Further Down the DBA Rabbit Hole: Chariot-era Battle With Howard

 

I’m picking up the ancients gaming theme of my last post today, which I finished by saying that I’ve been enjoying my discovery of small-scale ancients and learning to play DBA (De Bellis Antiquitatis), Phil Barker's small battles rules from WRG that have been around longer than many games today have been alive.  I’ve been aware of DBA for years, and was familiar with the usual potted descriptions - “like chess, very stylized, ok if you like fast games, it’s about how many sixes you can rol, etcl”.  I wasn’t prepared for just how entertaining it could be.

Charles, one of the regulars at the Barrie group, has played it for years and was kind enough to introduce me to it, using several of his well-used and much loved armies.  I found that I enjoyed it’s almost zen-like simplicity.  With just twelve units, a few pages of simple yet subtle rules, and sudden death if I lose four units, DBA provides interesting tactical challenges and a clear cut result in an hour.  It’s also a fairly simply gateway into what is, for me, complicated and unfamiliar world of ancients gaming.   Pick a period, pick an army (or borrow one, I’ve found that veteran DBA players have lots of armies and are very generous with them), learn the basic troop types, paint between 30 to 40 figures, and you have an army!

Last Thursday I was fortunate enough to play a game with an experienced player, Howard Tulloch, who has organized DBA tournaments in the southern Ontario area for years.  Knowing that I am interested in the biblical period, he brought two chariot-era armies, Cypriot-Phoenician (1/35) and Kushite Egyptian (1/46), both beautifully painted.    I took the Phoenicans, since I have an earlier Sea Peoples army on order from Essex and wanted to see how the Phoenicians as descendants of the Sea Peoples handled.  

I had a bad run of luck with the terrain setup.   Howard placed two dunes in my deployment area, which along with the sea coast really hemmed me in before I could get out the gate.   The only saving grace for me was that, as a Littoral army, the Phoenicians can deploy up to three elements anywhere along the water board edge.  I chose to place my two best Auxiliary infantry units in the middle of the table on the left edge, as a bit of a check on the Egyptians to keep them from swarming me as I emerged from between the two dunes.

Initial rounds saw my getting a lucky victory over the Egyptian light cavalry, but then Howard’s royal archers shot my own cavalry off their horses, tying the score at 1 to 1.    Our psiloi (light infantry) faced off on the hill to the right, but never actually exchanged blows, while Howard checked my Aux infantry with two stands of his own.    One of the things I’ve learned about DBA thus far is that when the odds are basically even, as they were on our flanks, battles can easily go either way and leave one in the hole on the lost unit count.  Better to seek a win where you can mass more units against you opponent and thus stack the odds in you favour.

Which was exactly what happened.  In the centre left, you can see two units from each side facing in a kind of “Z” shape, with each side having a unit on the other’s flanks, known as “closing the door” in DBA terms.    Once a unit is flanked, if it loses a combat and has to retreat, it is destroyed.   Thus, whoever would win this fight was almost certain to win the game, and it stayed locked that way for FOUR TURNS, with both of us rolling the same numbers to tie, forcing the battle into extra rounds.  Finally I was able to get my chariots into Howard’s archers, and with two lucky die rolls I managed a 4-1 victory, though it could easily have gone either way.

Moved up in the painting queue as a result of these games is a clutch of 15mm figures, which when finished should allow me to field an Early Hebrew or Syro-Canaanite army for DBA.  I was originally intending these figures for an ADLG army, but I think I’ll go the DBA route to get armies on the table sooner, which makes sense, as there are DBA players to hand and no one in our group plays ADLG.

For extra ancients inspiration, Joy and I visited the Royal Ontario Museum yesterday, where we had the classics section to ourselves for a brief while before the parents and kids arrived.  Here’s a lovely Corinthian style helmet for you to admire, supposedly found at Marathon and dating to about 500 BC, though there is some uncertainty about its provenance .

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Blessings to your die rolls!

