timr
Munifex
Posts: 33
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Post by timr on Oct 13, 2019 14:10:07 GMT
Many thanks Simon for another great day. Thanks also to all my opponents who took their bad luck with good grace and didn’t gloat too much as they ground me into the dust. I don’t normally do reports but it might be relevant to the amendment discussion if I do (please excuse any memory failures as I didn’t make notes) I took a whole bunch of Welsh for a civil war, just because I wanted to paint up some of the lead mountain. So simple forces: South Welsh Cv gen 9bow3 2Ps verses North Welsh Cv gen 10 pike3 and 1Ps. Terrain just steep hills.
1st game saw the Welsh take the field, Paul chose the South Welsh (bows) and defended. Poor rule knowledge (fast pikes are affected by difficult terrain) wasn’t rescued by the pip dice which were hopeless and the pikes were blown away. 5-0 lost.
2nd game again saw the Welsh taking the field with Martin taking the bows. The Northerner defended allowing me to spread the terrain. The pikes charged down a fairly wide valley of death trying to get into contact before the bowman could gang up on anyone. It became one of those games when you become embarrassed by the luck of the dice as Martin failed to throw higher than a 2 for pips and some of my combat (shooting) dice were incredible. Martin continually gave ground waiting for his luck to change and the game ended with his general hard up against the table edge. 1- 2 draw.
3rd game saw a change in troops with a classic Roman Carthaginian game. I went with the Romans as I’ve not use elephants very often and thought the blades would be more straightforward. Colin attacked on his right but allowed his Ellie’s get a bit to far forward and my Ps gleefully mopped them up. The blades and cavalry managed to catch a couple of Ax on the right to grab a 4 - 0 win.
4th game saw a Hittite Sea people’s clash. I went for the Hittites and hurtled up my left flank to take out Marks lighter troops and get round their flank. This was obviously Marks bait as my light chariots were now faced by fast blades with no flank to get round and was happily mobbing may right flank. Time for desperate measures, so my Pk3, general heavy chariot, and 2nd heavy chariot went headlong into Marks general and 2 fast blades. Fortune favours the brave they say and good dice including a 6 - 1 on the general saw a 4 - 2 win.
5th game dusted the Welsh off again and Phil took the bows leaving me with pike again. Another steamroller chugged towards the waiting bows arriving in charge range in reasonable shape and me hopeful that the poor old pikes would have their moment in the sun. Sadly that wasn’t to be, 2 consecutive 1s on pip dice brought the pike block to a shuddering halt and allow the bows 3 round of shooting to decimate the poor old pikes. 0 - 4 loss.
6th game gave the Welsh a final flourish with Richard (I think, sorry if I’ve got the name wrong) surprising me by taking the Northerners. The battlefield was terrain heavy on my right so the pikes may a big hook to my left which had me scrabbling to form a new front losing my camp in the process. The scramble was successful eventually allowing me shoot enough pikes with overlaps to grab a 4 - 1 win.
So overall a good day 3 wins 1 draw and 2 defeats.
My thoughts on the amendments? Well I didn’t use or fight against any solid pikes and none of the auxiliaries were pushed back, just killed. The bows I saw a lot of! The amendments only affected 1 game where they were the deciding factor. The problem in our games was the bow - pike matchup, troops with low combat values against bows suffer a lot from overlapping fire, dropping a factor of 3 to a 2 or even a 1. So if the bows can over lap the pikes by 1 it’s a 1 in 9 chance of a kill and a double overlap a 1 in 4 chance of a kill (I’m starting to sound like Stevie!). Compare that to spears who have a 1 in 36 chance of being killed on a single overlap, and a 1 in 9 with a double overlap. Blades will be even better! So troops with a combat factor of 3 or less (Ps Ax Pk Wb) are up against it fighting bows as it is, (hence 3 out of 4 players yesterday chose the bows) make them stand in front for a turn will murder them more often than not. Do the bows need the help against them? Maybe against spears and blades, but against the other mere mortals I think not. Well that what I got out of a great day. Tim
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Post by diades on Oct 13, 2019 14:21:51 GMT
Another character building day in Bakewell!
...or...
Some PIPs, some PIPs, my kingdom for some PIPs....
Thankfully some good banter and camaraderie to make up for it.
