find it from a distance: the map can be confusing until you get used to it, and you’ll want to get home quickly as night falls.

The Minepedia has an excellent introduction to crafting, providing a useful reference during gameplay. You need tools to mine stone, and need a workbench to make tools, so start by knocking down some trees and collecting logs. A workbench and tools will also give you stuff to do at night.

If you know me in real life and want to play on my server, send me an e-mail.

DBA at Legions, Friday August 20

This month’s theme for DBA on the third Friday of the month at Legions was Chinese armies and their enemies.  There were 5 of us; unfortunately, at least JM, Kevin, and Larry couldn’t make it.

I played II/4c: Warring States Chines, Chao the whole night, and managed to get in a game against everyone.

First, I faced Jim’s Sung Chinese (III/61), with a single Artillery.  He was defender, and set up on one half of the board, with his deployment zone bisected by a steep hill.  My response wasn’t ideal, and I made some mistakes (not following my plan, and moving my LH where they didn’t need to go).  In the end, he beat me 4-1. 

Next I faced Neal, who borrowed Jim’s Ming Chinese (IV/73) with two Artillery.  I defended and placed triangular terrain with two steep hills and a wood (with a road through the middle).  He attempted to flank me around the wood with his two light horse, but I managed to repel them with a single element of crossbow, and kill one in the process.  I approached his artillery and bows with my spears.  His shooting was ineffective even after many shots, but I killed one of his bows in the woods.  I think my other kills were blades by my knights, but I don’t remember very well.  It was a pretty even match that finally ended with me winning 4-2.

In my third game, I defended against Rich’s Southern Dynasty Chinese (II/79) including an Elephant.  I placed a small central wood and a gentle hill bisecting one deploment line.  I deployed facing the side opposite the hill, with my forces concentrated on my left and my bows moving towards the wood.  He placed his elephant on the road directly approaching my line. 

My deployment was adequate, but not spectacular, and Rich had the upper hand early on with expected matchups.  He moved his elephant down the road, supported by blades, toward my spear line.  However, he was frustrated by poor PIP rolls: he rolled a single 3 and nothing else higher than 2 for PIPs for the whole game.  I was able to use my higher PIPS to maneuver into better matchups and pushed his elephant back, but I was very vulnerable at some points, if he only had enough moves to take advantage of my position.  I ended up winning 4-3 in a very close, tight game when I killed 2 elements in the last turn on a few more lucky rolls.

My last game was against Steve, who attacked with his Shang Chinese (I/13).  I used a smallish steep hill and smallish wood on two deployment zone corners; the road played no part in the game.  I never got my bows out of the wood on my side: he attacked with superior forces of Auxilia and Psiloi.  I had a fairly strong central position, but he controlled the other flank with his bows against my light horse. 

I was able to shave a spear off to hold back the bows, but my bows were suffering in the woods on my other flank.  I ended up killing off his three psiloi, while he whittled me down.  Eventually he was winning 3G-3 and I needed 2 PIPs to move anything.  I lasted another 2-3 turns, when he killed my fourth element and I wasn’t able to return the favor, so he won 4G-3.

I learned some important points in these games, mostly about the interactions of bows in bad going.  Chao has a very small bad going force, only a single Psiloi, so the bows have to pull double duty in the woods and steep hills.  Playing against Neal, I realized my spear were an even match for him in the woods, since he couldn’t shoot me in there and we were both +2 and 2″ move.  Rich taught me that blades are still better than bows in the woods, with their +3, and my shooting didn’t make up for this.  Steve reinforced the point by demonstrating Auxilia’s superiority in bad going: they survived many turns without moving or recoiling from my shooting.  In short, Bows are good only against a few troop types in bad going, even in a defensive role: mounted, pike, and maybe psiloi if you can get a double shot off. 

There was a wide variety of Chinese armies there.  Besides the armies I played against, Steve also had Ming and Post Mongol Samurai; Jim could field Yuan, Khitan-Liao, and maybe one other option; and Rich also had Warring States (other).  I had all of the Warring States options except (other) as well as Mongol Conquest.  This seems to be a very heavily populated part of the world, w.r.t. locally owned DBA armies.