MP

Games at Hot Lead 2022

Hello friends:

On of Canada’s most well-known miniature tabletop gaming events is now in the books, and can be counted a success.   After two years of Covid-induced suspension, the games were back, the players were a little fewer in number and all masked and well behaved.   Congratulations to my friend James and his crew of redshirts for making it a success.  You can read James’ account of HotLead and see his own photos here.  There are lots more photos and videos on the Hot Lead Facebook group page here.

This was the first time I’ve stayed over at the Arden Park hotel, the venue space.  Previously I’ve cheaped out and couch surfed at my friend James’ expense, but this time I went all out and my lovely bride Joy came with me to sample Stratford’s shopping delights and to do some anthropological studies of the wargaming tribe.  She said “your friends are weird but nice”.  Truth.

My own brief account of what I played in and what I saw begins on Friday night with on of Dan Hutter’s signature multi-player rules, where no one is a friend and the guy sitting beside or across from you is probably gunning for you, so best gun him first. The game was set in Somalia during the disastrous UN intervention there in the early 1990s: several factions of Somalis, UN peacekeeping troops, and secretive mercenaries all had their own agendas and bullets soon flew in all directions.  Rules were a very simple and mostly playable version of FUBAR.  Grand start to the weekend.

 

Test of Honour samurai game going down on Friday night, lovely table. 

 Chris Robinson, a friend of the Canadian Wargamer Podcast and normally an historical guy, put on a Star Wars game that looked quite attractive.  It was good to hear that the young players enjoyed it.

 Some of the Hot Lead crowd were playing this impromptu Victorian SF game on Saturday morning, involving big steam powered clanks AND dinosaurs. 

 

Saturday morning I played in this beautiful WW2 game hosted by Joe Saunders of Miniature Landscape Hobbies.  Joe is a friend of the Canadian Wargaming Podcast and a lovely guy. 

 This scratch built railway gun was done by Joe and part of the table dressing.

 

The game was called “Countdown to Launch” and featured the Germans trying to delay the Allied onslaught long enough to fuel, arm, and fire off this V1 rocket.  

 It was quite an onslaught.  The Germans died in droves but managed to fire off the rocket.  I confess that tanks massed track to track are an example of why I don’t personally like Flames of War, but it did deliver a fast game, and at this sort of event, with three hour game slots, you need quick fast games.

 This beautiful medieval game, the Battle of Tewkesbury, was hosted by Ian Tetlow, who always puts on good looking games at Hot Lead.

 

 On Saturday afternoon I played in Sean Malcomson’s “Hard Brexit” ancients game using Too Fat Lardie’s Infamy, Infamy rules.  The object was for the Roman players to move a herd of (unfairly) taxed cattle across this table to safe harbour.  The British, strong believers in No Taxation Without Representation, were trying to stop them.

 Some of Sean’s beautiful ancient British figures.   The British deployed from a series of ambush points.

 Life got quite difficult for the Romans.   Their legionaries stood in line like rocks while their auxiliary reserves ran back and forward plugging gaps and counter attacking.  

The British skirmish cavalry, seen entering here, were annoying but not decisive.   In the end, we ran out of time but called it a British win.  I found these rules similar enough to Sharp Practice that I got the hang of it fairly quickly, and would try them again as an excuse to get some Romans to oppose my Germanic war band.

 

My last game at HotLead was on Saturday night.  Brian Hall, one of our local masters of 6mm, hosted an ACW corps-level game featuring the Battle of Cedar Creek.   Since the battle began in confusion and alarm for the Union, both forces started under blinds, with three of the four Union corps well back from the start of the action and thus the Union in a poor position to stop the Confederate advance. 

 By this point the Union had stabilized a line and were beginning to hold.    The rules were Altar of Freedom, which I found fast playing and quite bloody.   With each manoeuvre unit in the game a brigade, whole divisions were being quickly shattered, but the rebels lost too many men to sustain the assault, ending in an historical outcome.

Since a lot of my playing is solitaire, I found the points bidding initiative system in AofF to be a bit of a turn off, but as Brian noted to me, a card drive initiative system could easily be bolted on to the core combat rules for solitaire gaming.

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Finally, it wouldn’t be a convention report with the usual haul of goodies.  My dear friend MikeB gifted me these Warlord Crimean War sculpts by Paul Hicks for use in my Alt-ACW project, which was kind of him.

