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Post by medievalthomas on Aug 22, 2017 21:59:31 GMT
I allow allies and armies that have a dismount option to choose at the start of each game.
TomT
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Post by mthrguth on Aug 24, 2017 9:31:56 GMT
I find this debate interesting. RULES AS WRITTEN allow dismounting during the game. Obviously this gives some armies different capabilities from armies which don't have dismounting elements.
RAW were allegedly subjected to rigorous playtesting to produce the most perfect, best ever, most fun, most accurate version of DBA.....
So, refusal to play RAW is an accusation that Phil Barker is in error, RAW are in error, less than advertised, less than adequately tested.
If the author had wanted the dismounting rule written differently he could have said so. He did specifically mention that different size boards might be used. So that is RAW. His spouse published a how to play guide on the game. So both the missus and the author had a perfect opportunity to suggest amending RAW of dismounting.
Changing the rules is bad precedent. I don't expect to come to a chess tournament and find that en passant is no longer used, or that Queen Side Castling is banned.
All banning dismounting does is change the meta so that other armies become more powerful as 'dismounting armies' are diminished. Ditto with different board sizes. What will you ban next, waterways, littoral landings 6 figure elements, fast troops, allies with elephants ? This is exactly what happened in the USA with HMGS banning in game dismounting, then banning BUA, then increasing the board size, and then publishing TRIUMPH.
How about banning the use of the aggression factor, which virtually guarantee that Mongols fight in the woods and Indian elephant armies always fight on the board of their choice? After all, why should one army of fast aux suck because it has an aggression factor of 4, while the other is playable because it has an aggression factor of zero?
So, it is fair to force people to find ways to cope with 6 elephant nightmares but too much to ask them to cope with a once a game in-game dismount which already has several restrictions in the RAW? Easier to ban something that caught you once than it is to make you find proper strategies.
PLAY the RAW. Don't like the rules, call PB and get him to change them. Good luck with that by the way.
Oh, I agree that dismounting is bull, but for a different reason. The real issue with dismounting is that mounted elements represent far fewer troops than infantry elements. Depending on the numbers, it should take more than one mounted unit to produce a dismounted element. Example, the dismounting Lithuanian cavalry really only have the numbers to produce psiloi, not Bow on an element to element basis.
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Post by bob on Aug 24, 2017 18:39:17 GMT
Good points by mthrguth. Whenever I have run open events I use, as noted above, the RAW. These are the rules that Phil intended. In the years that we have been playing 3.0, has any army become the "killer army." Whenever I read over lists from tournaments, there still seems to be a large variety of entries.
I have, however, run some themed events that make modifications to the rules. For example, for many years I ran Duplicate Tournaments, where all players used the same 4 armies in two historical battles. Players did not set terrain and used the troops I provided. In my favorite style of event, the Match Pairs , I just let each player provide whatever troops he wants. If he has no dismounted elements then so be it.
Note that Phil took peoples concerns about dismounting to heart and has substantially fewer armies with dismountable elements in 3 than in 2. In 2 there were 68 entries of //. In 3 there are 27.
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Post by mthrguth on Aug 24, 2017 23:39:54 GMT
PLEASE NOTE THOUGH that ADLG, THE MOST PLAYED set of Ancients rules at HMGS east conventions events and probably worldwide is always played RAW. FAQ's for ADLG are frequently posted, but always run through the author of the rules, so that all FAQ's, which include a couple of significant rule modifications/i.e. changes, are thus official and respect the intellectual property rights and intent of the author.
When 2.0 was out and HMGS east banned built up areas Phil was pretty upset. He wanted to know who was changing his rules and accused the HMGS organizers of trying to dodge the challenges of playing the full game.
Until several years have passed and many more games played at tournaments I would prefer to play RAW. Having every DBA army except Sumerians, go figure, I can adapt my tournament selection to any particular format including use of old army lists, so I won't boycott any esoteric tournaments. I would point out though the army list for my Tibetans specifically cites the reference to them dismounting during battle. If the lists are part of the rules, then banning in game dismounting violates the army list, as well as the text rules.
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Post by goragrad on Aug 25, 2017 10:40:32 GMT
Not having a lot games under my belt and only Normans and Ottonians at this point who can dismount, I have to say that RAW would seem to be the appropriate approach.
To date in the half dozen or so tourneys I've played in I don't recall anything else being specified, although not remembering every army entered it might not have come up.
If I manage to get to Tacticon I'll have to ask.