I took a newly crowned Mithridates challenging the Bosporans on the Euxine shore. I was very pleased with the pair's performance after some composition tweaking in play testing. It yielded three 4-3 results, with my only being on the winning side once as Bosporan, having lost with each army previously. Whilst solid pike vs spear, auxilia and bow featured, little new rule testing occurred. The most memorable match-turner was Frank Shaw's Mithridatic camp, which repulsed attacking knights countless times eventually destroying them!
With other people's pairs, life was more frustrating. I used South Welsh bows vs North Welsh fast pike. The north determined terrain which meant it was all in the corners largely out of my initial deployment. Never more than 2 PIPs led to a 2-1 draw with my back largely against my rear edge! Then, with solid warband Gauls against Polybians things finished 0-0! Critical moment was an early Roman auxilia double overlapped and gate closed against warband in a wood...the auxilia survived and lack of PIPs left too many troops woods bound. Meanwhile Gallic mounted could only push a lone Roman cavalry "almost" into its camp.
Thank you to Simon for an excellent event and to all for such a great turnout.
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Post by Simon on Oct 13, 2019 14:55:48 GMT
I too would like to thank Simon and all those that attended for a thoroughly enjoyable day (although the 1 hour lunch break I was expecting was reduced to just 20 minutes, so I only managed to gulp a single pint!).
Stevie, You don't think we could have made Bakewell the centre of the DBA universe without telling a few porkie pies do you (eg about quantity of beer that could be drunk)? It is a sort of the opposite strategy to the navy press gangs. Instead of getting you blind drunk only to come round on board a ship, we offer to get you drunk only for you to end up blind sober in a tournament! Perhaps we should see if anyone wants to grab a drink after the tournament next time eg at the potential February winter warmer gig. Simon
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Post by scottrussell on Oct 13, 2019 15:00:11 GMT
Thanks, Simon. Another great tournament. Thanks to all the players too. Good natured fun as always.
I went along to enjoy what is always an excellent day out rather than to play test the house rules, so any opinions I formed on them were largely co-incidental.
I took Feudal English against Naverrese. I weakened the English slightly by taking two bows options rather than two spear elements, and thereby missed some opportunities to play test the amendments, but it did lead to a better balanced game. much to my surprise, I won all three games with my own armies, although all three went 4-3, suggesting the pairing to be good. Twice I was given the English, and on both occasions, crucially, I got to choose terrain. The first one was a true billiard table, the second a wet week in the southern Angevin empire (plough retained as rough going), but in both cases, once the knights got up to speed, they ran the auxilia down. In the third game, Gascon psiloi group moving through bad going were too much for then English and Welsh bowmen. There was little impact of the amendments as there were no heavy infantry, let alone solid pikes, and not much hand to hand contact with the bows.
My two draws were games where the bow rules were relevant. In the first game against Baldie, my Spartans were prevented from close combat with the Persian bows, partly by low PIP dice and partly by terrain, but the extra PIP requirement also played a part. When Simon gave the five minute warning of "last bound" being called, we raced through four bounds in five minutes in a desperate attempt to produce a result, but still ended up 2-2. There is something of a paradox here, due to the rules, not the amendments, in that elements are safer close up to bows as they tend not to get ganged up on because of TZ related target priorities. Heavy infantry (or at least blade and spear) are then pretty immune. So the game is to get your line within one BW and wait for a big PIP throw. This was even more pronounced in the last game against Kevin Casey, Tudor English against Lambert Simnel rebels (Blade and longbow) where despite our best efforts we were still 0-0 after 55 minutes. We went a bit wild in the last couple of bounds to finish on 2-2, but again the effect of the bow modifications seemed to be to increase the chance of a draw.
And I lost 7-1 to Pete Duckworth, so congratulations to him on his tournament win.
Scott
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Post by Baldie on Oct 13, 2019 16:17:45 GMT
I too would like to thank Simon and all those that attended for a thoroughly enjoyable day (although the 1 hour lunch break I was expecting was reduced to just 20 minutes, so I only managed to gulp a single pint!).
Stevie, You don't think we could have made Bakewell the centre of the DBA universe without telling a few porkie pies do you (eg about quantity of beer that could be drunk)? It is a sort of the opposite strategy to the navy press gangs. Instead of getting you blind drunk only to come round on board a ship, we offer to get you drunk only for you to end up blind sober in a tournament! Perhaps we should see if anyone wants to grab a drink after the tournament next time eg at the potential February winter warmer gig. Simon If I recall correctly I was put on a ship first then got drunk. Having a quick drink after the day would be good but I guess most of us like to head off by car after a good day scrapping.
