Category: miniatures

Stoogecon: a Matched Pair?

Stoogecon was a few weeks ago.  As with last year’s event, the tournaments were three rounds long: an Open and Matched Pairs.  Unlike in previous years, the DBM folks showed up as well, and even managed to get as many players as “we” (the DBA players) did.  Although I mainly want to share my thoughts about my choice of Matched Pair armies, I’ll start with a summary of the day.

In the Open, we apparently all had the same idea: “everyone likes medieval knight armies, so I’ll take elephants.”  I brought Rajput Indians, III/10b. The other players had Tamil Indians, Graeco-Indian, Southern Dynasty Chinese, New Kingdom Egyptians, and Romans.

A quick summary of my Open games: In round 1, Frank with Tamil Indians beat me in a close and hard-fought match, 4-3.  In round 2, I shouldn’t have gone into the bad going, and Rich’s Chinese punished me for it, 4-1. In the last round, Larry’s Egyptians ran up to me and committed ritual suicide: I won 2g-0 on the bound Larry first contacted me.

For the Matched Pairs event, I chose Early Bedouin, I/6c, vs. Later Achaemenid Persian, II/7.  Bedouins have: 3x3Cm (Gen), 1x2Cm, 4x3Ax, 4x2Ps.  I gave the Persians 1xLCh (Gen), 2x3Cv, 2xLH, 4x3Ax, 3x2Ps.  The basic difference is the Bedouin camels are better vs. mounted, but there are fewer of them.  Bedouins have the possibility of Dunes, but with Ag: 3 to 1 they’ll rarely get to use them. 

So, is this a well-matched pair?  I’ll share my thoughts after a summary of the event.

In the first round, I played against Jim using his armies: I played Middle Imperial Romans vs. his Later Imperial Romans.  I didn’t feel like I made any big mistakes during play, but still ended up continuing my losing streak against him: 4-0. 

In the second round, we used my armies, and JM chose Bedouins.  These armies have low combat factors, so they’re fast and bloody.  I don’t remember the details of the battle, but it was a total rout: I won 6g-1. 

In the third and final round, we played my armies again and Frank chose the Persians.  Surprisingly, the Bedouins won terrain and of course placed some big central dunes. That whole “rout” thing worked so well, I tried it again… only this time I was Bedouin, so I lost 5-2.

At this point my conclusion may be obvious, but I first want to make it clear that I really enjoy playing either one of these armies against the other.  I’ve had some tense and interesting games, and even the routs didn’t look totally hopeless until the dice started rolling.  Using primarily light troops means you run faster, so you get into combat faster with less time to rearrange lines before contact; and the low combat factors mean someone dies quickly.  You’ll never end up with an incomplete game, in any case.

The basic premise of this matched pair is to take two similar but slightly different armies, with similar compositions but relative strengths and weaknesses. Bedouin camels have an advantage against mounted but a penalty against foot, and don’t suffer bad going penalties if they happen to find a dune to stand in.  Persians have more mounted, but less bad going troops.

Despite these seemingly even odds, I don’t think I’ve ever seen the Bedouins win.  It can certainly be done, and there have been some close games, but overall I don’t think the pair is as well-matched as I used to.  After Stoogecon, I considered why this might be, and came up with a few ideas.

First of all, “dunes” are mostly a red herring.  Bedouin will rarely get a chance to place dunes at all, only 6/36 of the time.  If you do get dunes, they can probably be used effectively, but I haven’t done it correctly yet.  The benefit of dunes in this matchup is not that camels fight in them without penalty; it is the camels’ ability to move through dunes as a group.  No Persian player would be dumb enough to put their Cavalry near the dunes, so the camels will only be facing foot… but the camels aren’t very good against foot.  So, deploy the dunes for disruptive PIP advantage, rather than as a central terrain to fight over.

The other problem is the nature of the armies’ advantages.  Bedouin camels are better against cavalry, which is 5 elements; but they’re worse against foot, the other 7 elements. Their advantage turns a cavalry matchup from 3-3 into a 4-3, which increases their odds of a kill from 2/36 to 4/36 and a recoil from 15/36 to 21/36. Their disadvantage against supported auxilia goes from 3-3 to 2-3: 2/36 chance of being killed up to 6/36, and 15/36 recoil up to 21/36.  Against unsupported auxilia, 3-2 to 2-2 reduces the chance of a kill from 6/36 to 4/36, while increasing the chance of being killed from 1/36 to 4/36.

So basically, Bedouins get a lesser advantage against fewer foes, and a larger disadvantage against more foes.