Another friend sold me these antique Avalon Hill rules for Napoleonics, which are more of a collector’s item than a viable gaming system, though I gather they were once influential and I will try them out some day.  I gather it was AH’s equivalent of GDW’s System 7 Napoleonics, though the cardboard counters in the AH set were designed to give players a taste of the system and motivate them to buying miniatures.  There are some vintage adverts from minis companies of the era in the rules books.

And I stocked up on tree and basing material.

So that was Hot Lead.   I ran out of stamina after four games in 1.5 days, but as I said goodbyes on Sunday it was grand to see the crowd getting ready for the traditional mass VSF game.  

Huge congrats to James, Elizabeth, and the crew for making this revered event happen and I look forward to returning next year without a face mask!

Cheers and blessings,

MP

Skirmish at Hickory Farm: An ACW Sharpe Practice Battle Report

 Relocating my gaming table to a roomier part of the basement has given me an incentive to get out my ACW figures, revisit Too Fat Lardies’ Sharpe Practice, and throw some dice.  I especially wanted to give my small but growing cavalry some love. The descriptions were written while I tweeted the game using my @MarshalLuigi account.  The table was randomly set up by placing a random selection of Terrain Cards from Sam Mustafa’s Longstreet rules in 12 sections of the table.

Tennessee, 1862. Captain Morrison O’Harnett, commanding C Company, 15th Illinois Cavalry, is ordered to scout a farm along a road designated for a divisional advance the next day. He has four troops of cavalry rated as Dragoons in Sharpe Practice terms.

 O’Harnett orders Lt. Thaddeus (Tad) MacQuarrie to take two dismounted troops and scout the woods on either side of the road approaching the farm. Tad takes one side and orders Sgt Esau Landiss to take the other side.

 O’Harnett keeps his other two troops in the saddle, ready to move forward as required. (Tables I wrote to make it interesting).

Sgt Landiss and his men warily approach what looks like a campsite in the woods south of the road but the die roll says nobody. Just an old fire pit and some junk. There are no Rebs in the wood. Perhaps pickets went off to a neighbouring farm to beg some hot johnnie cakes, but it’s a lucky break for the Union.

 

 

Lt. MacQuarrie now has two dismounted troops in the woods with a good view of the farm. He pulls out his spyglass to have a look see. The Lt. whistles softly. He sees a troop of cavalry being watered in the stream by the field, while at the farm he sees some wagons, and comfortable looking men in nice uniforms lounging with cigars. “Confound me if that’s not a headquarters of some sort!”

Lt. MacQuarrie reports the situation to Capt. O’Harnett. “Not a lot of Johnnies, and they all seem free and easy. Reckon we could ride in and scoop them up pretty neatly.” The Captain strokes his luxuriant moustache thoughtfully for a moment.

 

 So, quick aside, you’ve probably noticed the red paint on the walls (very 1990s!) which makes the battle look like an old set from the original Star Trek.  Santa gave me some model railroad backdrops which will get set up in due course.

 

Capt. O’Harnett decides it would be a fine thing to bag a rebel HQ and orders two mounted groups forward in formation at the canter. They come into the table and move briskly down the road towards the ford.

 Sgt. Landiss and his dismounted group open a brisk fire with their cavalry carbines on the rebel troopers watering their horses, but score no hits.

At the farm, Colonel Robert Thoroughgood, 14th Mississippi Cavalry, is enjoying a cheroot when he hears the carbines and sees the Yankees hove into view. “Damn their eyes, what are my confounded pickets doing, letting them fellows so close?”

 

 Sgt Alonso Harker of the 14th MS Cav and his men were lounging about, playing cards and cooking. He starts getting his group into their saddles.

 Capt O’Harnett has four command chits and uses them to give his formation of two mounted groups a bonus move. They lose their canter bonus while crossing the ford but are in a good position to burst into the farm before the rebs can react.

 

 

Sgt Landiss’ Yank troopers get to shoot again. I realize that with their breech loading carbines, in #SharpePractice they don’t spend an action reloading, so they get two shots each. Two pts shock on the Rev troopers who are frantically looking for saddles, tack and weapons.

