Mid October and Portsmouth beckons - host of the annual 'English DBA Open' sponsored by the Society of Ancients and Magister Militum. Thanks to the PAWS club for running it and to MMs for adding in a nice DBA army prize.
Last year I managed to get down early enough to play, and had an enjoyable outing with my (formerly DBM) Axumite army. It worked very well, but I thought I ought to vary the mix (it is DBA after all) ... so in the end I decided to play around with the African theme and go for Christian Nubian .. which loses an Elephant general and gains some camels. Still a nice mix, I thought (and after last year I remain persuaded of the merits of Warband in DBA ...)...
(Phil's opponents in the 'Ancients' pool)My basic premise that no-one else would take a Christian Nubian was wrong (sorry Duncan - I very nearly took Later Pre-Islamic Arab ... perhaps we should collude next time ...)... I fought one in my second game. My impression was this year there was a bit more infantry around ... but a good mix of army types none the less. I fought against Chinese, Bospran, Palmyran and Egyptians as well as the other Christian Nubian. The army is Aggression 1, and aside from the civil war, attacked twice and defended twice.
We played off in two pools, Medieval and Ancient, with the pool winners plus next two highest scoring players going into a semi final (and the two highest scoring Juniors going into a Junior final also) ... Courtesy of a very generous Richard Pulley (whose Palmyrans forgot to put their armour on), I very nearly made it to the semis ... (and Richard faded out of them). Aside from that rather dicey game (in which Richard played well enough to leave me no chances other than lucky longshots with bowmen ... I need say no more, as four of those will win a game!) ... all were close and challenging. My game against Robert Dowling in particular saw me kill his general early on, but not get ahead on elements till taking his, six against my five. Now that is close.
The semis and final were played with a matched pair provided by the organisers. In this case, Wars of the Roses with all options (and the players could pick their preferred variant before the matches started). Refreshingly, all four armies ended up different (and hopefully the players will contribute their reflections on the choices they made to a report for a future issue of Slingshot)..
Perhaps as a result of so many Bowmen on the tables, both games seemed quite tight and 'cagey', but Martin Myers and Colin O'Shea won through to the final.
So another bash with their WotR armies, and another tight game. Actually quite a long game which, had I had to call it, I'd have got wrong. In the end I think some rather risky attacks paid off, and Colin's army won the day. That said, it was a close game and both players would have made worthy champions. Great day out and a good mix of waving the Society banner with some simple no-nonsense DBA games. Pity about the roadworks on the A3 on the way home, of course ....
(Martin Myers and Colin O'Shea - runner up and winner - pose with their trophies)We were a little down on numbers this year - perhaps not least because there was another event on the other side of the M25 ... the return of SELWG ... The other SoA events team was at that one ... (I hope to get some feedback for you ...) ...
Full results, hopefully more pictures etc. should come up in due course - watch the PAWS page
http://uk.geocities.com/paws_sec/2009_English_DBA_Open.htm
and a write up is promised for a future Slingshot.
1 comment:
Just a small correction to this. There were actually 3 pools, not two, so the 3 winners and single best 2nd place man went through to the semi-finals.
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