The overall dynamic is that the Persians are happy playing with their entire force out in the open, while the Bedouins want to keep their foot in bad going to stay away from the enemy Cavalry.  They have to choose to either stay in bad going and give the Persians both numerical advantage in the open and overall PIP advantage; or to come into the open and give the Persians combat factor advantage

Not all of these factors played into every loss I’ve seen, but in my previous attempts to use this matched pair I came away with similarly skewed result.

Overall, I have a bit of a dilemma.  I really enjoy playing this pair of armies, but I no longer think it’s an even match.  I either need to figure out how to win with Bedouin, since I already know how to win with Persia; or find another matched pair that I enjoy playing as much as this one even when I’m losing.  Any ideas?

Post Tax Day BBDBA 2011

Last weekend I drove out to Columbus, and Mike and I played BBDBA at the Post Tax Day event.  It was a fun time, definitely worth going to Ohio.  I hope to go back for future DBA events out there.

Unlike my other BBDBA tournament experience, this was a singles event instead of doubles.  I borrowed JM’s Hittite army so I could field double Hittites (I/24a) with a Mitanni (I/19) ally.  My planning ahead of time was limited to figuring out how to break the army into commands, and considering general defensive deployment (but not terrain placement).  In all three games, my commands were split as follows:

  • High PIP: 4xLCh(CinC), 9xSp, 3xPs.
  • Low PIP: 4xLCh(Gen), 3xSp, 1xPs.
  • Ally: 6xLCh, 2xAx, 3xPs, 1xHd.

I’m a bit of a wuss, so the Mitanni horde never left the camp.

Game 1: Hittites

Brian Peruski with Hittites

The first game was a Hittite civil war: I faced Brian Peruski’s triple Hittites (I/24b).  Our army compositions were similar, but he had knights instead of cavalry, and I had the Mitanni ally.

I defended, and placed fairly open terrain with two roads and woods.  My army wanted some bad going to play with, but not a lot.  I placed my Hittites first, with the spears supported and in two ranks as shown here.  This provided good defense against knights, and the symmetrical deployment allowed me to deploy my Mitanni on whichever flank I though I could gain an advantage on, while leaving chariots to protect the other flank.

Although I hoped to face knights with my spears, I didn’t expect it.  Although knights quick kill spears, the combat factors are horrible if the spears have support.

Brian deployed with one command poised to go into the woods on my right flank, and a mounted command on my left.  My choice at this point was to try to figure out which command was his low PIP command, so I could ignore it and concentrate on the other side instead.  I deployed against his mounted-heavy command, and left my right flank relatively open.

It turned out I was wrong about his commands: his mid PIP was on my right and his low PIP was on my left.  In the first turn, Brian ran down the road, and everywhere else we advanced in an orderly fashion.  This left his column of spear ahead of the rest of his force, and within striking range of my chariots.

For the remainder of the game, three chariots from my high PIP command delayed and distracted his mid PIP command on my right flank.  He was never able to bring the rest of his troops up to support his spear. In the center, we pushed back and forth until I killed off some knights and held my advantage. On my left flank, I outflanked and destroyed him.

Eventually I broke his C-in-C command in the center, after suffering a loss of 6 elements.  The final score was 88-12 in my favor.  My first win in tournament BBDBA!

Mike’s Early Crusaders are run down by Brian’s Hittites.

This game reaffirmed my faith in well-supported spears against knights.  Brian learned from his mistake of deploying his knights against my spears, and in the second game he crushed Mike by deploying his spears against Mike’s knights. 

This also provided a great example of Economy of Force.  Holding off 10 of Brian’s elements with only 3 of mine made a huge difference.  Early on, I was afraid I made a mistake by placing both roads, because they ended up providing Brian with as much mobility as they provided me.  Luckily, facing my chariots left him without enough PIPs for the rest of his force to advance.

Game 2: Medieval Swedish

John Lawitzke with Medieval Scandinavians (Sweden).

Ugh, what a nightmare.  I totally screwed this one up. 

John Lawitzke defended with his Medieval Scandinavians (IV/54c): blades and bows galore.  As in his first game against Mike, he placed a fortress of maximum sized forest and marsh in front of a waterway.

Clearly he wanted to sit inside the fortress and not outside it, so I made the only good decision all game by choosing to place the waterway at my rear.  He placed his camp centrally, and I deployed mine on my far right flank so I could deploy at least part of my force in front of the bad going.

After he deployed centrally, I started screwing up.  First of all, I didn’t deploy a strong force against his C-in-C command, but instead virtually ignored it.  Second of all, I spent way too much effort attempting to prevent a littoral landing.  I could’ve lost both camps on the first few turns, but since his army was so slow I should’ve had plenty of time to recapture them before he hit me.  Instead, I bottled up my troops and made it impossible to maneuver.

