For the love of it.

When the women are away, the boys will play. With both our fair ladies off on a camping trip, Marc came over on Friday night for a little DBMM to break in the new table.  We each managed to scrounge together a little over 200 points of Britons for me and generic barbarian types for Marc. We did the whole rigmarole of dicing for terrain, skipped over weather and time of day then got stuck in. It has been a while for both of us so it took a couple of turns to clear the cobwebs out. We missed rules, messed up move rates, forgot about uphill advantage and a host of other little omissions and misinterpretations.

But boy did we have fun! And isn't that the whole point?

Friday DBMM Yuan Chinese and Javanese

This Friday past I was able to escape from a house full of teenage girls and head down to the club for a little 350 point DBMM.

Nicholas had set up the game and provided the Javanese forces while Ben brought his Chinese and Mongols to the table. Thank you to both for bringing some very nicely painted troops for us to play with. With the armies selected, the next step was to assign sides. Given my inability to handle horse, I, Pat, teamed up with Nick on the Javanese side and Patrick went with Ben on team Yuan. (Yes we get confused too.)

Next up was rolling for the battlefield. The terrain picks were a good assortment of woods, hills and marsh. The dice were fickle, and with the exception of one small wooded hill on the Javanese left flank, it all wound up crammed into the right side of the table leaving the centre wide open - perfect for ravaging horse.

We split the Javanese into three commands. A light command of horse and foot was tasked with holding the rough country on the right. Two roughly similar commands of bow and warband covered the centre and left. We set these up one behind the other to give us two lines of bow on the left and two lines of warband in the centre. Nick took the front line and the right and I took the second line.

The Yuan were also laid out in three commands. The Mongol horse on their right, a mixed force of blade, bow and artillery in the centre and a mixed light force on their left opposite the rough terrain. Ben took right and centre while Patrick took left. Both armies were pushed up fairly close to the centre line. I must apologized because being focused on my own troops, I didn't pay much attention to what was going on in the rough terrain.

The game opened fairly conventionally. Nick and I pushed forward across the board as did Ben and Patrick. Ben pushed his horse forward on our left hoping to flank and disrupt the bow line. Nick was able to adjust his line and caught a couple of bases of Mongols in range. One was the general. The option was to take a high probability shot at a base of troopers that would break up the line or take a much riskier shot at the general. Nick went for the general and he went down.

In the centre, we got a couple of moves in with the warband blocks. Then I rolled a 1 for pips and in they went. Nick let his go as well, leaving two lines of heavily caffeinated Javanese charging into artillery, bows and blades. On our right, Nick was able to push his lights almost the whole way through the rough going and he and Patrick began fencing with Lh and Ps.

In the centre, the Chinese man-powered artillery punched holes through the oncoming warband while bows nibbled away at the edges. The blades braced for impact. Ben's leader-less horse were able to harass the edges of the warband block but ultimately pip starvation meant that they fell under Nick's bow and broke.

As I said above, I am not sure what was happening in the rough on the right but Nick retired 4 or 5 dice that night so I suspect it was bloody. The centre saw the warband sweep away the artillery and get stuck into the blades. Going sponno freed up pips to protect the flanks and keep the front rank gaps filled in. A good thing too since the co-mingled warband lines were four deep in some spots. Casualties were heavy, but being only 0.5 ME meant that the warband had considerable staying power. Finally holes were ground through the Yaunline, a second command broke and the Yuan were driven from the field.

A great game with some great gamers.

A short game of DBMM

A while back, two of the guys of the club scheduled a game of DBMM for last night. They were kind enough to let me take over one of the commands on fairly short notice. The battle saw the Abbasid Caliphate defending against the Ilkhanid horde of which I commanded one wing.  The Caliphate forces cowered in a fortified town and oasis, leaving their their pathetic horsemen to defend against the oncoming horde. The glorious Mongol army swept forward in a double envelopment their vastly superior steppe bred ponies charging around the unprotected flanks.

Sadly the game had to be called when one of the players fell ill. As always, it was good just to get out of the house and game. I learned a little bit more about how to use horse - always a weakness of mine and I got a much better handle on march movement.

Magnesia in DBMM

The Soldados Viejos blog has post on an amazing game of DBMM they played a while back. I love DBA but 12 elements doesn't compare to the beautiful ranks on ranks of figures on this table. 