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Post by scottrussell on Oct 13, 2019 16:23:44 GMT
Thanks, Simon. Another great tournament. Thanks to all the players too. Good natured fun as always. I went along to enjoy what is always an excellent day out rather than to play test the house rules, so any opinions I formed on them were largely co-incidental. I took Feudal English against Naverrese. I weakened the English slightly by taking two bows options rather than two spear elements, and thereby missed some opportunities to play test the amendments, but it did lead to a better balanced game. much to my surprise, I won all three games with my own armies, although all three went 4-3, suggesting the pairing to be good. Twice I was given the English, and on both occasions, crucially, I got to choose terrain. The first one was a true billiard table, the second a wet week in the southern Angevin empire (plough retained as rough going), but in both cases, once the knights got up to speed, they ran the auxilia down. In the third game, Gascon psiloi group moving through bad going were too much for the English and Welsh bowmen. There was little impact of the amendments as there were no heavy infantry, let alone solid pikes, and not much hand to hand contact with the bows. My two draws were games where the bow rules were relevant. In the first game against Baldie, my Spartans were prevented from close combat with the Persian bows, partly by low PIP dice and partly by terrain, but the extra PIP requirement also played a part. When Simon gave the five minute warning of "last bound" being called, we raced through four bounds in five minutes in a desperate attempt to produce a result, but still ended up 2-2. There is something of a paradox here, due to the rules, not the amendments, in that elements are safer close up to bows as they tend not to get ganged up on because of TZ related target priorities. Heavy infantry (or at least blade and spear) are then pretty immune. So the game is to get your line within one BW and wait for a big PIP throw. This was even more pronounced in the last game against Kevin Casey, Tudor English against Lambert Simnel rebels (Blade and longbow) where despite our best efforts we were still 0-0 after 55 minutes. We went a bit wild in the last couple of bounds to finish on 2-2, but again the effect of the bow modifications seemed to be to increase the chance of a draw. And I lost 7-1 to Pete Duckworth, so congratulations to him on his tournament win. Scott
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Post by scottrussell on Oct 13, 2019 16:25:35 GMT
Hmmn, not sure what happened there! Just trying to effect a minor edit (successfully , as it happens, but don't waste time trying to spot it)!
Scott
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Post by paulisper on Oct 13, 2019 18:40:31 GMT
As always, the Bakewell matched Pairs was a cracking day out, in great company, with the usual friendly spirit of play to the fore. My matched pair of 6mm on 25mm bases was chosen a) to showcase the fab Baccus figures and b) to keep things relatively simple for me when playing my 'home' armies. Ptolomy v Seleucus is a fairly straight-forward matchup of Pk based armies, with supporting mounted and lights of slightly varying tones, and allows for 3 games where you're not too cerebrally challenged and can recover in between more testing times... Pictures of the first game with them here on FB: www.facebook.com/groups/382414395294162/permalink/1105606982974896/The downside of the match-up became apparent after the first two of these games resulted in a 1-1 and a 1-2 draw. With high factors and plenty of push and shove, it was taking a long time to get anywhere, despite both sides getting stuck in reasonably quickly. The only result came in the third game with Rich P, when both of our pike blocks pushed too hard and became hard flanked - mine didn't result in a QK, but Rich's did and I went down 4-1 soon after this. The other three games went surprisingly well, with a 5-0 win using Tim Roger's North Welsh, a 4-0 win with Kevin Casey's Tudor army and a 4-1 win with Craig Allen's Papal Italian, mostly down to very good combat and shooting dice across the 3 games ;-) My thoughts on the rules are that they're tinkering around the edges, with very little overall effect, and not really addressing the key issues. The nub of the matter is primarily the CF's of the relevant troops - ideally solid Ax would be +4 versus Bd, Sp and Pk and thus given them a chance of lasting longer against these boys. Cannae becomes, for instance, more achievable this way. Also, solid Bw, particularly Lb and Cb, should be +3 v foot and again this gives them a chance to behave more realistically in medieval games Get rid of the need to fire at targets in the TZ too... Just my twopenneth... Cheers P.
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Post by cgothicus on Oct 13, 2019 19:23:42 GMT
Huge thanks to Simon for organising another excellent tournament at Bakewell. Attracting increasing numbers of keen DBA players, selecting a challenging pair of armies was always going to be difficult.