When we first met in combat, it didn’t look like a completely lost cause until after I rolled the dice.  I had some advantageous combats, but they all failed; this turned my disadvantageous combats into epic fails, and I lost several elements.  After that, I never had a combat that was in my favor for the rest of the game.

He quickly crushed the Mitanni on my right flank, and then demoralized my C-in-C command.  By the end of the game I was cheering when I simply caused a recoil.  He beat me 100-0.  Doh!

Game 3: Antigonids

Scott Ludwig with Asiatic Early Successors (II/16a).

In the third game, I defended against Scott Ludwig’s Early Asiatic Successors: Antigonos (II/16a).  My terrain placement was intended to encourage him to choose his side of the table, and to anchor his pikes on the woods on his baseline.  It worked.  The hill on my left was steep and on the right it was gentle.

I used the same symmetric deployment as in the first game, but with a single rank of spears where I assumed his pikes would be.  After he deployed where I hoped he would, I placed my Mitanni where they could play on the steep hill and restrict his options on that flank.

Scott’s command split was pretty severe.  He had 18xPk (C-in-C) and 1xLH in his low PIP command.  This is just enough PIPs to walk forward in a straight line, but it provided no room for maneuver.  The key to my survival was clearly based in not letting him poke me with his long pointy sticks.  On my right flank, his mid PIP command had 6xPs, 1xLH(Gen) in the woods.  On my left was all of his mounted in a high PIP attack wing.

He advanced his pike line with his psiloi in support on my right flank.  There was a mistake in there somewhere, but I’m not sure what the better answer would have been.  The three chariots on my right flank killed off the entire psiloi command before starting to outflank his pikes.

In the center, I really didn’t want to face his pikes.  I advanced as far as necessary to gain a hill advantage, and then sent my psiloi into “pain in the ass” mode.  They played between the lines, forcing him to shift sideways to align with my group of psiloi, and then preventing him from advancing more than 5-10mm at a time before contacting another psiloi unless he broke formation.  His troops were well trained and stayed in line, but it was virtually impossible for him to gain ground.  His 1-2 PIPs per turn were dedicated to fending off my chariot attack on his pike’s flank.

My left flank was most interesting, tactically.  I had superior numbers and terrain advantage; he had superior combat factors.  It wasn’t clear whether I’d be able to turn his flank on my right before he gained an advantage on my left.

After the death of Scott’s high PIP general.

He broke through my line with his elephants, demoralized my low PIP command, and started killing spears in my high PIP command.  In the end, I won with a bit of a Deus Ex Dice: I set up an advantageous combat against his high PIP command’s general and killed him.  With his low PIP command completely destroyed and his high PIP command demoralized, and almost no PIPs available to advance his pike line, he conceded.  He’d have been hard pressed to keep his three elephants on the board, since they were in 2 groups and cost 3 PIPs per group to avoid retreat.  In the end, I won 78-22.

This game was another great example of economy of force, but I was able to make a strong offensive strike against his psiloi since my light chariots quick kill them.  He might have been better off rotating his pike line on the bad going, letting him keep some of his psiloi in the woods.

I was really happy with my terrain placement.  It was minimal enough to look harmless, but provided exactly the function I wanted it to.  In some games my plan would be too obvious and therefore easy to ignore.  However, it’s still sometimes a good tradeoff to give the enemy the terrain they’re looking for in exchange for terrain you’re looking for. The alternative is no one getting the terrain they want, which may be just as good.

Summary

In the end, I came in 5th place out of 10 with 166 points.  Mike won a game as well, in the third round and his third game of BBDBA ever.  I didn’t even have to exercise my “bring a new player so you’ll have someone to beat” option.

This whole “BBDBA singles” thing has a lot more of the feel of a DBA event than a BBDBA doubles event.  In the end, it’s still DBA and I enjoy DBA.  Mike wasn’t sure whether he’d like the longer game length of BBDBA, especially when you’re losing, but he had a good time and continues to have enthusiasm for DBA.

Hittites with Mitanni ally are a bit more interesting than I expected, compared to Hittites in a single army.  If I were playing triple Hittites, I’d definitely prefer the later Hittites with heavy chariots.

The Mitanni are a very useful ally for several reasons.  Their combination of bad going and chariots is a good mix when facing a mounted command near bad going.  I also liked the PIP distribution with this ally.  I never felt like I was PIP screwed even when I was rolling low, and I really enjoyed the fact that my low PIP command typically had more PIPs than a triple army’s low PIP command.

Thanks for the great event, I hope to be back for more DBA in the future!

