8th February, Coventry

The Mercian DBA V3 tournament ...

In which some of us got to see what we'd learned of the latest version of the rules and how well we could apply it under the stress test of 6 quick-fire tournament games. 

Pete had set a theme of armies that would have fought in historical Mercia (Mercia is, of course, an Anglo-Saxon kingdom in the true heart of England, and is famous for building a dyke along the Welsh border).

Consequently, I chose to give an overdue run to 'Arthur's' Sub-Roman British (though I took my new Vikings along just in case) ...

This is the army featured in what has become AoM's most popular ever post so please do click that link for a closer look ...

The snowy bases were a deliberate reference to that Clive Owen film, and although a bit of the glittery white flock has worn off, people still seem to get the idea.

The venue was a pleasant little Community Library which unfortunately I drove past a couple of times before locating (and after a number of other excursions I put down to navigating solo while driving head on into a low winter sun ...) ... 

(wargamers in the library ... )

Anyway, I got set up pictures from some of my games .. No logic to which - I think the first game came and went too quick, and the game against Arnaud's elephants was too compelling to remember to take pictures ...

But I fought against ... Norman, Roman, Ancient British, Norman, Hindu Indian and Feudal English. As you can see, the theme was not compulsory and there was an elephant theory to test out (and actually I very nearly defeated it) ...

(Game Two - won)

(Game Three - lost)

(Game Four - drawn)

(Game Six - drawn)

The draws were bloody affairs in which the play evened up to produce no winner within the time limit.  They were, however, close and entertaining games.

What did I learn?  Well, some might say I never learn ... in Game Three I suffered close on a 'fools mate' by getting my Knight General killed by doubled-up light horse conceding the overlaps which then allowed Warband to quick kill my Spears.  Game over in one inept round of die rolling.  Now, I do know that can happen if put the commander on offer.   I used to do the same with the Axumite elephant general.

But, spear-based, the army has a much better feel to it and all these Dark Age/Early Medieval battles create plausible game narratives.   And I quite like the mounted recoilers passing through (most types of) foot.   I hadn't really absorbed that option so it was nice to see it in play.

(photos courtesy of Martin Smith's endeavours)

I used an edifice in Game Four ... just to see what would happen ... interesting, and in one of my six games the plough turned rough (which is about right, of course).

I forgot to take my road ... but I did kill an enemy general ... and my peers generously voted my army best in theme (for which I was awarded a fridge magnet featuring Coventry's Lady Godiva ...) ...

SoA contributor Martin won, Arnaud came second and Martin M third.  I came next to last but my cup was running over with fulfilling games and a proud outing for my little men.

Very enjoyable even, smiled on by the weather and I hope it returns next year ...

And its goodbye from him ...

(organiser Pete does a convincing Al Jolson ... and Richard takes the biscuit)

The Mercia DBA was part of the current Society of Ancients UK DBA League ...

... and some games were counted towards The Championship ...

Full results are published on Fanaticus/Mercian DBA ...

New Features for 2015

I have had a major tidy up over the winter and rationalised the use of labels here (which started out haphazard, then stopped altogether) ...

Now all the major themes have labels, as do the shows and events ...

so you might like DBA Armies ... or you might like to look back on, say, past Salute shows ...

The following historical battles get one or more mentions (click the link ... there will usually be at least a picture of a wargame, maybe even an entire scenario) ...

Battle of Al Qadisha, Battle of Arsuf, Battle of Bagradas, Battle of Bibracte, Battle of Bosworth, Battle of Bouvines, Battle of Callinicum, Battle of Chaeronea, Battle of Chalons, Battle of Cravant, Battle of Cunaxa, Battle of Cynoscephalae, Battle of Edgcote, Battle of Gabiene, Battle of Gaugamela, Battle of Hedgeley Moor, Battle of Illipa, Battle of Issus, Battle of Kadesh, Battle of Magnesia, Battle of Mantinea, Battle of Montaperti, Battle of Mortimer's Cross, Battle of Naseby, Battle of Nicopolis, Battle of Northampton, Battle of Plataea, Battle of Poitiers, Battle of Pydna, Battle of Raphia, Battle of Sellasia, Battle of Sentinum, Battle of St Albans, Battle of Tewkesbury, Battle of Thapsus, Battle of the Granicus, Battle of the Trebia 218 BC, Battle of Towton, Battle of Verneuil, Battle of Wakefield, Battle of Zama 

I will endeavour to keep this new system updated ... you can find all the labels in the panel at the foot of the page ...