I also noticed several of the armies had Museum figures in them, and they were all painted very differently.  It was interesting to see the different color schemes, they made the figures almost unrecognizable in the different armies.

It was a fun theme this month.  The proposed theme for next month is Elephants: every army must have at least one.  Sounds good!

Historicon 2010: Duke’s Jubilee

Duke Siefried has gained a reputation over the years for running large, impressive games at the conventions.  He decided to retire from this and clear out his collection, presumably so his kids wouldn’t have to. But first, one last bash: Uncle Duke’s Diamond Jubilee!

For his last year at Historicon, Duke brought 14 games and ran them (with the help of numerous volunteers) throughout the weekend.  There was a special area set aside just for these games, and they were all always full of players.  After the show, everything was available for sale (I didn’t check the prices: “if you have to ask…”)

Here are some pictures I took of the highlights.  It’s hard to convey the scale of these games in pictures.  They are simultaneously really big and highly detailed at a small scale.  The miniatures were definitely painted to “convention gaming” standard, but when you put this many 25mm figures on a table at the same time, it looks impressive even with a basic paint job.

Most of the games were large, but his Jolly Roger game was played in a very innovative way.  Large scale pirate ships with 25mm crews were mounted on waist-high movement stands, and the game was played on the floor.  This provided for a much bigger game than a table allows (due to arm length limitations) without having to sit down.  There were floating islands and ports around the edges of the play area as well.  The game used Duke’s Jolly Roger home rules.


I think this game is Zulu! with Isandlwana Mountain in the distance.  It stood taller than me, and the table was probably 15-20 feet long. The rules were a variant of The Sword and the Flame.

I didn’t take notes on which game was which, but this one is most likely Fire & Sword in the Sudan, using Duke’s Fire & Sword home rules (not to be confused with The Sword and the Flame rules for the same period).  The table used real sand scattered over the terrain for a very realistic effect.

This one is Babylon I, with the hanging gardens just out of frame to the right.  This Babylonian vs Assyrian game was played with 25mm figures and a variant of DBA called De Bellis Extravaganza.  Talk on the Fanaticus forums suggests the rule changes were minor, and related to the specifics of this battle: some combat factors were modified, and some troops that ordinarily don’t have ranged shooting could shoot.

Finally, Azteca!   Set in Tenochtitlan (Mexico City in the time of the Aztecs), this battle between Aztecs and Conquistadors was played with another of Duke’s home rules: Aztec! The Game. 

Historicon 2010: Games Except DBA

Since DBA took up the bulk of my Historicon experience, I’ll go over “everything else” first.

There was “much ado about nothing” this year, w.r.t. Historicon changing locations. My two second synopsis of the Valley Forge location is that it was just fine, and I’d go back again. The only downside I could see was that the club rooms were far away from the rest of the gaming, but that’s not a big problem for me.  It certainly wasn’t substantially worse than what I remember about Lancaster.

I stayed in a campground in my parents’ RV. This reduced lodging costs, but the extra driving wasn’t ideal. For future conventions I’d consider committing more completely to “con as vacation” or maybe just a long weekend.

My big mistake was missing the online preregistration period. A smaller mistake that ended up being a major pain was choosing the wrong line to stand in during walk-in registration. The other line moved, mine didn’t: I was there for hours longer than I would’ve been in the other line. This ruined our evening, but at least it was before the convention started.

The game selection this year emphasized periods I’m not interested in, probably due to this year’s theme (Pike and Shot). The changes between the Priliminary Event List available online in May and the program seemed minimal. Luckily I only needed to find a few games to fill my schedule.

The first of my three non-DBA games was a Battlestar Galactica space battle. The rules aren’t published yet, but the working title seems to be Picon Military Academy.  It’s based on the Colonial Battlefleet rules that were played last year and published in a lincense-free generic form.