Speed painting: Elf Blades

Just before Cold Wars (like, a day or two before), I wanted to augment my Hordes of the Things Elf army with some blades, so I picked up some figures in the Legions bits bin.

GW Elf blades based for Hordes of the Things.

Since I didn’t have much time, I did a rush job on these to match the paint job of the rest of the army. I completed everything from assembly through letting the paint dry in one night.  They suffered a bit in the rush: they were rained on after the dip dried and before I sprayed them with dullcote.  I dried them out, but unfortunately I missed a few spots, which created some craters under the varnish in the low spots.    I’m over it.

Greek Shields

I won an auction for a painted 25mm DBA Hoplite Greek army at Fall-In.  Hey, it was for the kids!  I’m not sure if I’ll play 25mm DBA, but I can use it for HOTT as well.

I rebased the army and painted shield designs.  The rest of the paint job is nothing to write home about, but here are the shield patterns I painted.  Two shields have decals, as labelled below; I painted the rest.

The leftmost two are decals, the rest I painted.

More Indians

In order to morph my Hindu Indian III/10c: Other army into Hindu Indian III/10b: Rajput, I needed at least one knight and an extra blade.  We also needed a LH general for the Mountain Indians at Cold Wars.  So, I painted some more Indians.

Essex Rajput Knights

Here is the Rajput knight.  These are Essex figures from their Moghul Indian range.  They match some of the cavalry figures from my existing Hindu Indian army, except they have armored horses.  I used a bit more interesting colors than on the rest of the Hindu Indians, which is probably a bit more accurate.

Indian Blades: Outpost and Museum miniatures

Since I needed one more element of blade, I decided to paint all of them.  This allows me to morph my Hindu Indians into Tamil Indians II/42b, and gives me a head start on a double Hindu/Tamil army.  Most of these figures are from the Outpost Tamil/Hindu Indian line.  The sculpting is detailed, but not very deep.  There are 3-4 different poses, all with a sword and a small buckler.

The club-wielding half giants with bad hair are from Museum Miniatures.  I like most of Museum’s Indian figures, but these guys are just ugly.  The sculpting is adequate with deepset features, but the single pose is pretty bad.  They’re taller than the Outpost figures, as well as some of the other Museum Indians.

Museum Indian Light Horse general

The Light Horse general is also from Museum Miniatures, and was a part of their Mountain Indian army pack.  These light cavalry figures have only a single pose, and like all Museum cavalry I’ve seen, they’re cast in a single piece.  These aren’t my favorite figures from the Indian line; I much prefer their bow and spear infantry.

The army pack didn’t come with any way to distinguish the General stand, so I painted the horses white.  I’ve started painting white horses by starting with grey and bringing the highlights up towards “almost white.”  It gives a bit of a greyish look, but I like it better than the results I get by washing a white horse.

To finish a second Hindu/Tamil Indian army, I now need to paint a bunch of bowmen, some elephants, and some cavalry.  I should probably paint some more knights for the Rajput as well, eventually.  I find that Indian infantry goes really quickly, so I’ve already prepared the bowmen for painting.  I don’t have any deadline or goals in mind for the Indians, so I’ll just fit them in when I have time and motivation.

Hittite Camp

Here is a camp I built for my Hittites.  It is based on images in the Osprey book Hittite Fortifications, c. 1650-700BC.

The wall is built in two sections, each of which is the maximum size allowed for a camp: 40mm x 120mm.  The left section with the gate will be my camp for a single Hittite army, and I’ll add the extra wall section when playing BBDBA with a Mitanni ally.

The walls and towers are constructed of styrofoam cut on the bandsaw.  The crenellations are made of mat board, and the exposed beams are short pieces of balsa.  I brushed on water based primer and varnish, since spray paint and superglue destroy foam.  

At this point I’m officially finished with any modelling required before After Tax Day BBDBA.

Cold Wars 2011: Saturday

Saturday had two big events with a free slot for shopping.

Luckily, the “good old days” of playing 4 new rule sets and coming home with 4 new armies to paint are long gone!  I managed to buy relatively little this time around. Besides picking up some random stuff at the flea market and more bases from Gale Force 9, I also got a 15mm Hordes of the Things army from Splintered Light.  They have really beautiful figures.  I chose a mixed Undead force, with dwarves, humans, centaurs, goat men, and even an undead elephant.

Hordes of the Things: Good vs. Evil

The Diceman. Some people call him… Tim.

The morning event was Hordes of the Things in 25mm.  I brought my Elves of the Offwhite Tower, but I never defended; so I never got to place my “vaguely flesh colored” tower, as David Kuijt described it.  My army was comprised of 3xSp (gen), 2xBd, 3xSh, 2xKn, 1xMg.

