28th February, Keresley Library, Coventry

MERCIA DBA/SOA UK DBA LEAGUE

I wasn't able to attend Patrick's new event in Market Harborough so this was only my second outing with the 2015/16 DBA League.

The theme was armies from the history of Mercia so I opted to dust down my Anglo-Saxons and take King Penda'a Dark Age Mercians, famous as you will all know for his battles at Maserfield and Winwaed.   A hundred years before his relative Offa built a dyke.

I took along the longship baggage element with its improbable lateen rig.   The Angles and Saxons were great sailors, of course, and first arrived in these islands which they made their own by boat.

The army's DBA terrain is arable, of course, and the boat must be presumed pulled up on an inlet from a river just off the board.

(Mercian supplies beached by a waterway - click on the pictures for a larger image)

I also refurbished an old earthwork to provide a fort ... Mercians seem to have been good a digging earthworks so I thought I'd throw one into a game.

With an aggression of 2, I didn't get that many chances (but it did get into play) ...

The interior is actually a 10mm Roman watchtower supplied for review a while back by The Baggage Train.  I've always been pleased with the look of this resin piece on the 15mm battlefield.

I suppose I should complete the round up by mentioning the ploughman figure I built to enhance DBA V3's iconic 'plough' terrain type.

This army adds a cavalryman, a skirmisher and a pair of 'hird' warbands (the general and his personal retainers) to an 8 element shieldwall.  It doesn't do much singing and dancing but it sure is good at fighting enemy infantry.  

I was hoping to hold the line while breaking through with commander's (supported general warband) deadly fighting power.   Toughing it out against knights would likely be less productive.

The games ...

Game One: vs Sub Roman British ... cavalry and auxilia with some vulnerable blades ...

Game Two: vs North Welsh ... and a clump of knights to fear (it turned out with good reason) ...

Game Three: vs Feudal English ... could the spearwall get stuck into the archers (before the knights prevail) ...

At this, the half way stage, the set up switched and all games were with your opponent's army against your own ...

Game Four: with Anglo-Normans ... Charge!

There was now an interval for displaying the various armies before a 'best in theme' vote:-

Excellent ... my vote went to the colourful Anglo-Danish army (3 up, above)

... and then the wargames resumed for the final two rounds ...

Game Five: with Graham Fordham's Anglo-Norman ... Charge!... and ...

Game Six: with Martin Smith's Pre Feudal Scottish

This reverse phase went very well and I won all the games ... making 5 wins and a defeat (propelling me to a countback second place) ... and my cup oveflowed when the player vote picked my Mercians as the best of the bunch.

These were English style quick fire games and all mine were decisive (despite the preponderance of footsloggers) ... We had plenty of potential manoeuvre but everyone gamely got on with it.

Moments ...

(outflanked!  The Saxon commander leads from the centre of the line but the warrior on the right flank seems to be trying to draw attention to the enemy about to roll up the line !!) 

(from the rear - with the gear - a view of the shieldwall from the supply ships)

A great day out ... and a surprisingly elevated result.  Well done everyone!

Mercian DBA Results

SoA UK DBA League

WMMS next ... then more DBA at Triples

Why not join the Society of Ancients ... ? 

20/21st February, Burton on Trent

BADCON - BURTON DOUBLES

I wasn't able to sort anything out for this year's Burton Doubles but went up to have a look at what was happening and say Hi! to people ...

Quite useful also to sit in on a couple of games of L'Art de la Guerre and pick up a few more nuances of the game.

The ADLG was quite a small section, the main choices seemingly FoG-AM, FoG-R and DBMM.

(click on the pictures for larger images)

All told a very well attended event and some great armies, terrain and baggage on display. ..

Hopefully I'll be able to do both days next year - and will be back as a player ...

For who managed to do what, check out Badcon Results

23rd and 24th January, Usk

GODENDAG 2016

Back on the road for the new year and our first stop was for a weekend of tournament gaming at Usk in South Wales and this year we decided to give a go at l'Art de la Guerre ...