The Iron Wind BSG figures are beautiful! They have a lot of detail and look like they’ll paint up easily while providing excellent results.  Unfortunately the gamemaster didn’t have any missiles or torpedos, so we ended up with a lot of markers on the board.

The rules are IGO-UGO.  Ships have a current speed, maximum speed, and can change their speed by a certain amount each turn.  They are also very maneuverable, and can make one or more 30 degree turns each movement.  Fighters go wherever they want.  Shooting is done per weapon system using a range system: the gun’s range (including a die roll) must be greater than the target’s distance to hit.  Hits roll penetration, and penetrating hits do damage.

Our scenario was very straightforward, and quickly turned into a shoot-em-up. I think it was a bit too early for the gamemaster to be “all there” yet.

I’d play the game again, and I was very tempted to buy the figures; but I’d really like to wait until the rules come out so I can figure out what to buy first.  These ships are definitely on my “to buy” list once I know what I want.

My second game was Celluloid Heroes of the West,” a Wild West skirmish game pitting television heroes against movie heroes using the High Noon ruleset and 25-28mm figures.

The basis of the scenario was the Wild West portion of the Back to the Future series of movies: Marty McFly and Doc Brown had to get their time machine onto the train tracks and get it up to speed to travel back to the future.  Most scenario gameplay was character-based: each player got victory points for doing the sorts of things their characters did in their movie or TV show.

They had a long table set up with very dense terrain, and multiple games going on along its length over the weekend.  The tables were connected with specially built gulleys with bridges and rivers.  All the buildings opened up so you could put figures in, on, and around every floor.  The end we played on had the towns, and at the other end was desert.  We had about 8-10 feet worth of table to work with for our scenario.

This was a great convention game, but nothing I’d try to do at home.  The game would fail without the flavor of the scenario.  Our particular game was greatly improved by the boyfriend-girlfriend combination on opposite teams constantly trying to foil each others plans’ while maintaining consistency with their characters’ typical behavior (“Does the Lone Ranger really push Silver in front of the train?”

These High Noon rules seem to be the older set published in the 90’s, and not the modern version available on the Internet. Activation is IGO-UGO; every figure can move, but they need to pass an activation test to do something else such as shoot or melee. The stats have enough details that each player can run only two figures effectively.  It uses a percentile system with a long list of combat modifiers.

I’d play this game again at a convention, but I’m not inspired to paint Wild West figures or attempt to find or play these rules.  It’s just not a great game for only a small number of players without a game master.

On Friday, I got into a game of Disposable Heroes that ended up being almost empty.  This was my first experience playing in the Pacific theater of World War II (New Guinea, in this case).

I played two platoons of Japanese infantry, with a tank in support of each, as well as a mule train.  My objective was to get the mules to boats on the coast, retrieve supplies, and transport them back past a river; the US Marines across the board from me had different ideas.

The whole board except the beach and road was dense jungle (light cover) and visibility was reduced to 10″.  The Marines with their Garands and BARs (I think that’s more appropriate for the Army, who got all the good guns) totally outgunned the Japanese and had essentially no move-and-fire penalty.

The Marines were fast and deadly. In the end, my opponent crushed me utterly, leaving only the mules, the tanks (one disabled), and about 3 infantry.  I claim victory, because with everyone dead I no longer needed the supplies.

I was the only player who had played Disposable Heroes previously.  It’s definitely not my favorite WWII ruleset at a similar figure scale, but it’s fast, “good enough,” and easy to remember if you haven’t played in a while.  The terrain and figures were nice enough that I’m inspired to paint up some Japanese and/or 20/25mm figures, but it’s low on my list.

The rest of the time I ate expensive food and went shopping.  Amazingly, this year I didn’t buy any new rule sets or figures for new periods or scales I don’t already own (except for a box of 1/32 scale plastic Vikings for Martine).