In the first round, I faced Rich Baier’s Lord of the Rings Orc army, and lost.  Next, I faced Frank Popecki’s Dark Elves, and lost.  Finally, I faced David Schlanger’s Haradrim, and lost.

I like Hordes of the Things, but so far in a very different way than DBA.  It’s a very similar game to DBA from a rules perspective, but the different element types require very different strategies than DBA.  HotT seems like a game I want to play mostly for the fun and cinema of it, while DBA feels like a game I want to get better at.

Campaign Theme: 4th War of the Diadachoi

For me, there are two main events that bookend every convention: BBDBA doubles at the beginning, and the Two Davids campaign event at the end. This time around, the campaign included Alexander’s successors and some outlying barbarians, during the 4th war of succession.

This was an interesting mix of armies. The successors all had heavy pike armies, but most of the other armies had light foot or spears. In many theme campaigns, the very different army compositions are typically not close to each other on the map, so you usually face a comparable enemy. On this map, the light armies were all over the place, so any Pike army that wanted an easier target could probably find one.

Successor campaign map

I played Lysimachid (II/17): 1x3Kn (Gen), 1x2LH, 4x4Pk, 4x3Ax, 1x2Ps, 1x4Sp. I hadn’t tried a 4 pike army before, and I really enjoyed this one; even against armies with 6 pikes. I initially wanted to play Kassandros, who has an elephant instead of a spear, but I think I’d prefer this army to have more PIPs available to maneuver the light foot, instead of dragging an elephant around with me.

In the first round, I played against Alex Bostwick’s Bithynians: mostly auxilia.  He defended, and I beat him in a fairly straightforward, unmemorable battle.

Frank

In the next round, I faced Frank Popecki with Antigonids: an elephant and 6 pikes.  He attacked, and sent his elephant with 3 other elements around the far side of a wood.  I decided to respond by sending a larger portion of my force to that side, to try to isolate them from their general and kill them when they were out of command.

The strategy was working fairly well, until he took a risk and killed off one of my Auxilia in the woods.  After that it was a very intricate, tactical game, but he had the upper hand and eventually won.

DOOM!  But I won…

In the third round, I faced Alex Halkiadakis and his Aiotolian League: a few spears and a lot of psiloi.  This was going fairly well, as I punched a hole in his spear with my knight general and exploited the gap.  He had heavy losses, and I could win by killing only one more element, so I took a risk.  I sent my spear against his light horse with an overlap on one side, and used my general to flank him on the other side.  This left me without a recoil, so I’d die if I lost the battle… but since it was 4-0, that was only possible if we rolled a 6-1 split in his favor.

We rolled a 6-2, and the combat was tied so neither of us moved.  Alex sent his general against the rear of mine, who turned to face.  It was his 5 to my 4, and if I recoiled I died.  Things weren’t looking good, and then… another tie!

On my bound, I brought up my psiloi to compensate for the missing overlap, and closed the door with my light horse so I would actually kill his element, and got rid of his light horse before my general recoiled (but lived).  That was a close battle that came down to only a few rolls.

Next, I faced Alex Bostwick again, with him attacking this time.  I killed a psiloi early, which was lucky; because in the next combat I sent my Knight general against his light horse with one overlap: 5-1.  Again, I had a huge chance of winning, but I’d die if I lost… but I’d only lose on a 6-1 split in his favor.  In retrospect, since this was not a game winning move, I probably should’ve been more careful; but I wouldn’t be saying that unless we rolled 6-1 and I lost, so obviously that’s exactly what happened.

The game wasn’t over yet, because he hadn’t killed more elements than I had.  I held on for a few turns through even more locked combats that I would’ve preferred to win, but with my moves requiring 2 pips after losing my general, it didn’t take long for him to take out one more element and win.

In the final round, I faced another player whose name I forget, and who wasn’t originally signed up for the event so I can’t look it up, either… sorry about that 🙂

It was another 6 pike army with an elephant, aren’t they all?  I defended and deployed 3 pieces of bad going diagonally across the board and a road down the center.  There was enough space for my 4 pike between the bad going, but not his 6.  My plan was to catch his flank of his pike as he tried to push through the bad going, or crush him in the bad going if he tried to take the central hill.

Early on, things were going well, but eventually he started catching up.  We ended up in another very tricky tactical battle with elements all over the place.  He killed a fourth element before I did, and took victory at 4-3.

The event was a lot of fun, as usual.