I went for a high risk, low factor, pair;
IV/ Wallachian & Moldavian 1330 AD - 1517 AD Terrain :Forest Aggression: 1
1 X Cav Gen 3 X LH 5 X Ps 2 X 3Bw 1 X 5Hd
IV/18 Lithuanian & Samogitian 1132 AD - 1515 AD In line with previous Bakewell rules the LH could not dismount as Bw Terrain: Forest Aggression: 2
1 X Cav Gen 9 X LH 2 X 3Bw
The plan was, if playing with the Wallachians, to put down the maximum size and number of bad going pieces (mainly woods). Occupy them and harass the enemy whilst getting the bows onto as many LH elements as possible. Use the fast horde to attack the enemy bows and throw some good dice. Ps ain't frightened of no LH so fun to be had there.
This plan worked really well for Craig when he chose the Wallacians, do'h not part of the plan! The two bows quickly despatched my Lithuanian bow and then undertook a turkey shoot of a nice line of LH. All over very quickly. A 5-2 defeat for me.
A very close fought and intense game against John Saunders who 'correctly' selected the Lithuanians. The result was determined by one of those terrible examples of bad luck. I was unlucky because I just kept getting very poor pips dice. Meanwhile John was very unlucky to throw really poor combat dice and lose any advantage his manoeuvring gave him. He was not helped by three large woods and a marsh getting in the way. So the game ended 4-0 to my Wallachian's.
Against Phil Johnson my Wallachian's occupied a centrally placed hill with a forest to its right. The archers stationed between the hill and the wood were able to reign down a destructive hail of arrows on various unlucky Lithuanian elements. Then the Ps and LH broke his line and were able to grab victory just before Phil was able to launch a vicious flank attack. 6-2 to the Wallachian's.
With Lithuanians the plan was; to win the scenery ( unlikely), get lots of pips ( unlikely), get the general to attack as many Ps in the open as possible ( difficult) kill them, then attack the bows ( risky). Pete Duckworth chose this army for the final game. He knew the plan but underestimated the Wallachian horde who took out his bows. He also underestimated his own bad luck which meant that the Lithuanians were not going to win however cunning he was. A 4-3 win to the Wallachian's.
It meant that, as Colin the Hittite predicted earlier in the week, the Wallachian's were the army to go with. Winning all their games.
Earlier in the day the first game I played was against Frank. It saw my Leidang army make a littoral landing against his Vikings. It was not very successful but tied up enough of his army to give the rest of the Leidang crucial overlaps in the blade on blade struggle in the centre of the battlefield. Victory to the Leidang.
The penultimate game saw me using the splendidly painted and organised 6mm Ptolmeic army provided by Paul Murgatroyd against his Seleucids. I have never played 6mm DBA before but it looked excellent. A real Cinemascope spectacle of a game and as ever with Paul's armies all very efficiently organised and ready to play. Hopefully we will see more details and pictures of Paul's 6mm armies in print soon. It certainly results in a very different kind of game than with 15mm figures. Well worth trying out.
As to the game itself the only tactic (littoral landing not being feasible) I employed was to advance quite carefully and attack things even more carefully. Luckily this proved sufficient as Paul proceeded to roll some terrible combat dice just at the wrong time. The pike blocks just could not help getting themselves into serious trouble but mine were the lucky ones.
The rule changes for this competition did not have any significant impact on the games (as far as I can remember). Not convinced that they are really worth the effort needed to remember them. I can only just cope with all the ones we have already! We need fewer rules not more; how about getting rid of fast blades? Just asking for a friend.
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Post by gregorius on Oct 13, 2019 22:53:29 GMT
A great roll up of players with an interesting array of armies Simon. Congratulations to Pete Duckworth on his win.
Cheers,
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Post by martin on Oct 14, 2019 14:50:46 GMT
Any Society of Ancients Championship games, Simon? A few SoA members there, I think?
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Post by Simon on Oct 14, 2019 15:44:58 GMT
Any Society of Ancients Championship games, Simon? A few SoA members there, I think? Probably - just not had time to check out the score sheets yet! Will sort this week and email you and Denis. Cheers Simon
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Post by Simon on Oct 18, 2019 15:25:42 GMT
I have just uploaded the team photo on my blog page - google "Wordpress Derwentgamer"
Simon
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