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

21st November, Tarrington

OK ... off to deepest Herefordshire for another round of the Society of Ancients UK DBA League - now in the 2015/16 season.

Actually, Tarrington is really quite accessible, being some 12 miles or so from the motorway (so just about dual carriageway/motorway all the way from my door) - so don't imagine it is the middle of nowhere when you see this event advertised next time: it is easy to get to and a great format.  Highly recommended - don't miss it.

The format is an open 'scramble' - you donate an army (any) to the pool.   You get to play against it in round 1 and with it in the final round.  In between, you play with and against a random army supplied by one of the other players.

I took Slave Revolt/Spartacus ...

(DBA Slave Revolt/Spartacus ... 15mm figures/mixed manufacturers)

Followers of this blog might recall I took a Marian Roman army to the English Open a few weeks back - with the back story that it was half of a pair that I had built for the Alton Pairs but then not been able to attend.

This is the other half of the pair ... the revolting slaves.   Bottled up in southern Italy with their camp in the fastness of Mount Vesuvius ...

... with Jean Simmons skinny dipping in a secluded pool ... (or so Stanley Kubrick would imagine it) ..

The army has 4 (fast) hordes, and I was interested to see how they would do over a sequence of games.

There were plenty of hordes in the army mix - and 2 cases (Aztec and Early Libyan) where they made up half the army ...

So ... The mix:  I/7a Early Libyan;  I/60b Early Achaemenid Persian (Cyrus);  I/60c Early Achaemenid Persian;  II/7 Later Achaemenid Persian;  II/40 Numidian;  II/45c Slave Revolt (Spartacus);  II/79 Early Russian;  II/34b Andalusian;  IV/55 Ottoman;  IV/63 Aztec;  IV/62 Northern Sung;  IV/80 Hussite  ...

My games ...

(Ottoman vs Slave Revolt)

(Andalusian vs Early Libyan)

(Later Achaemenid Persian vs Early Russian)

(Aztec vs Numidian)

(Early Libyan vs Early Achaemenid Persian)

(Slave Revolt vs Northern Sung)

A lot of generic/what ifs there ... not really hisotrical (nearest was probably Libyans vs Persians although wrong sort of Libyans perhaps .. ) but all of them intriguing challenges and plenty of opportunities for me to learn more about hordes!!!

Players supplied the terrain with the armies (and players drawing the army had to use the terrain - only and all - as provided) ... there was an option to provide larger boards but all I saw were standard 24" battlefields.

I quite liked ...

(those Aztecs and their pyramid ... ) ...

(the later Persians mostly made with the recently issued Westwind figures)

(didn't get to use these Hussites but thought they looked very good)

Well, I really enjoyed such a diverse series of games and with all that experience of hordes it was very pleasing to win my final game using my own army (and mostly employing the offensive power of the revolting slaves whilst the gladiators covered their flanks) ...

(victory to Spartacus and the revolting slaves)

Well done to the top three ... a good test and an enjoyable day ...

I won 2 of my 6 games and I think got one draw  ... so finished lower middle (slightly less successful than my army) ...  Then again, I did use both of the horde armies and the Aztecs, indeed, won the most challenging award (for the lowest scores) ... and I think I want one!

Thanks to Martin Myers for organising the event and thanks to all the players for a splendid set of nicely presented and interesting armies.

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