(Updated below.  Discussion of my choices is happening here.)

Steve, JM, and I played BBDBA at Legions on Saturday, before the Miniature Warfare event.  Steve brought III/63(b) Ghaznavid, (1002-1186AD), and I played my II/7 Later Achaemenid Persians (420-329BC) again.  With almost 1500 years between these armies’ historical dates, this battle is more anachronistic than the Ghaznavids fighting against Rommel’s 7th Panzer Division.  Let’s hear it for fantasy gaming!

In my previous BBDBA battle, the C-in-C (me) was demoralized immediately after deployment.  This time I wanted to be more prepared, so I thought a bit more about dividing my commands and initial deployment.  The Persians’ low aggression means they usually set up terrain and deploy first. My goal was to find a flexible way to divide my commands, and to have a plan for setting up terrain and deploying my first two commands against an army with superior cavalry.

My army composition was the same as last game: 6x2LH, 7x3Cv, 2xLCh, 9x4Sp, 3x3Ax, and 9x2Ps.  That time I divided my troops into heavy foot, light foot, and mounted. However, with one huge psiloi backed spear command, I had few deployment options if I wanted to protect its flanks.  I could only protect one flank with bad going troops, which either left the other flank open or left the deployment of my third command too obvious.

This time, I used more combined arms in my commands.  My high PIP command had 3x4Sp, 3x3Ax, 2x2Ps, 2xLCh (gen), and 6x3Cv. Mid PIP was 6x4Sp (gen), 7x2Ps.  Low PIP was 6x2LH (gen), 1x3Cv.

With more light infantry along with the spears, they can anchor one or both flanks in bad going or against another command.  The combined arms high PIP command gave a lot more options in one location on the board, and is better at dealing with unpredictable threats. This is important when you deploy first.  The low PIP light horse command may seem foolish; in fact the evidence suggests it was foolish since it didn’t live long enough for me to see if it could be effective. But my thought was that this command could act as an independent flanking force or bolster my high PIP cavalry force, whichever I needed most.

For deployment, I wanted a plan that would allow me to avoid what happened last time: the enemy’s superior cavalry in two separate commands ganged up on my single cavalry command and took it apart.  I decided that to counter this, I’d use a deployment that led the enemy to believe they could use this tactic easily, but then deny its effectiveness.

The first image shows our initial deployment.  I’m on the bottom of the board.  I deployed a steep hill and a wood on one side of the board, to effectively split it in half.  On the other side I used a central wood to anchor my flank.  The road played no part in the battle or my plan.

I deployed my two rightmost commands first.  My psiloi-supported spear line has a block of psiloi on the left flank to take the wood and protect that flank, and three psiloi-supported auxilia on the right.  I deployed my cavalry behind, in a position meant to entice a cavalry attack and suggest I might place my third command on that side as well.

If I remember correctly, Steve’s army had 5 elephants, 6 bows, 3 auxilia, 6 spear, 3 light horse and 3 psiloi; that would leave 10 cavalry.  Steve and JM’s deployment went mostly according to my plan.  They placed the bulk of their cavalry (most importantly their elephants) on the far side of the wall of bad going.  This allowed me to more effectively avoid and pester them.  Their bows and auxilia were set up to take the steep hill, and their right flank was primarily foot with some linking cavalry.

I placed my light horse command on my far left flank, in position to harrass their relatively unprotected spear line on that flank.  My plan was working so far, but it hadn’t survived contact with the enemy yet.  I intended to win on the left flank, and not lose on the right flank by denying it.  It felt inefficient to “not lose” with my high PIP command, and this might have been a mistake.

As an aside: In many tactical discussions in the Fanaticus forums, it is emphasized that you need a clear plan, simply stated; and that in BBDBA each command should have a clear mission it is capable of achieving.  However, my understanding of what such a plan looks like has been elusive.  In this battle I formed a clear plan, so as an example I’ll state it:

The Plan: My overall plan was to deny the enemy on my right flank using the terrain to delay and confuse, and to attack on my left flank and turn the enemy’s line.  The high PIP command’s mission was to delay the enemy and prevent their passage through the wall of bad going.  The mid PIP command’s mission was to advance towards the enemy in good going, secure the woods on the left flank, and attack.  The low PIP command’s mission was to turn the enemy’s flank.

My first moves on the right flank were to consolidate my position.  I pulled my dangling cavalry back to deny the flank, while advancing my Auxilia into the woods, intending to fill the line with my cavalry from the rear.  Here, it turns out I made a mistake: according to a recent thread on the Fanaticus forums, you can’t form a column with elements that are currently in bad going.  Oops!  But Larry disagrees with that assessment, so I can probably get away with it in Pittsburgh… besides, I think my poor maneuvering in the woods caused me to use more PIPs than I would with single element moves anyway.