January ... Winter Quarters ... 2014 retrospective

This is apparently AoM's 250th post since reporting the Society's Shows North season began on blogger in March 2008 (so a surprising 7th birthday coming up soon).

Despite the number of posts dropping slightly (due to the manifold disappointments of V2 of FoG, we have dropped out of a number of tournament events) monthly pageviews bobble around the 3,500 mark (which isn't too bad for a special interest blog posting on average 5 times every 2 months - 29 posts for 2014) ...

Shows North attended 10 wargame shows and 10 other wargame/heritage events ...

Shows (please click on the picture for more on the event) ... 

(as part of the Lance & Longbow Society team)

(incorporating the SoA DBA Northern Cup)

(with the Lance & Longbow Society)

(a Society of Ancients/Lance & Longbow Society/Northampton Battlefields Society venture)

(as the Northampton Battlefields Society/Wargame Developments)

(with the Northampton Battlefields Society)

Events

(including FoG-R, Armati, DBA and Basic Impetus)

(as the Northampton Battlefields Society)

(with The Battlefields Trust and Northampton Battlefields Society)

(with the Battlefields Trust)

What a high content year!

This shift towards history/heritage reflects my personal interests as much as it does the health of historical wargaming and/or the Society of Ancients ...  That said, the drift towards 'history lite', 'minis gaming'  and Space Marines in hollywood historical outfits ('historicals' as the minis gamers call them) seems unstoppable.

On the credit side, my Montaperti game got 'best game' at the BattleDay, my flats got featured in the BFFS magazine, I took the runner up position in the English DBA Open and the Northampton Battlefields Society won a community award.  I was voted a trustee of the Naseby Battlefield Project and I got to explain the Battle of Bosworth to cricket hero Freddie Flintoff for a TV clip.

My actual wargaming has only tallied to around 80 games in 2014 (call it 3 games per fortnight) ... that's probably the lowest in 3 decades but has a lot to do with the collapse of interest in FoG/DBM ... (so far fewer 4 game weekends than in past years - and, really, I haven't missed them much) - that said, DBA V3 may encourage a pick up in interest.  Armati, for me, is now just for old times' sake and I expect my 'mainstream' ancient/medieval wargaming in 2015 to be mostly DBA, Basic Impetus and Neil Thomas's AMW ...

DBA Special III/40b Norse Viking

As promised, here is the companion army to the Pre-Feudal Scottish ... The Vikings ...

Building this army was inspired by Peter Pig's new extensive range of Vikings and Saxons and the desire to assemble them and as many equivalents from other manufacturers for a review ...

... and, with a little care and attention, I get a couple more Dark Age armies out of the exercise, Canmore's Scots and these cultural raiders ...

The V3 DBA army follows the usual formula (post 850): a solid Blade general and 10 bases of Solid Blade hirdsmen ... (and just one element tp pick and choose over) ...

The landwaster standard was made in the usual way from tissue over a foil substrate, doped with PVA and painted ...

The 12th element can be archers (Bw or Ps), Beserks (fast Wb) or Irish (fast Ax)

V3 of DBA offers slightly more choice by allowing 3 bases of substitutes from an ally (in this case Irish, Scottish or Anglo-Danish) ... that might mean a bit more variety but this is tough good-looking army as it stands.

The figures are (just under) half Piggies, the rest Essex, Donnington, Khurasan, Black Hat, Museum, Outpost, and one each from Touller, Irregular and Chariot (just to show how nicely they all mix together) ...

The camp is meant to represent the prows of some longships pulled up on a marshy riverbank ...

