Big Bosworth

This week was Phil’s Bosworth DBA game in 54mm. Some of you will have seen this as it has featured on Phil’s “Ancients on the Move” blog as it is his participation game for the Society of Ancients this year.

The 54mm figures are what catch the eye. They’re a mixture of Irregular, Britains, Phil’s home casts and bits out of lucky bags. Or something like that. They parade beneath a colourful array of banners from Graham Fordham’s “Fluttering Flags”, printed on real cloth. Phil is still working on some of them, as is his wont with his display games. They start the season in playable condition and gradually evolve to fully completed by three or four shows in.

Ready for action. Bit of glare off the display board

What should attract the public is Phil’s use of the new analysis of the battle that derives from the battlefield archaeology done by Foard et al. Having re-fought Bosworth once or twice before this is what stands out. That and Phil is using DBA 3.0, which, like the game, is still in development. As regular readers will know we play DBA from time to time and I still get a bit confused with bits of the new rules. Phil B is still tweaking them and I suspect they will never see publication. Not ever. Not even after Mrs B has got a publishing deal to do a hardback book about how to start wargaming with DBA.

Ricardian baggage, featuring Lord Strange and executioner in waiting.

Playing with the 54mm figures is a bit odd at first. I’m used to the idea of mixing metal and plastic in smaller scales, but you really notice it in 54mm as a block of infantry can be quite heavy, - right up until you pick up one that isn’t. Ironically I fear the bigger figures may prove to be less robust than their smaller brethren.

The game board is Phil’s favourite pasting table turned side to side and re-hinged. He fills it with polystyrene and then sculpts the surface. The marsh area is teddy bear fur painted green. My feeling is that he would benefit from putting on a bit more texture, - either polytex or PVA/sand as the polystyrene can look a bit like painted polystyrene at times.

A view of the deployments. Note artillery range stick

For the evening’s entertainment in the Shed we had me, Phil, Chris K and Ian, and we rotated sides and teams for three games.

The Ricardian vaward

 The setup, for Richard, has his advance guard of four deep archers on the road, supported by two guns. The other two battles are on the base line, consisting of mixed foot and cavalry. One of these only movers on a 5,6.

Richard's massed artillery

Henry has a vaward of one heavy infantry base supported by two normal archers. On their left flank is one artillery piece. Four mercenary bases are on their extreme left. Henry with two supports is on the baseline. Stanley is on his right wing and only moves on a 6. Richard can move Stanley on a 6 as well, but only Henry can make him attack.

Stanley awaits

We played three games and got two Ricardian wins to one Henrician. We may, by the end of the evening, have developed a close to guaranteed win strategy for Henry. Phil had been shown one for Richard and it is easy to see how both players using the optimum strategies would play out quite a long draw.

Historically Henry got stuck in early and caught Richard while he wasn’t formed up properly. Phil tries to do this in the game and from my experience it doesn’t quite work for Henry. The challenge for Henry is that Richard’s forces have quite an unpleasant beaten ground in front of them to cross. In the first game I lost in about three moves as my vaward was blown away.

We know that artillery is significant in the battle as the archaeology now tells us this. My feeling is that in DBA it is too powerful for this game, and having two artillery units packs quite a punch.

DBA is a game of PIPs as we all know, and being unlucky with your PIP rolls can frustrate most players. It is easy to describe DBA as all luck, but at the same time it is not surprising to note that good players win more often than they lose.

Having lost as Henry we swapped sides and I had a go with Richard. The Ricardians won that even quicker through the slaying of Henry. Basic lesson of DBA, - don’t put your general in harm’s way unless it is the only way to save the game.

Henry moves up, and is just about to die

At this point the three players were wondering how Henry ever gets to win this battle, whilst Phil shook his head and remarked he hadn’t seen anything like this in all the show games he had run of it.So we made another brew and swapped again. As Henry for a second time I ignored the umpire’s advice and urgings and resorted to using tactics.

Henry's flank attack gets stuck in

I was helped in this, ironically, but rolling low PIPs whilst my opponents were rolling in the higher register. What this meant in the early stages that I adopted a minimalist approach and kept the army together. Awash with PIPs the Ricardians rushed their reserves hither and yon to get at me as quickly as possible. When their hot streak of PIP rolling dried up they were strung out a bit and a mild improvement in PIPs enabled me to put in a series of perfectly directed counterpunches. Collapse of the Yorkist army and death of Dickie Crouchback soon followed.

The postgame discussion after one of these refights is always entertaining. Phil has done a lot of research and hence has me at a disadvantage in some areas, but I think we made a few points that may influence how he runs the game in the future.

Of course repeated re-playings of the game mean that optimum strategies can be developed which is probably to the detriment of the game overall. A few years ago I re-ran the Trebia for the SoA stand. Will played it a lot and worked out the optimum Roman strategy. That effectively broke the game unless he was very unlucky.

Or played me, as I had the optimum Carthaginian strategy.

Any way, - the Bosworth game is doing the rounds this year. Look it up, and talk to Phil. He really knows a lot about Bosworth now.