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?

CanGames Day 3 Part Three - DBA and Wrap Up

DBA Tournament
I was really looking forward to this tournament and I was not disappointed.  There were 15 players altogether giving us a solid four games each. The tournament organizer, Tod, did his best to create reasonable match ups.

Game 1 Ancient British vs Macedonians

My first game saw me up against Macedonians. I managed some generally good match ups but the dice did not cooperate and the centre folded. Facing double ranked pike didn't help either. My second game was against Patrician Roman. This went as expected with fate tipping to the other side - but my opponent Ben is a very good player and definitely gave fate a hearty shove.

Game 3 Ancient British vs New Kingdom Egyptian

Game 3 against New Kingdom Egyptians  went a bit better with the foot sloggers on both sides hanging out while the chariots got to it - again I came up short. Game 4 saw me against Ayyubid Egyptians. With three straight losses I was a little rattled, I allowed myself  to be distracted by a kibbitzer and didn't put down enough terrain. I lost yet again.

Some of the other games

Crunch!

Burgundian Ordonnance vs some flashy eastern chariot army

Burgundians again

I have been holding off on this post for a while because frankly I was a little disappointed in my performance. I made a study of the rules, tried for good match ups, developed a set of contingency plans and still placed dead last. Ancient British has a reputation for not being the best tournament army but still I should have been able to pull off one victory. In the end, my scores were something like1:4, 3:4, 3:4, 2:2+General  which frankly isn't that terrible a performance for my first big tournament. My one lasting regret is that I let the kibbitzer distract me in the last game.  My opponent deserved my full attention.

So will I give up on Ancient Brits and get something more tournament effective? No - while a win would have been nice, just playing was the highlight of my weekend. When my boys do come out on top - I will relish it all the more.


Wrap Up
CanGames is a gamer's convention. Apart  from the small vendor's area there is nothing to do but game. This appears to be by design or at least tradition. During my volunteer stint we did regular headcounts including people not at the gaming tables. One of the committee remarked that if people weren't gaming, what else were they doing? I also saw one couple cancel a couple of Sunday games on Saturday afternoon because they had been gaming since Friday opening and were burnt out. I am not sure if the venue is big enough to effectively offer other activities and the formula seems to have worked well for the last couple of decades. It is certainly very well run with no major problems left visible to the attendees. 

Apart from the food situation mentioned earlier, my one complaint was the noise level. It is entirely due to the characteristics of the building and thus unavoidable but still I found it very difficult to hear even across a 2' table.

Would I go again? Without hesitation.

CanGames Day 0

Operating since 1977, Cangames is one of the longest running conventions in Canada and I suspect North America. For the first time in 30 years (you do the math - it has been a while), I simultaneously  have the time and money and interest to be able to attend. Unlike the British and European conventions I have heard so much about, Cangames is almost purely comprised of  participation games with a small vendor area at the back of the hall. It is spread over two and a half days and runs from 2 p.m. Friday afternoon with the last games ending at 11 p.m. on Sunday evening.

The schedule features approximately 180 games with the possibility of a few more being added to open tables. Each day is further broken down into five time slots to allow players to plan out their gaming weekend. Players have four options to play a specific game. For the nominal charge of $2.50, players can reserve a slot when they pre-register on-line, through a participating game store or via post. At the door, players can purchase game tokens at the registration desk for $3.00 then use a token to sign up for a slot on the game sheet at the tournament desk. The third option is to wait until 30 minutes before game start when the sign up sheets are placed out in the sign up area for free to all sign up.  I am told that the press of gamers to get at these sheets resembles gladiatorial combat. Each sheet has a cut off for number of players but extras can sign up as alternates. Finally, each game master has a small orange traffic cone they can place on their table to indicate they have slots open to walk by traffic.

After perusing  the schedule, I settled on three games. The first was the Sunday DBA tournament - my first outside of a small club event, the second was the Saturday evening Saga game  - I am excited because I have heard so many good things about this system and the third was a 1/2400 coastal forces game on Saturday day because I like the period. With a lot of extra time to spend and not a lot of spare cash to drop in the dealer's room, I thought I might as well volunteer and see the event from the other side. Each volunteer shift is 5 hours long and can be used to count toward the weekend's admission fees or toward the mandatory volunteer hours (yes that is an oxymoron) high school students have to perform to graduate. I will be assembling trophies, printing certificates and handing these out to the lucky winners. Unfortunately due to an oversight on my part or a last minute schedule change, my shift conflicts with the coastal game. Slightly annoying, but not the end of the world.