 

 

(detail)

(Viking DBA estuary camp: details)

Peter Pig make loads of looting and ravaging figures, so, with an Essex ship there was a lot of kit to jumble together for this piece.  It is made on clear plastic sheet rather than my usual MDF basing so any river it sits on should show through ... The guarding Camp Followers are detachable of course.

I pasted together some of the shield designs again (hand done as usual)  - sorry if they come out a bit blurred by the editing ...

They are the usual mix of Celtic/Saxon/Norse designs that seem to pass for generic Dark Age these days (and honestly I know no better) ...

It pairs nicely with Pre-Feudal Scottish or, say, Anglo-Saxon

A very enjoyable project and a nice addition to any collection.

30th November, Halesowen

WARGAMER 2014

The Society of Ancients combined with the Northampton Battlefields Society to run a stand at Wargamer in its bright new venue in Halesowen.

We took along the wargame model of the 1460 Battle of Northampton (which is only an hour down the road from Birmingham) in a display format - as Wargamer isn't one of those shows where we usually pick up volunteers for full multiplayer participation game.

I set the battle up as the Yorkist lords move their forces forward

(uncle Fauconberg at the Battle of Northampton)

There was plenty to talk about as only 2 evenings previously the NBS had picked up a Community Star award from the local residents' association in Northampton's Far Cotton and Delapre where the battlefield lies.

The award recognises the Society - and particularly its chairman, Mike Ingram (he of the excellent Bosworth book) - fighting for what it believes in: the preservation, interpretation and publicising of the 1460 battlefield at Delapre Abbey ...

(Community Star award alongside exhibition weapons from the Northampton Battlefields Society)

And I was also doing some surveying for our friends at the Naseby Battlefield Project who need to know what you would like to find in a visitor centre should you go to the ECW site (I will provide info and a link when there is an online version available) ..

If not particularly busy or intensively promoted (and the two can go together) Wargamer is a great example of a good quality local wargames show.   Lots of great exhibits from clubs and groups within an hours or so's drive and a fair mix of traders including the indomitable Dave Lanchester (Books) down from Yorkshire for the day (great support from Dave and he looked busy enough for it to have been worth his trip) ...

The show was a little easier to find than the former venue, better lit, had a bar (albeit rudimentary) and more parking ... winning all round, then.

In addition to Northampton, there were plenty of ancient games on show ...

The Cobridge (Stoke Challenge) club had this sumptuous Republican Roman Armati game.

The Border Rievers had a splendid and well captioned Battle of Mycale 

Tremendous terrain and loads of figures  ... this game was being played using WRG's 6th edition.

And The Guards of Birmingham were playing a large Hail Caesar game loosely based on Hydaspes ...

Well, add in our Medieval battle and that's some good coverage of the Society's period of remit for a local Sunday show I think.

A good diversity of style too ... 15 and 28mm ... Armati, vintage WRG and HC (and the set up for ours would have been a matrix game) ...

Other good stuff at Wargamer included ...

(WWII - Parker's Crossroads)

A couple of Renaissance games ... from Malta ...

... to the English Civil War ...

Several Napoleonics and even an interesting WWII Naval game ...

A great selection: I counted 17 games: 5 Napoleonic, 4 WWII (3 land; 1 naval), 3 Ancient, 1 Medieval, 1 Renaissance, 1 ECW, 1 ACW and 1 Indian Wars … in a good mix of scales and using everything from glossy published rules to oldies and homebrews.  

What a showcase.  There was also a Bring & Buy.

The weather was good for travelling so this was a great day for the midland wargame enthusiast (if you didn't attend this year I am sure you will want to look out for next year's show) ...

That was the last show outing for the Society of Ancients for 2014 although my own wargaming is moving on apace over the Winter break (and more special features are in preparation - so keep an eye on Ancients on the Move or just hit the follow by email button) ...

Oh ... and don't forget to renew your Society subscriptions (the majority of members still lapse with the distribution of the November issue - and that's the next one coming) ...