The Flea Market did suck me in: I bought a painted Carthaginian army… well, actually it would make four DBA armies or a good start at a DBM army.  This force has definitely seen better days, and will make a good “beater” army.  I’ll put minimal effort into rehabbing it: I already rebased it so the base sizes are correct, and I’ll be touching up and dipping it all.  After that it’s the road to glory: either I’ll get crushed by Romans as they expect, or my victory will be all the sweeter for beating them with an army that looks as bad as this.

BBDBA: About JM’s plans

Since JM didn’t have commenting turned on for his blog, I’ll post my thoughts about his plan here.

It’s easy to find flaws with a plan after it has failed, so I’ll try not to restate anything obvious. Instead I’ll describe my reaction to what JM planned and did.

JM anticipated my command structure correctly, except for expecting all the pike in one command. I decided I wanted to field my pike in three blocks of four, with psiloi linking them. This worked well to improve maneuverability and provide flank support and anti-psiloi support.

9x Cav, 3x LH, 3x Sp, 1x Ps (= 1x Sp quad)
The mounted will run forward towards the pike and hope to get overlaps
using the light horse.

In the planning stages, I feared JM’s LH would quick kill my pike, but a little calculation told me that it wasn’t a big concern. I wasn’t worried about a head to head match with his Cavalry (partially because I forgot the Pike didn’t get rear support against Cav). The big danger for me was if JM could turn my pike’s flank.

The thing I’ll have to watch out for is contacting him too soon, or making it too obvious what this command’s mission is. If I contact him too soon, I’ll be unsupported and he’ll probably still be in more or less a nice line.

In gameplay, I wheeled my pike in separate blocks. I wonder if my disorganized line encouraged JM to contact me sooner? He hit me in good order before I had a well-formed line, but my pikes survived anyway.

When I deploy, I’ll put the high command favoring a far flank, but not out of reach of the center. If he chooses to deploy opposite me, so be it: I’ll be able to go after him without him having the benefit of support on either side. If he puts the pike in the expected middle, fine, I can catch him before he can get out of trouble.

I deployed in reaction to JM’s setup, so it’s best for me not to deploy myself into trouble to begin with. If you want to cause trouble as the defender, your best bet is your final command placement.

At the time, I regretted putting my camp to the right. I wanted to deploy my pike in a long line with their left flank right next to the waterway and my mounted command next to it. I would deny JM’s slow heavy foot on the opposite flank. But he had a bit of light horse over there: just enough to take my camps if I left them unprotected.

Instead, my pike command deployed to delay contact with JM’s mounted wing, allowing me to wheel and protect the pike’s flanks. I considered advancing in echelon instead, but in retrospect I think my wheel was the better move.

The mid command:
3x Lh, 3x Aux, 4x Ps

This was a reasonable command, but assuming I could move my Kn/El into first contact, I wasn’t very afraid of it: the Knights would crush the auxilia most of the time, providing overlaps for the elephants. If he contacted first he could combat the elephants and hopefully kill one, leaving my knights exposed. Instead, he wheeled parts of his line to protect his flank, and I wasn’t about to move my elephants into overlaps.

What, a waterway, are you crazy?

The waterway ended up being irrelevant. The pike are so narrow, you’d have to cut the board in half with a river to give them much advantage. I expected JM to use the waterway to anchor one of his flanks by deploying directly next to the waterway instead of 3″ away from the board edge. With the bad going on the other end of the board, he could’ve fought entirely in the open.

Remember when I said I wanted the bad going to tempt Alan? Well that’s why there’s a road in there! Let’s hope it’s too much for him to resist.

This was, in fact, too much to resist. There was at least a 50% chance that I’d have enough PIPs on the first bound to send my Auxilia all the way to JM’s deployment zone. I like those odds and I’d bet on them again. I probably would’ve gone into the bad going even without a road, if he deployed the same way he did this time.

JM deployed his mid-PIP command in front of his spears. That hampered their ability to move and contribute to the battle, and disrupted his plan for that command. I wonder if it would have worked better to put the light foot in the center to harass the flanks of both my mounted and pike commands.