Last night was spent setting up tables and taking the needed of training (No WHS warnings about the glue guns though). For some reason the amount of lifting done seemed to be proportional to the age of the people doing it with the young 'uns standing around waiting for direction while the grey beards got stuck in. I have nothing on tonight other than picking up my badge on the way home from work.   I will post updates and pictures as the event progresses.

Next section

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

Enemies of Rome DBA Campaign

This weekend marked the first game day of the Ottawa Miniature Gamers 2012 Enemies of Rome campaign. This is my first ever DBA tournament and my first long term tournament in any system. Each turn represents a year of 3 campaign seasons - each with one battle per pair of players. We start with a strategic map laying out the various major cities of the world of Late Republican / Early Imperial Rome and their transport interconnections. The map is also populated by various support armies loyal to a specific side.

Since we have six players, we  used a simple dice roll to decide which side attacks for each of three possible battles. For each attack that side specifies an enemy location it can reach from a city it owns then adds in 3 element support contingents from adjacent supporting armies as available and desired. The defender then adds in any support contingents they wish to use and it is off to the games table to play out the battle.

Attacker and defender both can use what armies they wish from their side but on the terrain of the actual area where the battle takes place. This results in interesting things like Celts in the desert and Pikes figuring out swamp wading tactics One notable point is that support contingents do not increase the break point of the army. Further, they only come on on a roll of 6 on their pip die. Once the battle is complete, any support contingents on the losing side dice for survival depending on the win-loss ratio of the battle. Once a contingent is used, it is spent for the year and cannot be used again. Dead contingents can be replaced at recruiting centres in the non-campaign season. Movement across water of the main army or supporting contingent can incur shipping losses depending on season and a die roll.

Unfortunately I had the tail end of the flu on game day so I am a little weak on some of the details. Following the advice of the original Purple Primer, I decided to stick with British as my main army and also - perhaps foolishly - used Ancient Brits for my supports as well.

Battle 1

I took a fairly standard army into the deserts of North Africa with 2xPs, 2xLh, 6xWb and a LCh General with another to keep him company. In support I took 3xLCh that due to their point of origin, would come in on my left board edge. Opposing me Duncan had some eastern army with at least one Nellie, some pikes and a mass of cavalry. Duncan had rolled poorly on the ocean crossing and had a core of 7 bases - The game was almost won! The first turn or two was spent with me moving my Wb into a rough patch and both of us jockeying our horses about as I tried to line up the Lh with the elephant. About turn 3, Duncan got his support contingent roll and moved a group of Cv onto the my left side of the board from his baseline. Turn 4 I got my roll and thinking like a Celt entered my LCh on the left as well to hit Duncan's support in the flank and end the game.

As it turned out - it didn't work out quite that way. I was unable to shake the chariots out of column into line fast enough and wound up losing all three including one recoiled off the board edge. Meanwhile at board centre, my Lh spattered off the El with some assistance from Duncan's core Cv.  Four units lost and game over.  Lesson Learned: Don't fight with your weakest arm against your opponent's strongest and make sure you have enough room to maneuver.

Battle 2
 Let's just get this over with quickly please? I forget the opposing army though it doesn't really matter other than it was foot heavy. I advanced my Wb (in two ranks to get the +1) across the board even using the extra move to contact because I was just that confident my boys would break through. After all my general was supporting them from the second rank.  That's right the second rank. With their general cheering them on from behind, in goes the first Wb with a +1 from his C in C - and loses taking the C in C with him. I lost my general + more game over thanks to utter stupidity on my part.  This match was over so quickly, we reset and went at it again. Same setup but with my general in front. I steam rollered my opponent.

Battle 3
This time I was up against Nick and his Marian Romans.  I had two supports for this match up both from my base edge and I went Wb heavy with just the obligatory pair of Lh to ward off the opposing horsies.. Pips were ok and we stomped across the board towards each other. Nick did some fancy wheeling about that I was able to match but which allowed him to chose the moment of contact.  Decision time found me two deep for the +1 but overlapped and facing Bd with Ps support. The first combat saw my overlapped boys go down under the Roman pila shower but the second pair stuck, removing the overlap and setting up the Romans to go down under a flurry of quick kills. At this point Nick decided to roll 6's lots and lots of 6's. Do you remember the scene in Gladiator where Maximus is galumphing through the Spanish wheat field? Well Nick was wearing Russel Crowe's sandals and my poor boys in blue body paint were the wheat stalks getting stomped under rusty Roman hobnails. Four dead end of game.


Oh those two support contingents I mentioned earlier? Over 4 or 5 turns, neither rolled a six to get on the board.

Aftermath
My fellow barbarians fared a little better winning two games and preventing our total humiliation. We retreated to lick our wounds and ponder how best to use the services of a minor Thracian slave currently in chains deep in the heart of enemy territory - Spartacus.....