We chose to go with Maurikian Byzantines and a horse archer ally (and the best in period option was Khazar) ... we were beginners and it seemed to suit us very well.

The format was 400 points configured as two 200 point allied armies with the two players commanding the 3 adjacent command on their side of the table.

OK.   We won three out of our four games (though 'on points' rather than by destroying the enemy outright) and lost the fourth by a small margin.  We ended up mid-table.

(our four games at Godendag)

In truth we a tad overmatched in terms of power and protection, most of the entrants in a fairly open field were medieval knight/longbow/chopper types so we had to whittle and dodge to get any favours out of the exchange and that makes for a 'long game' strategy.

L'Art de la Guerre is an odd hybrid which feel like a mix of FoG, Armati and DBM and it takes a bit of getting used to (what with 'units' being able to about face and charge (things you are comfortable with the DB element game but which seem clunky in a unit based game) ...

(some scenes from our games)

Like FoG the movement is in units (in this case UDs), like DBA3, the UD is a 40mm (i.e. a BW) ..

The opposed die rolls and and variable levels of cohesion (2 to eliminate light troops, 4 cavalry, 4 for Heavt Foot etc.) work very well and feel a lot like Intro Scale Armati ...

(a rare 'in-period' battle against Armenians and Arabs)

The command and control uses Pips (CPs) much in the style of DBM ...

(more knights)

... and the basing is WRG standard ...

(the hurly-burly of ancient battle) 

The rules are poorly written (probably in the main poorly translated although some of the queries and anomalies are not just down to playing the English version) and that is disappointing given this is the third edition.

I suspect I will play some more of this but it is difficult to see it as anything other than an extra option compared to say Basic Impetus or DBA V3.

What we really need is BBDBA Doubles ...

(the various winners at Godendag 2016 ... )

Thanks a lot to the organisers and list checkers ... great Welsh hospitality and our generous and good spirited opponents ...

Winter Quarters ... 2015 in review ...

2015 was a massive year for me in which a number of key projects came to fruition, in which I lost another close friend and in which I ended the year moving house (almost) ...

The bare bones as far as the Shows North blog is concerned ... 22 posts tracking a year in which we attended 12 wargame shows, 6 tournaments (although 2 of these in 2015 were FoG-R, so didn't appear here), 4 Ancient/Medieval heritage events and a couple of related features ...

(each picture is a link to the show report so click the pics to find out more)

The Shows ...

At the shows for which I did the games and presentations I did the Battle of Yarmuk four times, Bouvines and Northampton three times each, David and Goliath twice ... and we did my recent Society game Greyhounds in the Slips once (Salute) and a Tony Bath's Hyboria retake at Warfare.

*****

The sad event in the middle of the year was the passing of my great friend and collaborator Andy Gittins ... founder of the Slough Barbarians, Society President and designer of the seminal Society game Gladiolus amongst many other award winning participation games and Conference projects.

Here are some of us old guys at Andy's funeral ...

And here are some of us 30 years or so earlier in a pub in Dorset ...

Such a loss - we gave the original shows copy of David and Goliath some commemorative outings.

On the tournament side, I mainly played DBA or FoG-R ... with random scenarios at Triples/Northern Cup, Sub Romans at Mercia, Spartacus' Slaves at Tarrington, and their Roman enemies at the DBA Open ...

Mercian DBA Open

The Society of Ancients BattleDay

The English DBA Open

The Tarrington Scramble

Through our links with The Northampton Battlefields Society we promoted heritage protection and historic battlefields at Towton, Naseby's spectacular 370th anniversar event, at Northampton and at Bosworth ...

In addition to helping organise the 370th at Naseby, it is a year in which we have secured genuine moves towards a permanent exhibition at Northampton and start-up Lottery Funding for the Naseby Project.

Nevertheless it was a year of losses as well as triumphs ...

RIP Andy Gittins