SOLDADOS VIEJOS: MAGNESIA en DBMM

2012 Purchasing Plans

Unfortunately Santa was not looking at the list provided and while many nice things were received for Xmas, lead was not one of them.

With Space 1889 rebooting into 15mm, I am left in a bit of a hard place. The status of the 25mm line is unknown yet I have enough miniatures in hand to feel committed to sticking with 25mm.  Further, while I do most of my wargaming in 15mm and 6mm, role playing is still done with 25mm. Practically, I have to plot out what I need and get that before it disappears.

So from RAFM:

• Two 20 figure bands of Hill Martians @ $30 each = $60
• One 20 figure band of High Martians @ $20 = $20

Sadly mounted are not on the menu as at $5 a pop (yes - very reasonable for 25mm mounted) Martian Gashant Cav are $40 per troop of 8. I would like to add a company of Canadian rifles from the Riel range but that line is under no threat so that will have to wait. A company of Japanese would also be nice but - much more expensive (around $80).

I have enough 15mm Celts to field several DBA armies or around 200 points in DBMM so I would have to say I am done with 15mm ancients for the foreseeable future. As mentioned in a previous post, Marc and I have been playing DBA with 6mm figures on 25mm bases - very nice looking. I have a DBAs worth of Alexandrians waiting to be painted and based but I would like a third army for some variation. I am thinking of Libyans as covering both books one and two and because they are dead cheap. Two strips per base so about 5 pounds sterling or about 15 bucks with shipping for  DBA army. Since I might be able to drop in on Baccus directly when we go to England in the Fall, I may let that purchase wait.



So planned purchases of around $100 an entirely achievable goal I think.

DBA3

Over the Christmas week I got in a couple of DBA3 games with Marc. I took my new 6mm on 25mm basing Romans against his Thracians. A few of first impressions. The new quasi-random terrain generation removes a lot of cheese. No more setting symmetric terrain that suits you no matter how your opponent rotates it. The new move rates get you into the fight much faster. They aren't really any different from DBMM but on the small DBA table you won't be manoeuvring much. As a result of this, both games were under 20 mins. Blades following up was a little odd. This is another carry over from DBMM where irregular blades follow up but regulars - like my Marians, do not. I am not sure how I feel about this but at the moment it doesn't feel right.

I won both but only because I was able to tempt the Thracians out of the bad going. An enjoyable pair of games.

A great night

I got an invite to a DBMM game last night. Romans vs Selucids at Thermopylae. I made a total hash up of the Roman cavalry command but had a great time doing it. Rather than running out to get a bunch of Selucid cav, I am motivate to get my Britons painted up so I can learn to use cav better. I also found a potential place to play with my Montrose.

A very good night. Thanks to Nick for hosting.

DBA Marians almost done - Pushing forward

I got a little demoralized at pushing off projects so I sat down last night and put the final paint on enough 6mm Marians for a 25mm DBA army. I just need to base them up and do some flocking and they are ready for the table.

I had been toying with the idea of getting a horde of 6mm Greek psiloi to make up an early Libyan army. However, the Baccus Greeks aren't out yet and Marc has his Thracians and will be getting Greek Hoplites so that is enough for us to get on with.

I have also been toying with Space 1889 again and went over to the RAFM site for a quick drool. %30 off all orders - ending that day. So I ordered two lots of Martians, another batch of British, a Gatling gun and some Victorian Civilians. I then dug out my existing company of Brits and got on with painting them. Much progress of an evening.

DBMM - What is a normal army?

In response to a question on the DBMM list on AP reduction for smaller 300 point armies Phil wrote:

I still think of 300 AP as a standard size army, so no.
As rules have simplified over the years, there has been a continuous trend
for people to use bigger armies to slow the game down again (and becausethey just cannot bring themselves to stop buying lead).
Phil

Those of us with small lead stocks should be happy - I am. ;)

Reinforcements

With some acting pay in my pocket, I was able to place another order with Baccus this morning. I have been smitten by the look of pikes since I first discovered 6mm so I ordered up some extra cavalry for my Marians and the 25mm GS DBA Macedonian Army - Pikes, Pikes, Baby!. This will give me two DBA armies to field with support options for the Marians and a start on DBMM as well. Marc has the opponents but I'll let him post about that.