On the receiving end of this fire, Sgt Lucius Biggs is a man with a plan. He uses the two rebel command chits in play to boost his Initiative to three, rallying away the shock, getting the horses back, and shoving his men into a firing line at the fence.

 

 O’Harnett’s column rides like thunder and turns into the farmyard while the rebel headquarters staff are highly confused. Finally the reb Colonel gets his chit and does the only sensible thing, ordering his men into the farmhouse and barn.

 Sgt Alonso Harker urges his men forward at the canter. “C’mon boys, let’s go pull the Colonel’s bacon out of the fire and maybe he’ll share some of his corn liquor!”

 Captain O’Harnett decides that it would foolish to ride around the buildings as targets. He spends his turn ordering the lead group to dismount and detaches his second group to face the one group of rebel cavalry that pose a threat.

Lt. MacQuarrie’s dismounted troopers fire at Sgt. Harker’s advancing horsemen, causing too points of shock. “Cmon boys, they can’t shoot! At the gallop!” Harker’s Mississippians crash into the group of Illinois cavalry, who surprisingly hold firm.

 In two rounds of Fisticuffs, they hold their own. Both groups lose four figures, but the rebs fall back when their Shock goes to 5.

 Col. Thoroughgood and three of his staff officers fire ineffectually at longer range with their revolvers. It was probably a bad plan that all four officers ran into the house and a group of leaderless troopers ran into the barn. A random event (3 command chits drawn in a row) mean that the reb troopers in the barn panic their mounts when they start shooting with their carbines. The horses spook and run around the barn, causing chaos.

Capt O’Halloran’s six troopers pepper the farmhouse with their Sharps carbines, killing Major Wood, the 14th Mississippi’s adjutant, as he peers out the window 

Chaplain Windman and Quartermaster Murray trade shots with the dismounted US troopers. Their revolvers vs Sharp breachloading carbines aren’t a fair fight, but they distract enough that Col. Thoroughgood can sprint across the farmyard. Thoroughgood runs like the wind (double 6es on his movement roll) and dives through the barn door in a hail of bullets, which kill two of the rebel troopers covering him. The Yankee fire on the farm is viciously effective. 

Captain O’Harnett dismounts his remaining four troopers and has them join his firing line. The surviving Mississippi horse are retiring and no immediate threat. Lt MacQuarrie is bringing his group up to provide flank cover for the assault on the farm.

In the barn, Thoroughgood watches as another fusillade of Yankee gunfire shreds the farmhouse. The remaining two defenders, Chaplain Windman and QM Murray, both go down in the hail of carbine fire. “Boys, if we stay here, we die. Mount up and get ready to ride like hell”.

Thoroughgood and his six surviving troopers catch the Yanks off guard and are mostly able to escape. Sharps carbines bring down the rear two troopers, but Thoroughgood and his men leap the fence and escape into the woods.

 Meanwhile, in the meadow by the stream, Sgt Biggs is trading shots with the Yanks in the woods. Unfortunately a random effect means that an eager trooper discharged his carbine into the Sergeant’s left buttock. Cursing, he is hauled away by his troopers as they break contact.

This concludes the fight for Hickory Farm. Inside the bloody farmhouse, Captain O’Harnett finds papers and maps giving rebel dispositions in the region. His colonel will be pleased. The Illinoisian troopers are equally happy to have captured Col. Thoroughgood’s liquor and cigars.

 It was fun to get out Sharpe Practice and reacquaint myself with the rules. A randomly generated table and some chance dispositions at the start made an interesting game for my available cavalry figures. The US were lucky to gain surprise and exploited it well, while the rebels never really got off their back foot. One lesson is that breechloading weapons are a huge advantage in a firefight as, unlike muzzleloaders, it doesn’t take an action to reload them. US cavalry can thus be quite fearsome when dismounted, and this advantage could be reasonably offset by giving the CSA superior numbers.

Maybe we will see some of these characters in another skirmish. Cheers and thanks for reading.

Blessings to your die rolls!