In the center I advanced my spear, and I was aggressive on the left flank. I advanced my psiloi to control the woods, and ran my light horse around them.

Unfortunately, my right flank became messy quickly.  I was able to avoid the elephants, but my decision to bolster the front line with cavalry turned out to be a bad idea against Steve’s bows.  I lost the cavalry in front of my C-in-C, which was also blocking reinforcements from coming in from behind.  Luckily Steve was also split into several groups, and had a hard time maneuvering his mounted columns through and between the bad going.

The center was somewhat split up by my spear trying to cover for the lost cavalry, but it was advancing steadily on the left. On my left flank I was doing much better. I got around JM’s flank and forced them to redeploy their psiloi, and put my general into position for a 3-3 quick kill against JM’s spear. Unfortunately, not only did I not kill the spear, I also didn’t recoil!  Cue ironic foreshadowing soundtrack.  Now you see it…

… and now you don’t.  With his one PIP command roll, JM flanked my 2LH (gen) and killed it.  Doh!  This decisive die roll demoralized my low PIP command.  The only part it played for the rest of the game was for the lead 2LH element to ZOC one psiloi and keep it out of trouble for a few turns.

I managed to survive a lot longer than I expected after this, and actually felt like I had a chance for a while, but it ended up being a battle of attrition.  I made some progress on the left flank, but it wasn’t killing as fast as my right flank was dying. 

On the right, most of my losses were my light troops in the woods.  This allowed some of Steve’s cavalry through the wall, where it helped JM’s cavalry against my spear. He finally got around the southern end of the wood with some of his elephants, but as you can see here he had a real command nightmare: elephants in 4 separate groups, with at least one group of elephants and two groups of cavalry out of command range due to the terrain.  Although this is what I hoped would happen, I didn’t plan on spending as many elements to do it.

In the end, my high PIP command broke due to the loss of its sixth element, and the game was over.  I had killed 3 elements in their low PIP command (breakpoint 4), 3 in their mid PIP (breakpoint 5), and 3 in their high PIP (breakpoint 5).

Overall I had a lot of fun, it was a tense and tricky game throughout.  I consider it a success even though I lost, because:

1. I was able to formulate a clear, well defined plan
2. My terrain placement and deployment effectively supported the plan
3. My feint on the right flank worked, in its basic principle
4. I didn’t think I was going to lose immediately after deployment was finished

On the other hand, I made the same mistake several times, and suffered heavily for it: I am not very good at ensuring that I have space to recoil when I make an attack (as evidenced by the Ax and Ps in the woods in the last image: the psiloi was my last element lost, killed by a simple recoil result).  I’m good at seeing when other players are poorly positioned, and I know when to take advantage of it… but I can’t seem to protect myself adequately.

I’m more excited to play BBDBA than I was after my previous game, but I clearly need a lot more practice with single DBA tactics as well.

Thanks for the great game!

Update: Some caveats and thoughts after some of Steve’s feedback:

1. I had a plan, but I don’t claim it was a good one.  I did lose, after all.
2. Steve and JM deployed mostly as I hoped they would, but I don’t know what my response would have been if they hadn’t.
3. I don’t think my Cavalry deployment was very good.  I think my high PIP Ax/Sp line could’ve been done better as well.
4. I may be better off with more 4Sp and less 3Ax.  I may be better off with one or two SCh instead of 2Ps.

Tonight at Legions DBA night, we played BBDBA.  It was my first time playing a “proper” BBDBA game by the Rules As Written.  I brought my Later Achaemenid Persians (II/7), and we decided by a roll of the dice that my Persians would face Jim’s Yuan Chinese (IV/48).  Another roll of the dice put Rich on Jim’s team, and Steve on mine.

I put some thought into this game before I got there, but not a lot.  I anticipated the possibility of facing Steve’s Hundred Years War English, which would present a vast array of new tactical problems: lots of artillery and bows.  It was different enough from anything I’ve faced so far that I felt I’d have no chance of winning (but many opportunities for learning from my mistakes).

That turned out not to matter, but the Yuan Chinese presented another challenge: even more cavalry than my Persians. My main pre-planning went into how to split my army into commands that had optimal break points and well-defined tactical purposes.  I settled on a 16 element high-pip command consisting of 8 cavalry (and light chariot), 6 light horse, and 2 psiloi; a 13 element low-pip command consisting of 9 spear, 3 psiloi for rear support, and the C-in-C (cavalry); and a 7 element mid-pip command with 3 Auxilia and 4 Psiloi in an active role.

