25th February, Alton

... and quickly it was DBA again - this time the Alton matched pairs tournament.

Each player takes a matched pair of armies (armies and enemies on the lists) and every other game is played with your own pair or your opponent's pair ... 

The day is six games - so you get to use your own pair 3 times ... when using your own pair, the opponent chooses which army to use (otherwise the standard options apply) ....

I opted to take Mongols and Seljuqs as I reasoned with time tight on the clock, all those potential 2/2 and 1/1 combats would give a good prospect of a completed game each round (as indeed they did)

My armies

IV/35 MONGOL CONQUEST (Cv gen; 4 x Cv; 6 x LH; 1 x Art):

1 x General (Cv), 2 x Mongol armoured cavalry (Cv), 5 x Mongol horse archers (LH), 1 x stone thrower (Art), 2 x Khwarizmian cavalry (Cv) and 1x Kipchak horse archers (LH) …  Steppe.  Agg: 4

III/74a SELJUQ TURK - Army of RUM (Cv gen; 3 x Cv; 5 x LH, 2 x 3Bw; 1 x 4Kn):

1 x General with mamluks (Cv), 2 x askaris (Cv), 5 x Turkoman horse archers (LH), 1 x Kurds (Cv), 2 x Armenian foot (3Bw), 1 x Agulani (4Kn) … Steppe.  Agg: 3

Each army had its quirks ... the Mongol stone-thrower is an interesting asset to take to a 'horse archer' fight.  The Seljuq Agulani add some punch but are at risk with all that light horse around.

The other players chose:

Teutonic Order v Early Polish; Ptolemy Keraunos v Galatians; Zenobia's Palmyrans v LPIA; L. carthaginian v Polybian Roman; Hellenistic Greeks, Sparta v Boiotia; Guti v Akkad; Italian Condotta v French Ordonnance; Early Welsh v Middle Anglo-Saxon; NKE v Ugaritic; WotR, Tudors v Rebels; French Ordonnance v Medieval German; Early Sumerian b list x 2; Middle Assyrian v Hittite Empire; Attila v Patrician Roman W.; Gallic v Celtiberian; Teutonic v Post Mongol Russian; Mitanni v Syro-Canaanite ...

My away games were ... Egyptian vs Ugaritic, Welsh vs Anglo-Saxon and Zenobia vs the Arabs

Unusually, I did quite well with my own pair ... my opponents gave me the Mongols each time - but I won 2 of the 3 games.  Sadly the other games didn't go so well.

So I wasn't threatening the podium this time.   Mark, Pete and Colin were ... so congrats to them - with Mark finishing in the top spot ...

It was a splendid day's wargaming and the battles were all entertaining in their own way - excellent!

Results of the 2017 Alton DBA Matched Pairs:-

1) Mark Skelton, 119 pts; 2) Pete Duckworth, 116 pts; 3) Colin O'Shea, 103 pts; 4) Scott Russell, followed by Peter Ellis, Bill MacGillivray, Kev Casey, David Constable, Richard Pulley, Lindon Paxton, Terry Ellis, Phil Steele, Neil Mason, John Saunders, Paul Clair, Denis Grey, Mike Thompson and Tim Moore.

Well done to everyone ... here they all are (with Martin, who took the picture, snipped in for completeness) ...

Well done also to Martin for organising this and sticking with an entertaining formula ...

More on the Society of Ancients here

More on the SoA UK DBA League here

(Early Welsh occupy a hamlet: figures by Martin Smith, resin huts - from The Square - by Phil Steele) ... 

Hammerhead next ... and the Society sponsored DBA Northern Cup.  See you there.

Next on Shows North will be a day out with the Society shows team at Cavalier in Tonbridge.

(snapping the winners: looking over the organiser's shoulder ... ) 

12th February, Keresley Library, Coventry

Mercian DBA 2017 Sunday 12th February

Having missed Usk and Burton, my first outing of the year was to the Mercian DBA event in Coventry.  

This year's theme was Italian Wars - to explore the extension of the V3's take on anc-med into the early 16th Century (a slight period creep in the new edition, and armies not all od us have played much) ...

In that spirit, I took along a late Medieval German army full of Landsknechte.