The main mistakes I know I made in this event were taking some small risks of losing instantly, and taking advantage of short-term tactical benefits while failing to maintain coherent battle line.  I noticed several times when I was broken into too many groups.  I know the decisions that brought me there made sense at the time: I was intending to win with combat odds that were in my favor, not to lose and end up spread all over the place.

I enjoyed playing the Lysimachid army, but I have mixed feelings about it overall.  I guess I’m not inspired by it, even though it’s quite fun to play.  I think it worked well in this campaign event: if I attacked I could choose an enemy who had more light foot and would likely place terrain; but if I was attacked it was most likely by a 6xPk army so I could deploy bad going and gain an advantage. 

I may not play this army again soon, but I think a triple Lysimachid or triple Kassandros army might be a better alternative than double Alexander with Mountain Indians.

It was another great convention!  Now I’m looking forward to Post Tax Day BBDBA in Columbus, Stoogecon here in town, and Historicon.

Cold Wars 2011: Friday

I didn’t take enough notes to post details of everything I did at Cold Wars, so a summary post will have to do.

We stayed at the Lancaster Host again… that place is getting to be a bit of a dump.  We got a pretty crummy room: it reeked of smoke and had clogged drains.  Fortunately we really only slept there anyway so it wasn’t a big deal.  On the other hand, food options are better than they used to be.  There are burritos available for lunch, and the “family restaurant” next door turned into a Japanese/sushi restaurant.  They also still have the nightly pig roast, if you’re into that sort of thing.

JM and I arrived a bit after 8pm on Thursday, so we probably could’ve played the Dismounting Knight event.  Instead, we decided to get in some more games of Hordes of the Things, since we had hardly ever played and had an event on Saturday that sort of expected us to know most of the rules.

BBDBA Doubles

Friday’s main event was BBDBA Doubles.  JM and I took Alexandrian Imperial (II/15) with a Mountain Indian Ally (II/2).  This was supposed to give us good punch in Alex’s mounted wing, a defensive wall of pike, and lots of bad going troops in the ally.  It’s a high aggression army, so we expected to attack every game, and weren’t disappointed.  Although we considered many of the enemies we might face, some of our opponents gave us a bit of a surprise.

Stephen Aspenberg and Doug Austin

In the first game, we faced Doug Austin and Stephen Aspenberg, playing Bosporans and Sarmatians. They had a lot of knights, with some light troops and artillery in the center.  We deployed the mountain Indians on the far left flank to outflank them, and Alexander on our right.  Unfortunately my Mountain Indians were crushed by playing with knights they should’ve stayed away from, and our pikes were too far off our right flank to be as useful as we would prefer.  In the end, they beat us with two commands demoralized after taking 50% losses to the army; but our C-in-C command had no casualties; mostly because they took so long to get into contact with the enemy.

Alex and Jonathan Bostwick

Next we faced the Bostwicks, who had a ton of cavalry with some light foot in the center.  Since they didn’t have anything affected by double ranked pikes, we thinned out our line and faced them on a wide frontage.  My Mountain Indians had relatively even odds against their Cavalry, but they were more able to take advantage of holes in our line, so my right flank was the first to fall.  On the left, we fared much better: JM demoralized their C-in-C command.  Unfortunately, we had more losses than they did, so we didn’t win outright.  Instead, we lost the battle of attrition as they killed us faster than we could kill them.

I think our setup worked better in this game, and I’m not sure how we could’ve improved things very much from a strategic perspective.  One possibility would’ve been to place our Mountain Indians in the center, and hope they responded by deploying their Cavalry opposite us.  This would’ve been essentially the same matchups we had, except our pike would have been able to gang up on them… eventually, if they ever made it into contact with the enemy.

In the third round, the only teams we were likely to face were both from Pittsburgh and were both playing Ptolemaics.  We ended up facing Larry and Rich instead of Tim and Lisa.

The Stooges: Rich Baier and Larry Chaban

Since Saturday’s campaign theme was a Successor event, we did a bit more thinking than average about how to face another Pike army.  The biggest questions we had were: what do you do with the Mountain Indians, and how can you break their C-in-C command when it’s built entirely out of Pikes?  Our typical strategy was to try to break the C-in-C command, but against pikes we might need to settle for killing everything else; but we needed to keep their pike at bay while we did it.  The answer we came up with was to send the Mountain Indians against their pikes, while facing the rest of their army with our remaining two commands.

The Mountain Indians have 7 elements that can’t be harmed by pikes unless they step out of formation and make themselves vulnerable, so that’s relatively safe. Our light horse general can also quick kill their pikes relatively easily… in theory.   We did relatively well, but our main mistake was to send too much of our pike against their pike instead of facing their lighter troops.  Our other big mistake was thinking the center of their line was made up of auxilia, when it was in fact blades.  They concentrated two commands against our C-in-C command, and crushed us relatively quickly.