A good learning experience even with the embarrassment of my stupid error the second game.

HotT FTW

On Friday night I took my Irish Heroes down to the club for a Hordes of the Things tournament. It is a very simple army with a Hero General, Hero and 8 war band. My opponents fielded much more mixed armies and I think that was the telling point. My command and control was much simpler and my plan was simply to grind away with the Wb while taking care of the opposing Cv with my heroes. No fancy manoeuvring or match ups. I doesn't hurt that a hero general at +6 is a pretty imposing base to face. I was also very lucky in that I was defender in all three games so I was able to choose both terrain and get the first move which allowed me to offset my opponents' deployment and control the tempo of the game. There were a couple of misplays through the three games thanks to differences in the DBx series but nothing game changing. More practice is required :)

In all a good evening and though yes I won, it was the playing that made it. My one regret was that Marc's work schedule meant he couldn't play.

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. ;)

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 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

200 points

With most of my remaining warband based up last night, I can just make 200 points worth of Britons if I put every piece of 15mm lead I own on the board. The distribution of troop type is off but I won't let that bother me.

Painting and Basing

The 39 odd 15mm ancients I now have based up are due to a need to work out a triplet of British chariot generals. Under DBx, chariots  Cv(O) can dismount as Wb(O) or in the case of the Britons, Wb(F) with chariot general Cv(S) dismounting as Wb(S). The Britons, Scots/Irish and Caledonian lists all have chariot generals, so I thought that getting the mounted and dismounted pairs based up was a good place to start.

In my purchase from George, I acquired a largish number of figures with the Battersea shield - a singular ceremonial artifact. Some were armed with spear and some with sword. Beautiful figures for sure but it's rather like having a handful of Napoleons at a Waterloo battle. I took three pairs and painted each pair identically. The sword armed for the foot commands and the spear to go in the chariots. I based up the foot commands as Wb(S). Getting four figures onto the 15mm deep DBMM bases involved some careful figure selection. I use five minute epoxy for final basing mostly because it's what I have and secondly because it is very solid bond yet will peel off if I need to re-base. I made up too much and scrambled to select the best of the remaining painted figures and base them up as well. I now have very nearly a DBA's worth of based warband. That left the chariot generals.

My four current chariots are Minifig - I think - and not wide enough to handle the Essex generals. This leaves me with two unpainted Essex chariots to work on and another to purchase. Oh. Dear.

DBMM Mongols and Chinese battle

Last night saw another epic battle with George and Pat L's Chinese taking on Marc and my Mongols. We had four commands plus baggage. Three were mixed Cv and Lh and the fourth was made up of 8 hordes, a Cavalry general and four Lh. Marc took the first two commands with the Cv(S) and I took a mixed command along with the Hd.

The Chinese set up first with a group of artillery in the centre flanked each side by Bow(X) and with their horse on each wing. We responded with our three horse commands set out in line 1-2-3 with the horde command behind the centre and the baggage behind that. Pip dice were assigned the same way. Our cunning plan was interesting. Marc set up his first command opposite the Chinese right wing Bow(X) and his second command facing the artillery.

"What's your plan Marc?" I asked
"Going to charge the artillery" says Marc.
"Sure about that?" says I
"Yep" says Marc

Now Marc is an experienced gamer and an intelligent guy overall but he does have a preference for Viking and Orc (Charge! and the casualties be damned!) armies and this was only his second game of full on DBMM. So I didn't press the matter.

What we wound up with was pretty much the completely wrong way to deploy a Mongol army - In a line across the board allowing all the Chinese to fight and more importantly to shoot if we got close enough. Marc is not to blame as I knew better. Actually I was kind of curious to see what when his horse hit the artillery. If they survived, they would have torn a hole through the Chinese centre.

The Chinese moved first as I recall, pushing their horse out on each flank and advancing the right flank bow. We responded with some monumentally good pip dice from Marc. He pushed his left flank command forward, lining up to clip the edged of the Bw(X) and take on the Cv in his area and advanced his second command to just out of reach of the artillery. Meanwhile, I pushed my Cv command forward with their Lh component prancing deep around the Chinese left flank. The smattering of Lh connected to the Hd command also moved forward.

With 300+ points on each side, the game took us almost 4 hours to complete so I'll spare you the gory details (not that I remember many). On the right, my intent was to push forward to protect the baggage, and wipe out George's horse which should have been achievable. Instead,  I got tangled up with George's horse command. I pushed the Hd cavalry forward in support taking a bit of a risk due to some nearby Chinese bow. That shooting combat came out to a 6-2 roll in George's favour, costing me a general. The rest of my dice rolling was similarly dismal*, and George as usual managed to thwart my every move. This cost me the other command breaking both my commands.