… I hope he sees my reserved deployment as a sign that he can get to the bad going.

I didn’t notice that the spears had space in front of them until he deployed the light foot there. Watching my Elephants’ enemy transform from Spears to Auxilia was an unwelcome surprise.

I’ll conveniently put down as little bad going as possible.

Unfortunately, that terrain placement was a perfect highway for the auxilia. The road made it way too fast. It may have been better to place two tiny woods in the corners opposite the waterway, and do away with the gentle hill he ended up having to use in the center.

The heavier Alex block will be the one to avoid. Either Alan is afraid that I’m going to chose to ignore his pike, or he’s being sneaky in his pre-game e-mails and actually wants me to think that’s a good idea…

I don’t remember what I was thinking in pre-game e-mail. My basic opinion of pike is that they’re very tough, but their lack of maneuverability makes it hard to choose where (or if) you meet your enemy.

One strategy against pike is to take advantage of their lack of maneuverability. A few small groups of psiloi can delay a pike block for “a long time” (in pike years). That’s another reason I included some light foot along with my pikes.

I think the mere fact that I’ve bothered to think through this all will help my chances.

I read a quote by Randy Pausch erecently that I like a lot: “You can always change your plan, but only if you have one.”

I think having a plan can also accelerate learning from your mistakes. It’s easier to learn which of your decisions turned out to be bad if you know what your decisions were. Or: “You can make your plan better next time, but only if you have one this time.”

BBDBA After-Action Report: Alexander vs. Darius

… in which Alexander learns the value of a good road.

I made plans and predictions about how this game would go in my last post; how accurate was I?  Well, my summary prediction was wrong… but at least Darius III didn’t flee off the table. We played the game on a 5’x2′ board using NASAMW standard rules, since this seems to be standard these days.

JM was the defender (no surprise), and placed minimal terrain: a waterway along one short edge, and a large wood in the center of the opposite short edge with a road running through it.  A single gentle hill in the center of my board edge fulfilled his terrain requirements while leaving most of the board empty.  He deployed his camp in the center of his edge, and I deployed my camps slightly to the right of the gentle hill.

Unfortunately I didn’t take a picture of the deployment, I only have an image after the first turn, so use your imagination.

The Persians deployed their high PIP command first, in the center of his right flank: 9x3Cv/LCh (gen), 3x2LH, 3x4Sp, 1x2Ps.  The low PIP command was next: 6x4Sp, 4x2Ps on the center of the left flank.  I wasn’t expecting a board as devoid of terrain as this, and it threw me off: there was nowhere I could funnel his troops to face my narrow pikes.  He deployed his commands with gaps on all sides, which would allow his third command to be placed anywhere: either in the center or on either extreme flank, giving him lots of options.

The only place I could use terrain to my advantage was the one big wood on my right flank, so I decided to deploy my Mountain Indian allies there.  I placed the command in columns: 5x3Ax on the road, 4x2Ps parallel to the road, and 3x2LH outside the wood.

My command structure was as I planned yesterday: 4x4Pk, 3x3Kn, 2xEl, 2x2LH in the high PIP command; 8x4Pk, 2x2Ps, 2x4Ax in the low PIP command.  But where should I put them?  It seemed clear that I should scrunch into my right side of the board so I could protect my camp, but which command should face his mounted wing and which should face his spears?

I can’t win against his cavarly with my pikes, and his light horse would quick kill my pikes or flank them easily.  So I placed my mounted command facing his cavalry, and deployed my pikes facing his spears.

No, wait.  I changed my mind.  The pikes face his cavalry and my mounted face his spears.  Done.  As the game progressed, I concluded this was the better choice, as it fit my commands’ missions better.  I shouldn’t try to deny a flank with troops I also intend to win with.  The pikes wouldn’t kill his cavalry quickly, but they also wouldn’t lose quickly; this would give my right flank time to start winning.