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Post by twrnz on Aug 25, 2017 21:13:57 GMT
I prefer to play the rules as they are published and generally we always have in New Zealand.
In my view a very valid way for an organiser to ensure players do not use a perceived powerful army is to use a range of themes. The organiser of course has a challenge here as he must balance army availability with players so not to disadvantage certain players and rule them out of events. This is a difficult balance to achieve.
DBA is of course well able to support the use of themes, due to the low figure count. Increased armies add interest and provide tactical variety. My current favourite in a six round one day competition is to have two themes where players use one army in the first round and a different army from a different time period or geographical situation in the second three rounds. There are many other excellent themes used, including those often posted here in the tournament section.
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Post by bob on Aug 26, 2017 7:05:16 GMT
mthrguth, please note that it was not the convention organizers -- Historical Miniatures Gaming Society (HMGS) that banned anything.
It was game masters from the Washington DBA Group (WADBAG) who made modifications to the rules when they ran events.
I was in charge of all DBA events, as the Chief DBA Umpire (not Czar) for the North American Society of Ancient and Medieval Wargaming (NASAMW). It was that group that obtained the gaming space and scheduled events. BUAs at that time disrupted the flow of tournaments, taking much time to place and understand once in play, so I went along with not using them. As I mentioned above, I tried to keep to the RAW, but had to accept what game masters wanted to do After I stopped being the Chief Umpire, the WADBAG took over running all games, imposing their own ideas on the players during the transition from 2.2 to 3. They made many modifications so people had to play the so called DBA 2.2+ The number of DBA players dropped from 75 people across all events (about 12 per summer convention) in 2010 to a low of none when DBA 3 was run in the spring of 2015.
We should now acknowledge that Phil changed the rules for the BUA substantially for DBA 3 because of all the complaints.
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Post by scottrussell on Aug 26, 2017 8:18:10 GMT
Just in case there seems to be a consensus arising in favour of the rules as written when used in open tournaments, I would like to register a dissenting view. I would also suggest that this view is that of the majority of active tournament players in England and Wales. It is clearly advantageous to allow a choice of elements for each new opponent rather that insist on a fixed twelve for all games, and this advantage is magnified when this option can occur within the game due to dismounting. The result is that players either choose an army with a X/Y or X//Y option, or they play at a disadvantage. in consequence the number of competitive armies is reduced and one of the appeals of the game is also reduced. There are arguments to say that dismounting armies do not always win, but I suspect if a sufficiently large sample size were used, a trend would be apparent. The dismounting system works perfectly well for historical enemies, and for friendly games, but I think it is a negative feature in open tournaments. Personally I don't think Phil ever intended DBA to be used between non-historical enemies, and various of his comments make this clear. My preference would be that the 12 elements laid out at the start of the first bound of the first game should be those used throughout the tournament, and no dismounting should be allowed. Scott
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Post by Haardrada on Aug 26, 2017 14:36:32 GMT
The result is that players either choose an army with a X/Y or X//Y option, or they play at a disadvantage. in consequence the number of competitive armies is reduced and one of the appeals of the game is also reduced. There are arguments to say that dismounting armies do not always win, but I suspect if a sufficiently large sample size were used, a trend would be apparent. Does an armies high aggression have a bearing on this too? When looking at the selection list of several tournaments lately, high aggression armies are in a minority.
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Post by lkmjbc on Aug 26, 2017 15:37:36 GMT
I am not so sure we have enough evidence yet to make a determination on dismounting. It certainly is much hobbled compared to 2.2. Not only do fewer armies dismount, but the dismounting rules are greatly restricted versus 2.2. We haven't seen dismounting armies dominate in Nashville... but we are but a small part of the community.
We have seen Viking armies dominate...