When it came to playing the game, 7 elements seemed small for a mid-pip command, and I was convinced it was better to put 2 psiloi back from the high pip command into the mid pip.  Jim broke his side’s command into a high pip command consisting primarily mounted but with a bit of bad going support; a low pip all-mounted command; and a mid pip foot command with a bit of mounted support.  The aggression roll made us the defender, and I placed terrain as seen in the accompanying pictures.  I left a wide open space for my spear wall, with enough bad going to anchor its flanks and room for the cavalry to play on the sides.

Next came deployment.  We deployed the spear wall in the obvious open space in the middle, and the bad going troops to the left, with our cavalry in reserve.  In retrospect, there was only one good place to put the cavalry, so we should’ve placed that first, instead. It’s also fastest, so if we had placed it incorrectly it’d be easier to move than the foot.  If we placed the bad going troops last, they could have reinforced either of the spear’s flanks as necessary.

The first picture shows the board after the first turn, which is very similar to our initial deployment (our side on the bottom).  At this point, I basically knew I was screwed and should just immediately give up.  My cavalry was far outnumbered on my right flank, both in number elements and in number of pips, since he had two commands playing against one of mine.  Another major concern was the fact that I attempted to anchor my spear’s right flank on the woods, but I didn’t provide any bad going troops to secure it.  The gap between my cavalry and spear was wide, and a huge problem, since it was big enough for the enemy foot to flank my spear, and my horse could do almost nothing to help.

I’d hope that a Real general in my position would mount an orderly retreat and return to fight another day. But historically, Darius III only ever routed in a very disorderly fashion after Alexander turned his flank, so we decided to let the Yuan play the part of Alex this time around.

From here on out, the battle went very predictably, but it was accelerated by Jim’s excellent die rolling skills.  He had multiple turns in a row where the low-pip command had 4 pips, and was consistently rolling 5’s and 6’s in combat as I rolled 1’s.  Blame it on the dice, I always say!  No, it’s better to learn from my mistakes, instead.  “Oh no, not another learning experience.”

The beginning of the end came on the right flank.  I advanced in an attempt to isolate individual cavalry elements before they left the steep hill and regrouped, and wheeled to the left to defensively increase my frontage against Jim’s line.  It didn’t work: he punched a hole in my light horse with his cavalry general, and was able to exploit it.

The big mistake I made here was deploying my light horse too far to the flank and leaving my stronger cavalry on the left where it did no good.  I also should’ve thrown my general into the fray, since he wasn’t the commander in chief.

In the mean time, Steve was doing better on the opposite flank.   His bad going troops and my spear in the middle outnumbered the enemy’s mid-pip command.  He had control of the flank to the extent that a coordinated attack between the spear and his auxilia could fold the flank easily.

But there were a few problems. One was bad die rolling on our part, of course.  Another was the fact that even if we did turn that flank, it didn’t contain Jim’s commander-in-chief, so it wouldn’t be enough to win the game.  But most importantly, time was running out.  My right flank mission should have been to delay the larger commands, but my impatience got me into trouble and didn’t give Steve the time required to win on his side.

The final image here shows the Middle of the End.  I do think bad die rolls had a disproportionate effect against us on our left flank; we were in a pretty good position overall.

On the right, we had no chance.  By retreating I was able to close the gaps in my line somewhat, but my line was stretched thin and Jim’s had plenty in reserve.  I eventually lost my 5th element there (it wasn’t love), and the command was demoralized.

We were still in the game, but not for long.  We had one turn for me to make an effort not to run away before the spear command was also demoralized and we lost.

I learned a lot, and had a good time despite losing.  In order to fix the game, I think I’d have to change almost everything I did: splitting the commands, deploying terrain, and deploying the army.

In retrospect, my initial split that included 2 psiloi with my cavalry might have helped a lot.  Those two psiloi would have done a good job in the bad going, delaying Jim’s auxilia and protecting my spear’s flank.

But if I had 2 Scythed Chariots instead of psiloi, those would also have helped in my cavalry command, by giving me a bit of punch and increasing the size of the command without a penalty for losing them.

I wonder if the other two commands would’ve worked better if I had given 3 spear and a psiloi to the bad going command.  Steve could’ve used the spear in the good going, and helped the situation overall by reducing pip demands on the central spear command.

That would leave an 11 element mid-pip command consisting of 3xAx, 3xSp, and 5xPs; a 9 element low-pip command consisting of 6xSp, 2xPs, and 1xCv (gen); and a 16 element high-pip command with 8xCv/LCh, 6xLH, and 2xSCh.

One more tweak and it looks even better: give one more Psiloi to the low-pip command to link with the cavalry, and I’d have a 10/10/16 split, which is ideal for break points.   Then, the main problem would be deploying two of those commands without either giving away too much information, or compromising one of the low pip command’s flanks.

I think in order to have any chance of sucess with BBDBA I’ll need a lot more practice with single-army games.  But I enjoy the game even if I fail at it, which is always a good sign.

Thanks for another good night of gaming at Legions, everyone!