Rebasing DBA

Just a brief post about some rebasing I did this week. I've had these armies since v1.0 of the rules, but since I got a copy of v3.0 recently I thought I'd update them to the new lists and freshen them up a bit.

Nebuchadezzar, or similiar

These armies are historical opponents from Book I, being Later Hebrews I/34c and Later Babylonians I/44b.

The Babylonian army

The figures are all Chariot Miniatures, until fairly recently available from Magister Militum.  But since MM closed down I have no idea who will now supply these again (if ever).

Later, Hebrews

I chose these opponents because I thought it would be interesting to pit spears and bowmen against a significant number of auxilia, which is what the Hebrews can field, as well as having a couple of heavy chariots for both sides.

Hebrew auxilia

Rebasing consisted of fixing the original thin cardboard stands to 2mm mdf from Warbases, and then adding my usual mix of coarse shelly sand painted in a sandy colour and dry brushed white.  I glued on some areas of 2mm dead grass from WWScenics and that was it. 

Serious congestion reported on the Jerusalem North Circular

I think these are very nice figures and I intend to give them an outing at some point, probably a solo game (as I slowly teach myself DBA v3.0) using the same solo rules used here.

Walls in Ruins

Further to my earlier post about some 15mm ancient city walls and buildings I'd made, I thought some evidence of violent siege would be in order.  So I made these.

Mind the gap

The idea was to have damaged sections that would match lengths of unbroken wall, so that these could be substituted in as necessary.

Rear view

The centre bit of wooden wall could also be removed to leave a gaping hole, if that was needed.

Something appears to be missing

The walls were made from cardboard and polystyrene fixed together with PVA glue.  Fine sand was then glued to the walls and painted.  The piles of masonry were made from polystyrene offcuts and were intended to hold the wooden wall in place.

Time to get the decorators in

Liberated wooden coffee stirrers were used to make the planking, undercoated in black then painted with a dark earth colour.  A couple of black washes were applied and then the wood was drybrushed with a beige or buff colour.

What, no crenellations?

Overall, I think they've worked quite well.  Just need a siege to try them out...

To be honest, the damage is barely noticable

 

The Walled City

Before our pocket money increased to the level where we could buy such wonderous things as those plastic Airfix forts that aren't available anymore, we used to make our own battlements on which we would line up our soldiers. In those days, my dad had a preference for Van Heusen shirts and at that time these came in cardboard boxes, usually with an illustration on the front.

I have a very clear memory of cutting out the drawing of a castle from one of those boxes and then using the rest of it to make the other walls, flimsy battlements and the wobbly walkways between them, all held together with sticky-tape.  It used to take ages to put the soldiers up there (Airfix Ancient Britons, French Foreign Legion and Guards Colour Party mainly) and only one well-placed hit by a nail fired from a Britains 25 pdr gun to knock them all off again.  Those were the days.

Some battlements, yesterday

However, since then there have been some slight improvements.  For one of our early DBM campaigns (my 15mm Lydians vs Geoff's Persians) I made some simple city walls for my troops to man.  Actually that battle was an exercise in my troops trying to get off the table as quickly as possible as I was outnumbered three to one, not to mention being attacked from two directions at once (those pesky Persians).

I remember when this was all fields (of fire)

Subsequently the extent of walls expanded and so did the various buildings I've made to put inside them.  The construction of all walls and buildings uses thin polystyrene sheets and cardboard, coated in fine sand then painted with a mixture of household emulsion and various acrylics.  The buildings are generic enough to also be used for locations such as Mexico (e.g. Mexican Revolution) or arid Africa (e.g. AK47).  They are simple to put together and I keep adding to the pile when I feel like making something (regularly).

Early Hebrews man the walls

Just to add that the figures in these photos are 15mm Chariot miniatures sold by Magister Militum, comprising a DBA 3e Early Hebrew army (that's I/34c for those of you paying attention at the back).

DBA Camp

Just a few shots of a camp I made originally for DBA 1.0, back in the day.  It's constructed of carved polystyrene on a cardboard base with sharpened matches placed around it as a palisade.

The figures inside are 15mm Chariot (now Magister Militum) figures and these ones are their hoplites (HOG002).

And here are some Phrygian auxilia cautiously peering over the palisade waiting for Thracians (or similiar) to attack.