On our left, Marc re-thought the Battle of Balaclava deployment and instead used the Mongol's mobility and his high pip rolling ability to move his right command back behind his left into support of his attack on the Chinese right wing. My understanding was that his combat rolling was also abysmal, but at least he killed some Sung. In the end, my two dead commands coupled with Marc's losses were enough to call the game.

Despite the dice rolling of doom, it was an enjoyable game. Many thanks to Pat L for hosting (Did I mention there was a cheese board? This is high class gaming for sure)  and thanks as always to George for bringing his toys for us to play with.

*I normally don't blame the dice in place of my tactical errors but this time, I don't think I killed a single Chinese element even with double overlaps or hard flanks.

Painting

Between Breaker Morant and half of Letters From Iwo Jima, I have finished the bulk of the painting of my warband. There remains some minor details to complete like metallics on the weapons, hair and the final touch ups. But soon - I'll be basing.

DBA with Marc last night.

I have played a fair bit of DBMM but wanted to try out DBA because it is popular locally. I had my friend Marc over to pit his flat Vikings against my flat ancient Britons. We went with flats based to 15mm for economic reasons and while I have a bunch of warband - they are still on the painting sticks. I must say, the vikings glued to bases looked good and store in a tiny tin.

What a different game from DBMM. Movement is much more limited, there is less of the feel of different troop types (Blade, 3, Blade 4 - all the same), impetuosity works completely differently (what do you mean my Wb don't advance automatically?). I have to say I don't like it nearly as much as DBMM. However - it is very fast playing.

To the results:

I sent a pair of light  horse around the Viking left. Marc responded by turning to face and there was a minor skirmish killing one of my ponies. However, I split his forces which was my aim.

I was pip starved generally so took a while to move the centre and right flank up. My chariots went out to the right and the warband straight up. I was able to contact Marc's left with the chariots while finally getting my Wb into striking position. One of the chariots was blocked by the Wb, denying me overlaps on both flanks. There was a tussle with between the blades and chariots seeing me lose one but this opened up space for the warband to get in.

The finale was a tense pair of bounds where I was just able to save a pair of flanked warband that would have cost me the game with good rolling. I countered with warband on blade taking 2 with a flanking quick kill for the win.

It all came down to two die rolls - but we had fun!

A good game and I will play again but it isn't DBMM.

New Recruits

Here are the new boys ready for priming:

Terrain

Though the ground cloth wasn't the best for table top use due to cats, it has worked well as a cover for the redneck gaming table. To go on that, I have started working on some terrain. I purchased some 1/8" MDF sheet, cut some rectangles to DBA, 1/2 FE, 1 FE and 2 FE sizes then free handed some ovals and cut them out using the band saw. I then beveled the edges using the belt sander. If you are going to do this, a dust extraction system and mask are highly advisable. I put a 1/2 FE and a 1 FE aside to become swamps for my Scots-Irish. The rest were painted green giving me generic tree or hill blocks.

The swamps had their centres routed out for the water bits. Even more dust and honestly not really necessary. The deep routing caused the boards to warp and I had to back fill the large central cavity with wood putty to provide a surface for the troops to stand on. Next time I will just route out a few selected pools - much less work and dust that way.

The next project was trees. Back in my model railroad days, I had been given a pine forest. I dug these out and prepared them as per instructions. Since I would need to be able to move the trees around the the troops on the field, I cut out some MDF disks using a blind hole saw and beveled the edges using the belt sander. Small MDF disks can really fly. I painted the disks green and drilled mounting holes to spec for the trees as I epoxied them into place. A quick snip for any trunks projecting  from the bottom and a kiss from the belt sander and they were flat and ready to go. Last step is to put the flocking on the branches.
I'm well pleased with the result.

I

So much for saving money

I gave in and ordered DBA and DBMM 1.0 from The Keep via their E-bay shop I overpaid the shipping and Paul was kind enough to refund the extra - liking the service so far.

Armies on the Cheap II

I found that I could get full colour printing on medium card for $2 a page so I went for full armies.

Early Imperial Romans

Scots Irish

It worked out fairly well. With the Scots, I positioned the individual elements by hand with space to cut between each. This meant two cuts were needed to remove the white space between elements and thus sore hands. For the Romans, I used a grid to position each element on the page with a touch extra to allow for trimming. To make things even simpler, I used a guillotine to cut - bad move. despite my best efforts, the card slid around on the guillotine,the cut line was hard to see and as a result, a couple of imperial foot commands came up a little "short".

In future, I will use the grid and black cut lines but trim by hand. Once you get the rhythm, its straightforward and accurate. Still - DBMM card armies are a lot harder on the cutting hand than DBA.