A problem I had in planning was that I never formally decided what my commands’ missions would be.  This would have been easy and obvious: the mounted command is there to win in the open; the Mountain Indians were there to win in bad going or flank and enter his backfield; the pikes were there to hold the line and “not lose” while everyone else won.  If I had noted this explicitly, the proper deployment would have been more obvious.

JM’s third command deployment was a surprise: he left space in front of his spear line to place his Auxilia.  Now my elephants were facing Auxilia instead of spears: not ideal.

On the first turn, my Indians got 6 PIPs and plowed through the woods: my psiloi took their first turn multiple move, and the Auxilia took the road.  Wow, roads can be really useful!  This is the best use I’ve ever had for a road.  My mounted command advanced steadily while my pikes wheeled in two psiloi-separated blocks to face the flanking threat from the Persian mounted wing.

This set the stage for the next few turns.  On my right flank, my Indians formed up on the flank of his double line, as my mounted advanced towards him.   On the left, I deployed my pikes into a line and got my auxilia out to protect the extreme left flank from an impending light horse maneuver.

Unfortunately, I forgot that Pike don’t get a rank bonus against cavalry.   But, I also forgot they were +4 against mounted, so in the end I managed to live (since +3 can’t double +4). 

JM wheeled his light infantry against my elephants and knights, and threatened their flank somewhat with his light horse. I was able to maneuver my light horse into place to face his, but I refused to attack his Auxilia line.  Instead, I advanced the Indians against his flank, since I knew that would have a great chance of success.

On my right flank, I ended up having my high PIP and allied commands combining forces against his single mid-PIP command, while his low PIP command stagnated behind the lines.  That gave me a big edge on that side of the board.  In the mean time, his “must win” flank was still a few turns away from contact.

In the middle of the game I held onto my initiative on my right flank, and JM proceeded against my left flank.  JM’s mid-pip command was the first to be demoralized, after I destroyed a few of his light horse and light infantry.  We eventually realized he never assigned a general for that command, but many of his elements never saw combat anyway so it might not have mattered.

On my left, I was very nearly undone by his light horse flanking maneuver, but my auxilia managed to pull their ass out of the fire for a few turns until I could maneuver into a better position.  Unfortunately for JM, he let his high PIP command’s spear block fall behind, as I was hoping would happen.  He needed to rush his cavalry into contact in order to have a hope of winning there quickly enough, but this also left him with too few troops in combat and the rest left behind.  At that point he had to spend so many PIPs redressing his lines that he couldn’t advance his spears.

Once enough of his light foot command died or fled out of the way, I could finally start facing his spears on my right flank.  I had already killed some supporting Psiloi, and after facing off with my knights and elephants, he lost a spear with psiloi support and that command was demoralized as well.  At this point it was only a matter of time; but I still feared for my left flank.  In retrospect I shouldn’t have worried: I could win even after losing that entire command.

In the end, JM lost 18 elements as two of his commands were demoralized and fleeing off the board.  I lost 3 elements: two Mountain Indians and one from my pike command (or was it the other way around?).  This was a total sweep, but definitely not in the direction I expected.

Although my plans were not well defined, were very direct instead of subtle, and were primarily a reaction to JM’s deployment, they ended up working.  Some of this was luck: early on, I got the PIPs I needed to push out of the woods on my right flank, and I won several crucial combats that could have turned the tables if I had lost.

On the other hand, my deployment and maneuvering supported my plan.  I never felt like I was in a hurry on my right flank: I had the time I needed to turn his flank instead of walking into his angled line and splitting my elephants up, and I was confident that flanking would be the better maneuver.

I enjoyed seeing how the “grand battle” unfolded in this game, as it usually does in BBDBA.  I liked this army composition a lot more than I expected.  I’ve been sick of playing with or against Alexander in normal DBA lately, and I previously considered the Mountain Indian ally to be a compromise based on what I had on hand instead of a useful complement to fill Alexander’s deficiencies.

Thanks for a great game, JM!  I’m sorry you lost, but someone had to do it.  But since you lost, you probably learned more than I did, so I expect you to start beating me soon.