Time seemed to go nowhere last week. Or maybe I'm just a lazy layabout. On reflection I did get four blog posts done, which is a lot for me. So maybe I was actually busy and didn't realise it. Anyhow, we needed to wargame in Shedquarters this week as I had to hand over some Battlefield Society equipment to Steve, who is chairing the meeting next week as I can't be there, and all the stuff is in my garage. More or less.
I was going to put out some more FP2B, but Chris asked for DBA, and Steve brought his armies last week when we didn't need them, so why not?
We had a full turnout, which means five of us, so we needed to play a bit of winner stays on tag. Tim played Chris at first, and Steve took on Phil whilst I boiled the kettle and made coffee.
For the evening I'd ransacked my non-DBA 15mm armies to get out some combos not fielded before. The options I got together were Middle Imperial Romans (II/64), Early Germans (II/47g), Early Byzantine (III/4) and Parthian (II/37). As my figures were based for Armati some of the figure count per base isn't right - for example my Auxilia are all three on a base rather than the required four.
All the armies got used except for the Parthians, with Tim taking the Romans and Steve the Byzantines during the evening.
I only got in one game amongst my beverage making duties, taking on Phil's Early Slavs (III/1c) with my Early Germans. Phil announced the army was rubbish as it was all Fast Auxilia. Well, it's all Fast Auxilia, plus some cavalry and some psiloi. My army is all Solid Warband, plus two cavalry and a psiloi base. Generally speaking players seem to prefer Fast Wb to Solid, as the extra movement confers flanking advantages, and the recoiling fast/mounted opponents in combat can be a double edged sword, what with the need to follow up and so breaking your line and sucking up PIPs. Compared to the Fast Auxilia you need to deploy in depth to get the +1 modifier, but you surrender width and open your self up to overlaps. I don't think the Slavs are that rubbish.
I thought playing on my new 6" square grid cloth was spiffing, and I taped the corners to show the edges of the 2' x 2' area for those who couldn't work it out for themselves. It didn't stop both Chris and Phil deploying off the back of the game area.
Notwithstanding my concerns about flanks I went for double depth on the warbands. I resolved not to fight in the woods (the other template is a marsh) forgetting that I'm as good in woods as Auxilia. I get rusty quick on DBA. I was attacking. The plan was to punch out the middle where the cavalry was, risking an element in the marsh to get an overlap, whilst refusing the left flank, using Threat Zones to pin/control Phil's movement.
My, that sounds clever.
That all came unstuck early when Phil's psiloi (what psiloi??) emerged from the woods, and went out wide to isolate my sole psiloi element. These were followed by his Auxilia pulling out wide to engulf that flank.
There are some pictures missing. Phil swarmed all round me, flanking one of my warband blocks. The picture shows a move or two after that. My warband aren't attacking my own flank, but have just followed up after killing an auxilia element that had slipped down the gap between my warbands.
I will confess now that I rolled an embarrassing number of sixes. Except for PIPs. I struggled with PIPs. But I'd rather have the sixes in combat anyway, as that's what wins the game. Phil's attack out of the wood was eating up what PIPs I had, making it difficult for me to close on the centre. Still, I've killed two of his elements to none of mine by this stage, so who's complaining?
Phil tried to flank my centre left warbands by emerging from the woods and chucking his wide auxilia in front of my others to stop them intervening. A lack of PIPs meant he had to make some tough decisions, and so didn't press his 2:1 advantage over my psiloi bottom left.
Some more sixes got me some more kills, and we finished 4:0 to the Germans.
I think that's the first time I've used the Germans in DBA and they acquitted themselves honourably. I could have been a bit smarter with them, but they are a rather sluggish army and plod across the table trying to lay a fist on more mobile opponents.
Tim then took over my slot and used them against one of Phil's Roman armies. The warbands did what they are supposed to do against blades, and he, too, got a 4:0 win. Elsewhere I think Chris beat my Middle Empire Romans and also my Early Byzantines. He'll post about it on his Pigs in Space blog as part of his Egbert the Monk's Chronicle in due course, so I'll be able to check.
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