Lydians vs Thracians - A Solo DBA Game

Here is a report of a solo DBA game I managed to fit in during the festive season.  The idea was to try to use the solo rules mechanisms (for DBA v2.2) from the Fanaticus Form (which apparently are a combination of the "Random Terrain Placement" mechanisms of John Meunier and  "De Bellis Solitarius" by Chad la Mons).

Note that as I'm waiting for DBA v3.0 to come out I am still using v2.0, although as it's only me it makes no odds (and I've still got my DBA v1.0 on the shelf, neatly covered in brown paper). Anyway, here we go.  Basically this was a face off between some Thracians (I/48) at the top of the board and Lydians (I/50) at the bottom.

The rules are divided into three main elements, comprising placement of terrain, initial deployment and then the 'tactical engine' covering the actual game play.  For the latter, die throws determine the range of tactical options that the non-player army can deploy in any particular move, modified by how the battle is going, losses, etc.

Intial deployment

Move 1

Move 2

Move 3

Move 4

As you can see, on the one hand there is the inexorable and disciplined advance of the Thracians, contrasting markedly with the ragged and chaotic attempts at redoployment by the Lydians, not assisted in the least by persistently low PIP scores.

Move 5

Move 6

An ominous development for the Lydians in Move 6.  The Thracian infantry (with their general in the centre) take up a defensive position on the (non-paltry) river bank as their light horse rush across the river (after throwing a 6 for a 'high aggression' stance) to attack the Lydian light horse and hoplites oposite them, before they have had a chance to form up properly. 

Move 7

Close up of light horse action on the right.

 

Move 8

Thracian aggression pays off and the Lydians lose one element of Paphlagonian light horse and have one element recoil.

Move 9

However, Thracian success is short-lived as the Lydian light horse moves back into the line and destroys the opposing light horse whilst the Lydian hoplites push back the Thracians to their front, who retreat back across the river.

Move 10

Move 10

The Lydians are annoyed now and, having formed up, storm en masse across the river to attack the waiting Thracians.  Not the best idea possible but at least a conclusion was quickly reached...

Move 11

Finally, the Lydian knights and hoplites make contact!  However, the Lydian general (me) should not have underestimated the difficulties of attacking a defended river bank.

Move 12

The attack across the river has mixed results, by which I mean does not go well for the Lydians.  On the right the Thracian light horse is forced to recoil and flee by the Lydian hoplites but in the centre there is disaster.  Due to appalling die throws (and tactical stupidity on my part) the Lydian knights in the centre are pushed back by the Thracian auxilia and in the very centre the Lydian general's element is destroyed.  Game over.

I'm sure there was General element in the middle there a moment ago.

Not a pretty sight.  However, at least it was a chance to get some armies out of the red tool box (all Chariot Figures, at the time of writing marketed by Magister Militum) and to try out my recently painted DBA board and new river sections as well as the Solo DBA rules. Overall I think they worked well, although there is still an element of judgement in deciding what to do when presented with various tactical options.  Worth another bash though which I will report on in due course.

It'll all end in tears.

A River Runs Through It (Hence the Bridge) No.2

As with many developments, it is all well and good to complete the basic engineering design work, but the visual impact of any new structure imposed on the environment has to be taken into account and completed to a minimum standard at the very least (otherwise local planning authorities and NIMBYs get upset).  Here, therefore, is the finished bridge I started here, with some Magister Militum (formerly Chariot) 15mm Paphlagonian light horse for scale.

The first thing I did was to create the low culvert under the bridge using a small flat rounded file, and then texture the whole structure with fine sand glued on with PVA.  I also added some coarser sand to the river edges after priming them with a sandy colour to match my other river sections.

Once dry I gave the bridge a light going over with a stiff paintbrush to remove loose grains and undercoated it with a brown emulsion called Raw Earth (from a Fired Earth tester pot).

The bridge was then finished with a heavy dry brushing of off-white emulsion on the walls and parapets and a sandy colour I use for all my desert terrain on the road.  Once dry everthing was lightly drybrushed with white acrylic, and Javis-type static grass was added to the river banks.

My river sections and a bridge are now complete and two new projects have arisen as a consequence.  One is to make some road sections to lead to the bridge and the other is that I really should get around to rebasing my 500pt Lydian army, but it makes me tired just thinking about that...

...oh, and to any regular readers (I think there might be a few) a richt guid New Year tae ye, and hopefully we will all get more time to work on even more interesting and rewarding projects in 2013.