Littoral Landing Lovers

After BBDBA Doubles was a themed event that only allowed Littoral armies.  In the first round, I faced Larry and he finally got his payback against my as-yet-unbeaten Leidang (III/40d).  This time, I took 1xKn, 5xBd, 3xAx, 1xPs, 1xSp, 1xBw.  I did a landing and had some initial success, until he killed my bow with his knight and rolled me up.

Doug Mudd

Next, I faced Doug Mudd.  The game went so quickly, I don’t remember his army.  He attacked, and did a landing behind my line.  Using a first turn psiloi double move, he sent a psiloi against my Knight general, which turned to face.  The combat was his 2 to my 4 with me quick killing him, but he rolled high and recoiled my general into my own troops, winning the game 1g-0 before I even had a turn.  Oops!  We had a lot of free time, considering some players weren’t even done deploying yet, so we played an unofficial rematch (shown here), and I beat him in this second game.  I don’t think either of us did a landing.

Stephen Aspenberg

In the final round, I faced Stephen Aspenberg’s Athenians.  I decided that since this was a Littoral Landing event, I’d better do another landing.  I sent 2 elements against his flank, and he sent 3 against mine.  My elements were able to kill 2 of his, while I held off his landing with only 2 of mine.  When we met in the middle, my blades beat his spears and I won.

This leaves my Leidang with a 7-2 record, which I’m only keeping track of because it’s one of the only armies I’ve managed to win consistently with.

Midnight Madness

I don’t remember a lot about Midnight Madness (and don’t have any pictures), but there wasn’t much to remember.  In the first round, I played my Hittite Empire (I/24b) against Jonathan Bostwick’s Minoan & Mycenaean (I/18).  I won, but that’s all I remember… though I have a feeling neither of us remembered to place our camp.  In the second round, I faced Later Mycenaeans and Trojan War (I/26) and lost.

DBA Army I/19: Mitanni

DBA army I/19: Mitanni, from an Essex army pack

This is my recently completed Mitanni (I/19) DBA army.  All figures are Essex, from their prebuilt army pack.

For this army, I painted quickly instead of looking for perfect results.  The people (infantry and chariot riders) are all flat painted and washed with Army Painter Strong Tone.  When I got to the horses and chariots, I decided not to go with “the dip” and instead used Devlan Mud in some areas and painted highlights elsewhere. 

Mitanni chariotry

Mitanni have 6 light chariots, the most available in any DBA army.  These models don’t match the typical shape of Mitanni chariots available from other manufacturers, but they’re close enough for me. Mitanni was a loose coalition of a variety of different peoples, so they probably had a variety of chariots available as well.

As usual, I found building and painting the chariots to be fiddly and annoying, but I like the way they turned out once I finished.  The horses are a bit bright for this time period, and the colors are based on guessing and assumption more than actual evidence. 

I paint the crew, assembled chariot, and horses separately, and then do final assembly.  I stick the chariots to nail heads to hold them during painting.  This time I was careful to angle the chariots when I mounted them, so they can all line up front-to-back without bumping each other.  The general gets blue on his horses, and points at things instead of shooting them. 

Mitanni infantry

As you can see here, the slingers in the back row are my “stumpy brigade.”  Two of them lost a hand, most likely by being run over by a chariot: I don’t think they had threshing machines in the 14th century BCE.  I was surprised to see that Essex made you assemble the slingers: the sling was separate and had to be glued into place.  Annoying!  I’m also not that pleased with the figure selection in the horde.  I know that product code has more poses, because I used them with my Hittites; but I got a lousy mix, with 3 of one particularly distinctive looking figure.

This army will be a matched pair and an ally to my Hittites.  I purposefully put them on different bases (thin metal instead of thicker wood) than the Hittites, so they will be easy to distinguish on the battlefield despite the similar color schemes (offwhite).

Battle at the Crossroads: 2011

Saturday was Battle at the Crossroads in Cambridge, OH.  Rich, Larry, JM, and I drove out to participate in the DBA pyramid format event.

This year’s theme was Vikings and their enemies, so I brought my Leidang army. The composition I used was: 1xKn (gen), 5xBd, 1xSp, 3xAx, 2xPs.

There were several special rules in effect to keep things competitive for the Vikings.  I’ll list them there for future reference, and to provide context for the tactical decisions shown in pictures below:

  • Knights other than generals don’t quick kill blades
  • Blades fight at +4/+3
  • Viking blades receive rear support by psiloi against foot (as well as mounted)
  • Vikings always attack, Leidang always defends
Larry contemplates his fate.