A good weekend

Friday started with a game of classic Talisman. Back in the day, I bought all the expansions but one and while we have one of the new versions, we much prefer to play the old one. Sadly, youngest got to the crown of command and flipped the random ending card to reveal the Demon Lord. Youngest had the Holy Cross so defeated him on the spot. As I suspected, poking around on the internet later revealed several interpretations that the holy cross  cannot defeat the Demon Lord. It was late so I gave youngest the win anyway.

Saturday saw Marc come over with our friend Drew who has expressed an interest in DBMM. We played a game of 100 with my Britons facing Marc's Gauls. I set up first, with warband centre fronted by Ps. Chariots on the left wing and light horse on the right. Marc lined up his cav with the chariots, his warband (O backed by S) in the centre and his Ps(S) on his left opposing my Lh. As described in the list, I pushed the slingers out to disrupt the Gallic line. while holding my main line in reserve. The Lh and Chariots went out on the flanks to harass his rear. The Lh got into a shoving match with Gallic Ps(S) and the chariots with the cavalry. I lost one of each to Marc's usual dice rolling skills but the flanks settled down into a shoving match.In the centre, the slingers did an ok job of disrupting the Gallic line. I got a little impatient and threw a couple of blocks of warband into gaps on either flank. This was to be my undoing. In time, I lost those blocks too and was forced to commit my main line. That, and poor rolling, lead to some more losses and I became disheartened. With a disconnected general and a pip roll of 1, my main troops went impetuous.  Not a huge problem as the Gauls went impetuous too when Marc fumbled a pip roll (for once - this guy is magic with dice). What killed me was the -1 combat penalty. A good game to Marc.

Lessons learned: don't get impatient let the skirmishers do their job.

Next up was HotT since Marc and I wanted to test our armies before the tournament in November. We ran two games back to back. Drew appeared to have enjoyed watching the DBMM game so I gave him my HottT Army to command less Cathbad the Mg who I kept control of. Youngest was pried off the computer and brought out to play 1/2 of Marc's Gallic army.  The Ulstermen setup in a central block with the heroes on the wings. The Gauls were divided between the Wb run by youngest and the Archers run by Marc. In both games, this separation of commands proved to be the Gauls undoing. The heroes were able to move quickly across the board and engage the Wb block pretty much unsupported by the Bw. Cathbad did nothing but run around scowling, the pip costs to move him up quickly proving too expensive. Drew handled the defeat in detail masterfully winning both game for our side - need to be careful playing him in the future.


A good couple of games but the Mgs did not get into play. The speed of the Heroes was a major factor in both battles. The lack of fliers and other interesting troop types means more testing will be needed.

A couple of Quick Games

My mate Marc and I were at festival this week past. We wanted to get some gaming in so though Marc was vending, we set up a small camp table at the back of his stall. We had less than a square metre of  space to work with and no terrain so we went with DBMM 100 using the old 1.1 rules as I am waiting to get a copy of 2.0. Because we were in the wilds of Canada, we used top downs pasted to MDF bases.

For game one we went with a fairly standard Marian Roman vs Gaul battle. Marc took mostly Wb(F) with a supporting unit of archers. Unfortunately, he thought they were Bw when in fact they were Ps.  I took a block of legionaries supported on each flank by bolt shooters. It was a pretty straight up fight. The Gauls charged across the field suffering some disruption from the shooters. The romans opened up into two ranks one base width apart to receive the charge. The inevitable crash took place and there was much tooing and froing with the Gallic Ps getting into hand to hand with the left flank bolt shooter and the main lines well engaged. In the end, the Romans survived the assault, cut down the Gallic Chieftain and took the field.