A River Runs Through It (Hence the Bridge) No.1

After making some river sections (here and here) and marsh using some spare bits of lino, I thought a bridge was needed as well.  As my 15mm DBM/DBA focus is (currently) on Asia Minor (Lydians, mainly) I thought some sort of Turkish or eastern bridge would be appropriate.  Actually, I was thinking about the bridge at Mostar in Bosnia (since rebuilt after being destroyed by the Croats during the breakup of Yugoslavia).

However, let's be honest, it would be a bit ambitious to make a replica of this, particularly as it would be far too high and dominate a 15mm DBA board.  So, I went with something a lot simpler (and lower) and built a low bridge (about 28mm to the highest point of the parapet and carrying a 40mm wide road across it.

The first phase was to construct the base and this was made from a short section of lino 40mm wide stuck (with PVA) on top of an old business card.  It's placed next to a section of river I'd already made, for context.

I then added some sections of balsa I had lying about to give it some strength and structure and so that I would have something to attach the sides and roadway to.  I sanded the top section a bit so that it sloped down on both sides.

The sides, made from the sheet polystyrene you get with supermarket pizzas (cut to shape, obviously), were attached with PVA.  You can see I went for the triangular profile vaguely reminiscent of the Mostar bridge.

I then added the road sections which again are made from sheet polystyrene (i.e. poor man's foamboard).

As you can see the road rises less steeply than the parapet, which is always important if you don't want your troops struggling to get over it.  Right, must get around to decorating it (see next post) assuming I can survive Christmas.

Magna Graecia Redux

I posted a few months ago that I had found again on the web the Magna Graecia Campaign Rules for running an ancient campaign in Sicily (by Rob Smith, 1997).

They are a very useful set of rules for this sort of thing whereby armies progress from node to node for which there are indiviual maps that allow a bit of tactical positioning before battle commences.

However, it has been pointed out to me that at least one of the maps (Node 01, Lilybaeum) is not working, and as I happened to have all of the maps already downloaded I thought I would put the missing one up here for anyone that might be looking for it.

I haven't checked all of the links to the other maps but I think that the rest of them are still functional (Edit - this site is now down, or soon will be, so the rules and all the maps are now here).

Magna Graecia Campaign Rules

As with most of my wargaming activities there are always themes, periods and rule sets that I constantly turn back to in my wishful way.  These include such things as DBA, DBM, DBR, Operation Warboard, books by Donald Featherstone and Charles S Grant and even Bruce Quarrie's Napoleonic Rules (published in the Airfix Guide No. 4).

One of my enduring interests has been finding ways to run wargame campaigns and therefore discovering campaign rule sets has always been exciting (there aren't that many out there really).  One of the sets that I did find and use was the (free) Magna Graecia Campaign Rules for an ancient campaign in Sicily.  These are by Rob Smith and appear to date from early 1997.

Resolving how terrain affects campaign decisions of when and where to fight has always been an issue but these rules cleverly simplify this by having defined table-top maps for each of the numbered nodes shown on the main map.  Land movement is only between linked nodes and battles can only be fought at each node (a bit like the original Shogun & Medieval Total War computer game system).  Therefore each battlefield can be assessed beforehand and hopefully used to your advantage.

Node maps look like this, although I suppose you could make your own if you wished or you could inject some random element based on scouting prowess, etc.  Here is a sketch-map showing our battle on the node depicted above (No.12 Akragas/Agrigentum) when we actually did fight the campaign (in this case it was Lydians versus Early Achaemenid Persians using DBM).  .

In this encounter the Lydians were advancing from Node 13 so the coastline on our battle map was along the left hand side (North is at the right hand side of my sketch-map).  Note the L-shaped wood and walled town which match those on the campaign map.  I actually won this one.  And here is another example from later on in the campaign and further along the coast at node 03 (Selinus).

My sketch-map of our battle is shown below, from which you can see that my army bravely ran away (North is on the right hand side of the map again).

And the reason for posting about this (apart from the opportunity to highlight one of my rare victories in that particular campaign)?  Well, a few months ago whilst checking my links I noted that the Magna Graecia one was dead and I have only today found and restored them after a bit of searching round the interweb.

So I thought I'd use the occasion to draw your attention to this interesting and useful set of campaign rules and the fact that it can be found on the web again.  It also ties in with my current thoughts on running a DBA campaign and what our options are for doing that.

Edit - unfortunately this link is now dead also.  However, if anyone still wants to see these rules and maps you can view them here.