MP+

 

 

OP THIUNDERING DICE ROTO 16-3 Complete

My wargaming bestie James was over last weekend for the third instalment of what we call OP THUNDERING DICE.   Since we moved further apart last year, we have been running an ongoing series of slumber parties, and this time, ROTO 3, we decided to play another game of War of the Ring, try Sharp Practice 2 with my ACW collection, and then play a fantasy game of Dragon Rampant.

James got caught up in the Friday not rush north to cottage country and arrived late and somewhat frazzled, but some barbecued goodness and a beer downrange later, he was good to go.   We started with War of the Ring (2nd ed) by Ares Games.  You can read his account of our weekend here.  It was our second complete game.  The first time I played Mordor, this time I played the noble and winsome free peoples.  Both times Mordor lost when the Ringbearer achieved his quest.   It was a near run thing, and it turned on the draw of one chit.  Some would say that a game which invests so much in the military and political aspects of the war, and then hangs on a couple of dumb hobbits meandering through Mordor, isn’t really much of a game at all.   Well, I suppose, but you could argue that one could say the same thing about Tolkien’s book. We had fun, at any rate.

On to Saturday, when The Other Mike joined us.   James introduced us both to Sharp Practice, the second edition of Too Fat Lardies’ well known black powder skirmish game.  We threw an evenly matched force of Yanks and Rebs on the table.   Other Mike and I were new to these rules, though I’ve played SP1, but despite that faint advantage, Other Mile picked it up very quickly.

Here the gallant Major #5 leads his Union boys forward to try and flank the Rebel line.

My company on the left wing gets into line and goes up against an equal number of Yanks.   However, the extra Union Big Man keeping their line steady, plus those annoying Yank skirmishers in the cornfield, would make it difficult for Rebs.  However, it’s the little hill on the right where the game will be decided.

Shock builds relentlessly and my line breaks.  As shock exceeds the number of troops standing in each group, the formation breaks up.  One thing we didn’t realize was that each time a group retreats because of excessive shock, it lowers the overall Force Morale of they side, and that’s a bad thing.  We almost lost the game when this formation was defeated.

 

The game was, as I said, decided on the right.   Here in this incredibly amazing, exciting action shot, Other Mike’s troops charge down off the hill and shatter the Union left.    It helped enormously that we were able to get our skirmishers on to the right flank of the Union line.

All of us liked SP2 enormously.   As Other Mike noted, it really felt like a subset of a regimental battle that you read about in the battle histories.   It had a gritty, small-unit feel that was very satisfying, and very different from another ACW game we like, Sam Mustafa’s Longsteet.

In the afternoon we reset the table, keeping the terrain and adding my Rohirrim village to play Dragon Rampant.  We gave the forces of Isengard the usual mix of Uruk Heavy Foot, crossbows (Heavy Missiles), archers (Light Missiles), Berserkers (Bellicose Foot), a shaman (Wizardling), and Warg Riders (Heavy Riders).  Against that daunting mix, we gave the Rohirrim a unit of skirmishing cavalry (Light Riders), one of heavy cavalry (Heavy Riders), two units of Heavy Foot, two units of Light Missiles, and two heroes, Gimli and Aragorn (both single model, 6 strength pick units).  We rated Gimli as Elite Foot, Aragorn as an Elite Rider.

It was a ripplingly fun game, where victory seemed within Other Mike’s evil orchish grasp.  Mike’s goal was to burn as many buildings as he could and capture the adorable and plump barnyard animal, Bakkonraed the Swine.   Here the surviving Rohan light archers (some old Wargames Foundry HYW English archers filling in) exult after they routed a unit of Heavy Foot.  In the middle, Gimli exults after massacring the Orc Bellicose Foot.

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An overview of the battle, just before the Rohirrim Heavy Horse smashed into the warg riders and routed them, killing their general.   Other Mike threw in the orcish towel at this point and we spent a happy dinner hour with James and OM deciding to order their own copies of Dragon Rampant and scheming as to the armies they would field.  We all had terrific fun.

Note, BTW, in the last photo, my amazing spiffing Rohan watch tower.  I’ll get some photos of that in another post.

 

Blessings to your die rolls!

MP+