Common Ground – DBA With A Twist
Sunday 27th May 2018 at the Austrian Australian Club in Mawson ACT, saw a gathering of 14 players for the sixteenth Canberra Kriegspielers “DBA With A Twist” events, where we play a tournament with a slight tweak to the rules. This year, following some debate on the forums, over the balance in terrain placement, our change was to divide the terrain placement between the two sides.
• Dice for Attacker and Defender as normal
• The Defender chooses 1-2 Compulsory and 1 Optional terrain feature from their topography
• The Attacker chooses 1-2 Optional features from the defender’s topography. They may replace one feature with an Open Space – area feature placed as a normal area feature but treated as good going. An attacker cannot choose a City or Fort as a BUA feature
• The usual rules for the number of particular features and any restrictions on type (eg in Littoral – Woods or Dunes, if the defender had picked Woods the defender cannot pick Dunes) apply.
• The Defender rolls to place the compulsory features, then the Attacker rolls to place their first optional feature. The Defender rolls to place their optional feature and then the Attacker rolls to place their next optional feature (if applicable),
This made different armies with high aggression more viable as they had some control over the terrain they fought in.
A number of the usual suspects were absent but we did see the return to DBA of two veteran players not seen for years, David Lucas and George Stocic, and the altered format suited Dave’s Mongols well. I brought the numbers up by using my Yorkist Pretenders who struggled to make a splash until the final two rounds. The opening round saw a number of draws, in the end only four of the seven games were finished, but after that everyone settled down to solid DBA and the results rolled in. Early on in the piece Brenton Searle put a lock on the top spot, having already won convincingly in the first three rounds he defeated Gary Moriarty (and so will now be known as Sherlock). By round 5 he was in an unbeatable position, but that only made the battle for second and third that much more hotly contested. Greg Kelleher held Gary to an low scoring draw in round 1 and fell victim to Mick Sellman’s MIthradatics in round 3, but otherwise his stellar performance put him on the podium just behind Gary. There were some excellent games, but I saw very little outside my own six rounds as my Yorkists snatched defeat from the jaws of victory until the final two rounds when I manage to gather back a little of my dignity. Something of a surprise result was relative newcomer Rob Michels who in a courageous decision took Gallic and finished just outsice the top 3, finishing the game with 3 wins in the later three rounds including knocking over my forces in record time.
The final scores were:
1) Brenton Searle – III/66 Fatimid Egyptians – 48 Points
2) Gary Moriarty – IV/74 Free Company – 38 Points
3) Gred Kelleher – IV/79c Later Swiss – 35 Points
4) Rob Michels – II/11 Gallic – 32 Points
5) Tony Cotton – II/3a Classical Indian – 31 Points
6) David Osborne – II/8b Campanian – 30 Points
7) Guy Sheppard – I/22b New Kingdom Egyptian – 30 Points
8) David Lucas – IV/35 Mongol Conquest – 28 Points
9) Mick Sellman – II/48 Mithradatic – 28 Points
10) David Lawrence – IV/83c Lambert Simnel’s Rebel Army – 25 Points
11) Leigh Dunn – II/14 Ariarathid Kappadokian – 25 Points
12) Peter Phelps – II/20a Ptolemaic – 24 Points
13) George Stocic – II/15 Alexandrian Imperial – 22 Points
14) Dean Bedlington – II/56 Early Imperial Roman – 18 Points
Guy Sheppard won the Executioner Award for most kills in a single battle, he was one of many that took down 5 elements
The Magister Militum Prize (AKA “The Maurice”) for the highest adjusted score outside the podium trio went to David Lucas whose Mongols moved him from 8th in raw score terms to 4th in adjusted scores.
None of this would be possible without the support of a number of sponsors
• Ray Compton of Essex Miniatures Australia -
www.essexminiatures.com.au/ who provided vouchers for first, second and third place
• Brian Hall from Hall of Ancient Warriors -
www.hallofancientwarriors.com/ who donated the first place trophy
• Mick Sellman of Mick’s Metal Models -
micksmetalmodels.com/ who donated DBA Armies for the Magister Miliutm Prize
• Dean Bedlington of Olympian Games -
www.olympiangames.com.au/ who donated vouchers for the Executioner Award and Last Place as well as the Shamrock dice which was part of the last place haul. Dean also engraved the trophy plates and provided the figures for the 2nd & 3rd Place, Magister Miltium and Executioner trophies.
• Barry Scarlett of Leadbear’s Tufts who donated a voucher to each of the prize winners.
Please support these businesses that do so much to support us by ordering lots of product from them, and if you see them at a tournament – why not buy them a coffee or something.
Common Ground marks the start of the Magister Militum Per Capitoline Territorialis Circuit – the rest of the circuit of events are DBA @ Wintercon in July, Landwaster 2018 in November and the two days of Cancon in January 2019. Anyone who competes in at least three of the events (Cancon is two events) could win the “Grand Maurice” which averages the best three adjusted scores across the events.
So get the lead out – paint it and play DBA
Wintecon is coming and when you choose a side, why not make it DBA
See you then.
which should be good for a laugh (this is the army that should be shouting "My Kingdom for a Horse" as there is not a mounted element to be seen)