Tactical Genius, Revisited

I'm currently running around chasing my tail on a couple of projects, so Chris K put on a DBA evening this week. There were five of us - Chris, Tim, Richard Phil & me. Chris said bring your favourite army, but as I don't really have a favourite, I put a couple of Wars of the Roses armies and my Belisarian Byzantines in a box (actually the latter are probably my favourite). Phil had some Marian Romans and "Spartacus Revolt". Chris had some new French Ordnance he bought from the estate of the late Graham Fordham.

We rolled off for opponents, and I got Phil. We used his pair of armies, and against type I went for the Spartacus gimmick army. Phil likes armies with odd quirks, and he's a fan of using the allies rule to bring in different troop types. I think he does it so he can model and paint different things. 

(BTW I have to admit now that I have never watched Spartacus, that I can recall. Or at least not all the way through. The armies and the camps contain lots of little nods to the movie, which had to be explained to me. I felt a bit better when Phil revealed he'd never read "Count Belisarius".)

I struggled with the army at first. It has these disposable "5 Hordes" which are a bit rubbish but don't count towards losses. I wasn't sure how to make the best of them. I also cocked up the terrain deployment and where I put my bits and pieces. Look, I've got blades facing rough terrain held by Ax. And my general is off to the left stopping me being outflanked, which is doubling the pip requirement to the right. What a shambles.

It's all kicking off in the centre. Things went a bit funny, as there's psiloi on the right, where you have to bypass them to get an overlap, and Phil is using ZOCs to stop my units going where I want them too. With all the clever fiddling about going on I didn't have the heart to tell Phil he hadn't actually pushed one of his units into contact. Even so, I was suffering quite badly, with most of my disposable hordes gone and some proper units too.

It was looking pretty grim. I had to chuck my mounted general into the middle to shore things up. I should say that by this point the game was getting irritating. We'd both rolled low pip numbers all through the game, so our normal dynamic cut and thrust game was reduced to mere plodding.

And then it all flipped. I got my reserve line across to tie up Phil's spare units, and then executed a flank attack with my general on Phil's that got me two dead unit equivalents, getting me to a 4:3 win out of nowhere, from being 3:1 down at the start of my turn.

Next up I played Chris, using the Wars of the Roses armies. I had the Lancastrians and Chris the Yorkists. Needless to say I have some issues with the army lists, but hey-ho I picked something that worked for me.

I maxed out on bows and bills. Chris took the extra 3Kn base. He stuck his bombard in the middle of the line, me on the flank.

The ploughed fields turned out to be easy going, so we took them off. After several moves the lines were a bit fragmented, and Chris was trying to turn my left. In the end I broke the end of his line with men at arms, then got a flanking attack on his general, which killed him, giving me a 4:2 victory.

Finally I played Richard, using Chris' new French Ordnance army. I cobbled up an English army in France from the 1440s out of my Yorkits and Lancastrians. 

Richard put together an artillery heavy army, and had no intention of charging head first into my archers. The English army of the period is archer heavy. Very archer heavy.  8 elements out of 12 heavy. That's because the indentures from the period show an increasing use of archers, sometimes as many as 10:1, which is reflected in the army lists. Of course, this is during the English decline in France, and we are mainly defending places and so in need of garrisons. It has nothing to do with what would have been in a field army, but that's the way it is. Because the army has little that goes out wide, and because you really want all your archers where they can shoot, I deployed in a single line with the ends turned in, which I then straightened out. This picture is after a turn or two of not enough pips to achieve this, but enough pips to render the ploughed fields null and void.

There we are! All in a nice straight line.

Richard held back and pounded me with his guns. There was nothing for it but for me to try and close to bow range.

Some excellent shooting started to tip the game in my favour.

Richard did succeed in blowing a hole in my line, but I was able to shoot away his Francs Archers on my left, then when the melee troops closed I won several combats and turned out a 4:2 winner by virtue of brilliant dice rolling.

See, tactical genius again with three wins out of three. At some point the wheels will drop off, but so far I'm riding my luck.

I regret to report, however, that whilst this game was going on, my Byzantines under Tim's command were being hammered by Phil. Lovely army. No cutting edge.

The late 15th century English armies aren't great ones for finesse, which suits me fine. I had a simple tactical plan, and they delivered it to perfection, helped with decent dice rolling when it mattered. The first game I lucked out on as Phil wasn't being as careful as normal. On the other hand I misjudged the ZOC area when I positioned some troops - something I'm prone to do due to my varifocals - which nearly cost me the game, so swings and roundabouts. 

As an engineer, Chris has taken to DBA, and his eye and sense of precision really works for him, and contrary to what he might say, he works really well in a clear, rules-based environment. He was unlucky against me, and is turning into a DBA player to be feared.

As for me, it passes the evening.