I beat Larry a few weeks ago, so he wanted a grudge match. He wrote “same year as Alan” as his army’s year selection, and we were paired up in the first round.  He brought East Frankish: III/52, with plenty of emasculated knights.

I had a plan for the first round, when I knew I’d be defending against a non-Viking.  I set up two medium-small central woods and the required waterway.  The intent of the terrain was to divide the enemy forces, while maintaining superiority in the bad going.

The biggest flaw in my plan was the possibility of a littoral landing.  I hadn’t considered whether to land, or what to do with my landing force if I did.  Nevertheless, I held back 2xBd and 1xPs and deployed everything else from the woods to the water.

On the first turn, I brought on my landing force somewhat forward, and angled toward the center of the board.  Here, they got in my way and inhibited my movement; but, they also restricted Larry’s ability to advance effectively on that flank.  They required many pips to unscrew completely, but in the mean time they weren’t a big liability: they mainly delayed any action on that side of the board.

Larry sent his horde and a spear around the other flank, and I countered with 2 Auxilia.  In the end, I killed a bunch of knights on my right flank, and he killed my auxilia on my left flank.  Result: 4-2, I beat Larry again.  Overall, the battle was a confused mess; but I find that I often prefer a confused mess instead of two straight lines walking straight forward.

Dan Joyce’s Sub-Roman Brits; Mike Demana’s Vikings

In the second round, we faced Dan Joyce, C-in-C playing Sub-Roman British; and Mike Demana playing Vikings. We placed woods on the sides of the board to narrow it, and a steep hill in the center.  I deployed on the narrower side, and as expected, Mike’s Vikings ended up opposite me.  Larry deployed against Dan’s force on the other side.

Pulling it out of the fire

Larry made me roll his PIP die so he could blame me for the bad rolls.  He got his bad rolls, and his command was the first to break.  Things were looking bad, and we were about to lose.  Eventually I pushed Mike’s Vikings back far enough to take the nearest camp, which happened to be the C-in-C’s camp on the wrong side of the board.  The two element loss was enough to break the command, and we won.

This was an interesting, stressful game. It felt like I was running out of time, but only because I was anxious to see how things turned out in the next few turns.

The Final Round

In the final round we played a 4-on-4 game against Scott Ludwig’s Early Germans (C-in-C), Andy Swingle’s Vikings, Rich Baier’s Leidang/Viking (I forget which), and Dave Welch’s Welsh.

Initial deployment; more Vikings are off our left flank

We deployed on one side instead of in the center, which was a bit of a mistake, in retrospect.  Mike’s Vikings were on our far left flank by the board edge.  I came next, and Dan Joyce’s British were at right flank of our initial deployment.

In response, they deployed more centrally, and narrower.  They ignored the vikings on our far left flank, so in order to include them in the battle we’d have to walk slowly so they could catch up.  Larry, with the most mobile force, deployed on the right flank at the end of our line.

A better initial deployment might have been to deploy centrally, and place Larry’s mobile command last on whichever flank was more vulnerable.  However, the enemy still would’ve been able to  ignore our slower flank, so we probably wouldn’t have gained anything.

Just before we made contact

In the early game, I wheeled to the right and Mike sent his Vikings over the hill, while the rest of our army stood still.  Eventually we clashed.  Dan and Larry faced 3 commands against their 2, and suffered for it.  Also, Larry could have as many 1’s as he wanted on his PIP die, which I was still rolling.

Hilarity ensues; the end is almost nigh

Larry’s command broke first, and then Dan’s. On my side of the board we had superiority, so we broke Andy’s command and then Rich’s.  Neither C-in-C command was close to breaking, but we were both losing a lot of elements. 

The End.  This used to be straight battle lines?

In the last few turns, we were each a few elements away from the 50% losses required to lose.  Larry’s command was completely destroyed or fled off the board, and Dan was hanging on for dear life and winning some tough combats more often than statistics would suggest.  It was a battle of attrition and a race to the bottom.  My general ran rampant in the center of my flank, killing demoralized elements as quickly as possible to increase our death count, but Mike killed the decisive element: Andy’s blade general.

It felt like we lost this game several times, but “it’s not over until the fat Viking sings” and it was a good thing we stayed until the credits rolled.

Our side won, and I ended up taking first place for overall points, probably because of Valdemar the Victorious’ killing spree in the last game. Quick killing demoralized blades with your knight general is the kind of fun you really shouldn’t indulge in very often, or you might get spoiled.

Thanks to all of my allies and opponents for the wonderful games, and special thanks to the organizers for staging this event.  I hope to be back next year!