Joe Collins
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Post by scottrussell on Aug 26, 2017 18:51:31 GMT
The result is that players either choose an army with a X/Y or X//Y option, or they play at a disadvantage. in consequence the number of competitive armies is reduced and one of the appeals of the game is also reduced. There are arguments to say that dismounting armies do not always win, but I suspect if a sufficiently large sample size were used, a trend would be apparent. Does an armies high aggression have a bearing on this too? When looking at the selection list of several tournaments lately, high aggression armies are in a minority. I don't think it is the high aggression per se. In 3.0 it seems to me that being the attacker is an advantage, so if you had two identical armies, the advantage would lie with the player laying out second. The problem is that these armies are often monotype mounted and seriously impaired by losing the terrain roll. As Joe says, vikings (agg 4) dominate in his area, but are foot, so can cope with bad going. Taking 12 x 3Kn sounds attractive until you see that most of these type of army are high aggression. Scott
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Post by twrnz on Aug 26, 2017 19:52:41 GMT
Personally I don't think Phil ever intended DBA to be used between non-historical enemies, and various of his comments make this clear. Scott, you raise a good point. Phil certainly encourages people to at least consider historical opponents in the rule book. I personally believe the DBA becomes a straight game in an open event with little reflection on historical interaction. Players search for the perfect army and the more competitive come out to play with a vengeance. For me open events are the least rewarding, as they tend to increase games devoid of plausible opponents. I tend not to play at them these days. The handicap system that is used in Australia has much to counter this over competitive army selection process. It holds appeal to me, even in themes. There can be much enjoyment had by experienced players opting for one of the weaker armies that are less often seen.
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Post by BrianNZ on Aug 27, 2017 9:45:09 GMT
The events I organise in NZ require that a player must define the list, the list year if there are options, and if an ally is being used the ally are prior to the event. Then on the day the element selection used in the first game to be maintained throughout. Elements that can dismount may do so at the start of each game, or during the game, where allowed by the lists. I can vouch for this system that Keith uses, it's simple and it works. I also use it when organising DBA events.
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Post by Haardrada on Aug 27, 2017 9:46:18 GMT
Does an armies high aggression have a bearing on this too? When looking at the selection list of several tournaments lately, high aggression armies are in a minority. I don't think it is the high aggression per se. In 3.0 it seems to me that being the attacker is an advantage, so if you had two identical armies, the advantage would lie with the player laying out second. The problem is that these armies are often monotype mounted and seriously impaired by losing the terrain roll. As Joe says, vikings (agg 4) dominate in his area, but are foot, so can cope with bad going. Taking 12 x 3Kn sounds attractive until you see that most of these type of army are high aggression. Scott Can I ask if the Norse armies pure Viking,Leidang or with added Finns or an allied mix?
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Post by mthrguth on Aug 27, 2017 11:53:52 GMT
RE Vikings: In 2.2 I was successful winning several events with Vikings. I went with the Leidang low aggression army when playing 2.2. This allowed me to get the waterway, and then to make two parallel highways of bad going. The idea was that if I was attacked by knights, the knights would have to either accept being overlapped OR fight elements in the bad going.
The pattern is blade in bad going, blade, blade, blade in bad going.
Of course, in 2.2 the blades could get rear support from psiloi, which further deterred the knights. The Medieval German with 6 figure knights are REALLY tough on blades in 3.0. Like Swiss, they are susceptible to unlucky dice rolls.
I played Swiss in the Nats at HMGS and lost two blades on 6-1 rolls to lose the game. But, I actually didn't mind being the aggressor in most games with Swiss; the fast blades can cope with bad going except against WB, which are a difficult troop type to use effectively; and are hell on wheels against infantry in the open.
Another issue is board size. The default 3.0 size is 24x24 inches. It may not seem like much, but going to 30x30 makes it much more difficult to gum up the board. I saw this in one of the NATS games. The poor Canadian player brought a warband army. On the big board he was able to build a terrain fortress, but he could not use bad going as a highway into my set up area; the terrain pieces were just not big enough once one went missing (placed by attacker). Eventually he suffered 'PIP exhaustion' as my troops moving in good terrain could outmaneuver the WB in the bad going.
David Kuijt had some very good advice. YOU CAN'T WIN EVERYWHERE in DBA. Will your troops have an advantage in good going, or bad going? Sometimes you need to sacrifice even two elements so that you can get winning odds for 4 elements in the terrain that is favorable to you.
Dunes and camels are a nice terrain combo, because the camels get the 'freebie' of treating dunes like clear terrain.
DBA 3.0 offers several armies freebies-unique capabilities of rare troop types; double elements, camels, dismounting, mounted archers. Low aggression is a freebie for many Indian armies because they have the elephant/knight to dominate clear terrain; and enough bows to seriously contest bad going as well. They can use their low aggression to set up a wide open plain against foot armies; or set up rough going with gaps against mounted opponents. Dice can always wreck a plan. You may never get the pips to dismount; and losing one double elements brings you close to tragedy.
Dunes and camels are a nice terrain combo, because the camels get the 'freebie' of treating dunes like clear terrain.
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