This army was drawn from my FoG-R Italian Wars army and certainly looked the part.  I gave it a fantasy Gothic fairy-tale castle as an Edifice camp: originally bought for next to nothing as a semi-historical HOTT stonghold, this just looked the part.

Oh, and I borrowed an anachronistic gun from Northampton.

I played against Swiss, Tudor English, French, Spanish and Italian Condottieri (twice) ...

Sort of ... in Mercia you play the first three games with your army, the last three against.

I registered 3 wins, a defeat and 2 'time up' draws ... and that put me bottom of the top 10 in a field of 20.  I bagged a general but didn't take a camp (that seems less of an option in V3) ... Not so bad for a first go in ages but you'd have thought I'd have mastered this game by now.

I wasn't too sure about the 'period' but enjoyed it a lot - the games were close and challenging and everyone got some scores ...

Graham Fordham was narrowly pipped for top spot, on countback, by Tony Green ... and Tamara was the higher placed of the juniors.

(Mercia 2017 ... Graham and Tony on top)

(Mercia 2017 ... most of the rest of us: from Martin Smith's album - he's behind the camera)

Here's another glimpse of those Germans ... good enough to merit a feature I think - I'll do a photo set shortly.

More DBA to come - Alton Matched Pairs.  See you there!

2016 wrap Part Two - Review of the Year

The 2017 season is up and running ... the Southern Shows team will be at Cavalier next weekend (I am hoping to give them a hand), there is a Society sponsored DBA Pairs event at Alton the day before (SoA UK DBA League) and Shows North will be part of the DBA Northern Cup at Hammerhead the week after.

Out and About in 2016

(a cheerful Henry Tudor rides through the camp at Bosworth - we were there with the wargame)

In 2016 we did 22 formal outings as SoA Shows North or in combination with our regular partners, Northampton Battlefields Society, the Lance & Longbow Society (plus we did games at a couple of Battlefields Trust events) - so pretty much twice a month (and to think some people think we wargame enthusiasts should get out more!)

12 were public wargame shows, the others Society events, reenactments, tournaments etc.

Here are the SHOWS ...

Clicking on the pictures takes you direct to the report.

By special request, we took the Tony Bath game to Reveille with the History of Wargaming Project ..

... and we helped out the Southern Shows team at a few big events ...

EVENTS and COMPETITIONS

Despite its ups and downs, 2016 was an excellent year for the Society's Northern Shows team.  It was brilliant to be putting on wargames in the Royal Armouries, Leeds, again.  We had some new DBA events ... and new players ... and a return of the much missed Society of Ancients Conference.

High spots other than the Conference?  For me the success of the Tony Bath wargame, and allied to many of our combined events, the onward march of Northampton Battlefields Society: with some new awards, and a new game developed from the particiaption game we ran at several of the 2016 joint SoA/NBS show stands.   I'll add more on the NBS wargame in a separate post as I know many members have asked for info.

2016 wrap Part One - Wargamer in Halesowen

Assembling my review of the year in advance of 2017s first shows at Hammerhead and Alumwell, I stumbled on a 'lost wargames show' - a fully edited album of pictures from Wargamer in Halesowen that never made it to the blog.

Apologies to the organisers - it was a great day out and continues to be an excellent local show:

Plenty to do as you can see ...

I gave the Tony Bath Hyboria game a final outing ... it stimulated quite a lot of interest so thanks to everyone who came over and shared in the nostalgia ...

TONY BATH'S ANCIENT WARGAME AT HALESOWEN

(Society of Ancients nostalgia: 1960s flats originally by Phil Barker and Tony Bath)

(Hyboria at Wargamer 2016)

(Phil Steele's Tony Bath game for the Society of Ancients)

(the Tony Bath Hyboria wargame)

There was also a very nice ancients game put on in the modern idiom by slingshot Stalwart Ade G - in glorious 6mm (well worth some pictures):

Excellent ... beautiful massed effects ...

Elsewhere at Wargamer 2016 (yes there was more):

... and the December weather was good too - cold but not wintry ... such a gem of a show I assume it is weather worries that explain its relatively low turn out.

See you there next year, though ... hey, showgoers?