For game two, I stuck with Romans as that is all I had but went with the EIR list instead with a line of auxilia supporting a line of legionaries. The general was horse mounted this time and had a single mandatory Cv(O) to accompany him. Marc went with Vikings. He had a main block of Bd(O) supported by Bd(I) on his left and Bw(O) on his right. Again the Vikings charged forward for a couple of turns. I marched the auxilia through the Bd and executed a left turn into column and headed off to prevent the Bw from shooting at my Bd. As it turned out, I left this move a turn too late and wound up taking archery in the Ax flank. The Roman general went out on the right to harass the Viking Bd(I). The Ax - Bw fight was a mess with Marc consistently rolling good pips and combat dice. The (S) grading helped the Ax survive but not to push back. A big frustration for me was that I was able to double the Bw when shot at which allows the target to advance on the shooter in the targets bound but only in the enemy bound, so my troops cowered beneath the Viking bows rather than advancing. In the centre there was another shoving match while on the right, the Roman CinC was pushed back fitfully by the far more numerous inferior blade. After a turn or two, the mess on the left flank began to cost me as I couldn't get enough pips to shake out the Ax into line. I wound up losing 3 Ax on the left and a couple of Bd in the centre disheartening my entire army. When the lady wife appeared looking for dinner, I was about to pack it in when she said she would cook. I decided to play it out and was very glad I did. The next few rolls gave me enough pips to form up the Ax. Marc's formation in the centre had broken up giving me some overlaps which were soon converted into flanks. The Ax finally got in contact with the Bw and the S began to tell in hand to hand. Some flank double kills, one or two single kills and a dead Viking General and I had won by the skin of my teeth. Marc made me fight for it to the last roll.

An excellent pair of games in a small space and proof that you can game while camping

I am sorely tempted to pick up some of Peter's 6mm Romans even if they would be dwarfed by my 15mm Britons but then there is Kadesh with all those chariots and the local club is having a Book 1 DBA night I might actually be able to get out too. Decisions....

DBMM 100 Early Imperial Roman list

Needing an opponent for my Brits, I drew up this list for DBMM100:

Troop Type	Cost Per Element in AP	ME Per Element	Number of Elements	Total Cost of Elements	ME
C-in-C - Reg Bd(O)	7	4	1	7	4
Equites cohortales - Reg Cv (O)	8	1	4	32	4
Auxillia - Reg Ax (S)	5	1	6	30	6
Legionaries- Reg Bd (O)	6	1	5	35	5
Totals:				104	19
Disheartened: 14          Defeated: 10

I did not take the required 1-6 points of palisade as I think at the 100 point level it's a bit pointless and a vexillation of this size was probably working away from the main camp where all their stakes were. I wanted to take bolt shooters just because I could but practically, 4 Cv is the more logical choice. For anti-warband work, I envisage a line of Ax backed by the Bd with the Cv on a flank. Another option is to have the Bd backed by the Ax with the Cv in the rear - but then I have been reading too much of the interpenetration section recently. If I were to swap 2 Cv for 2 Art, I would put one on each flank of the infantry block to keep the horses and chariots at bay.

DBMM is hard..... Part 1 - The language

The DBx series has a reputation for complex language and a plethora of dice modifiers - especially for combat. In this post, I would like to take a look at the first of these issues.

On the Yahoo HotT group,

petercard2001 describes the DBx language in these words:

"...Barkerese as a data compression algorithm
implemented on top of English as the transfer protocol."

Though not intended as a positive comment, this is a good description. So the question is why? I would suggest two reasons. Barkerese compresses a lot of information into as few words as possible to:

1. maximize the content in a given page count, and
2. eliminate any redundancy in the language.

The first point may be moot in the current environment of PDF rules downloads and a printer in every house. It is the second point that, for me at least, is the critical one. Perfect communication with no redundancy creates no new meaning. Only exactly what is meant is communicated - there is no room for ambiguity or misinterpretation. It can be tough to parse out because each word is important and you must pay attention to every word and the order it falls in. There is no filler.

The effect is a difficult read but it has a very important dividend - precision. And why is precision important in a game? Two words - and please excuse the profanity - "Rules Lawyers". Sadly there are and always will be people who would rather hunt for loopholes and play the rules rather than play their opponent.

Though not always perfect, once a DBx rule is clearly understood it remains so with no wiggle room and no opportunity for a-historical or cheesy behaviour on the games table.

Next up: All those modifiers...

Flat Romans

While mulling over the writing projects, I glued up about 400 points worth of Marian / Early Imperial Roman top down legionnaires to give my 15mm brits something to fight. Look out Claudius...

Cheap but effective

First project(s)

For my first contribution to the pimping promotion of DBMM, I am working on an article on austerity miniatures wargaming. When I was involved in 2mm model railways, I was amazed at the creativity of depression era and post war modellers. They created rolling masterpieces out of scrap tin and cereal boxes. We can do the same with miniatures. Since I intend to submit this for publication, I won't got into details here yet.

The second project I hope to feature here. When I first picked up DBMM, I had a general historical understanding of what troops performed what roles. In actual play though, I always wound up with pitting my troops against the exactly wrong sort of enemy. George's skill had something to do with that too though.

What I plan to do is to write a series of articles each focussed on one troop type and discuss who the predators and prey of each type are. I want to keep it high level to avoid the legal and moral implications of re-printing the rules in a blog.

Now I've done it.....

The DBMM Yahoo groups has seen a bit of traffic recently on the upcoming release of DBMM 2.0 Don't get too excited as there is nothing graven in stone yet. However, given some of the criticisms of promotion efforts in the past and plans for the future, I put my foot in it and said "Why don't we as players go ahead and do our own promotion?" And that means - now I have to do something. Stay tuned for future updates.

DBMP - De Bellis Magistrorum Phantasium

Marc and I have decided to put HotT and DBMM into the blender and see what comes out. We have played a little of each and like the fantasy trappings of HotT but like the extra detail DBMM allows in terms of movement and complexity as well as the removal of geometric kill problems.

I think really Marc just wants Goblins(S) to put on the board. We'll keep you posted here.

Update:
It looks like HotT and DBA will have new editions later this year. So DBMP goes on the back burner for now. It's more fun to play than reinvent the wheel.

DBMM 100 Ancient Briton List

Based on the DBM Ancient British list, this is a possible army list for DBMM100:

Troop Type	Cost Per Element in AP	ME Per Element	Number of Elements	Total Cost of Elements	ME
C-in-C Irr Wb(S)	5	4	1	5	4
Cavalry - Irr LH (O)	5	1	2	10	2
Foot warriors - Irr Wb (F)	3	1/2	16	48	8
Slingers - Irr Ps (O)	2	1/2	6	12	3
Chariots - Irr Cv (O)	6	1	4	24	4
Totals:				99	21
Disheartened: 15 1/2           Defeated: 10 1/2

The slingers will screen the main force, attempt to break up the enemy line and retire through the main force as they are able. The CinC will keep the warband in check from the back rank until they can be released. He will then hang back to plug any holes. My standard formation for the main body will be a block 6 wide and 2 deep with 2 extra elements in column on each wing for easy expansion or in a third rank with the CinC as a reserve force along with any surviving Ps.

The Lh will take one wing and the Chariots the other. The Lh will carry out the usual flank protection and harassment duties. The chariots will attempt a flanking move and if prudent will dismount as Wb(S) per the list once pips become available after the main body goes impetuous.

Well, that's the plan anyway.

Done (almost)

This morning I epoxied down my last chariot model leaving only a handful of singeltons rattling around the leadpile. There is some base painting to do and a lot of flocking but otherwise all my lead is in a playable state.

The forces to hand:

• 22 Warband Fast. I have them as Britons though they could be any generic Celts
• 11 Pike Fast. Some new Welsh spear along with some very old Picts. They can be mixed in with the warband or used as a pike block. I'm looking forward to experimenting with the Pk(F)'s unusual characteristics. Heavy spear who waltz through bad terrain - I like it.
• 6 Slingers. Mostly used by southern British tribes and graded an un-inspiring Ps(O), I became very fond of these guys while painting them up and gave them all woad tattoos. I have a premonition they will be interesting if not necessarily very effective.
• 5 Light horse (O). My "comtemptable little ponies". Two are actually Welsh but they'll pass in a pinch.
• 6 Chariots as Cv(O). Four are from the old pack and represent line chariots. Two are pretty little models from Essex and carry the Battersea shield command figures mentioned earlier. A third general remains on foot for the moment.
• 4 Warband (S). Three are general stands painted to act either as foot commands or as dismounts for the chariot generals. The fourth is an old stand of naked crazy Celts. I'm not sure about the generals. Superior makes sense historically with all the affluent hostage king's sons clustered into one command but they will not be able to keep up with the fast warband. I expect command and control issues if I am not careful.
• 2 Javlineers. Graded as psiloi(I), these are DBA level filler for some lists. Made from Wb(F) with the centre figure removed after the Great Pict Pike Rebasing, they may return as Wb(F) command groups given the number of Battersea Generals I still have. This would allow me to dismount the chariots as Fast or Superior.

And that's the lot. Enough for DBMM 200, 100 or DBA using British, Scots/Irish, Caledonian or Pict lists. I really need more chariots for everyone and foot archers for the Picts but I'm off to a good start.