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Post by colinthehittite on Feb 16, 2020 18:12:55 GMT
Thank you, Scott. Clear, concise and I can’t not make it work. Your definition is essentially the same as Mark’s except I don’t think Mark looks at rear edges first.
Colin
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Post by colinthehittite on Feb 16, 2020 12:39:36 GMT
That’s a very good point, Bill. I’ve just tried a 20mm deep base in contact with a 60mm deep base and Mark’s Method still seems to work – draw a line from the hills centre point through the nearest point of the contact edges and whichever front edge is nearer the hills crest is uphill. Does this work or can you offer an alternative simple method?
Colin
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Post by colinthehittite on Feb 16, 2020 10:37:55 GMT
Just been trying that out, Sheffmark. Like Mark’s Method (in which he draws a line through the contact edges) it appears to work but gives uphill to elements in some situations that, at first glance, don’t appear to be uphill and in the past players probably didn’t claim uphill. It works but it feels almost like changing the rules. If the FAQ group hasn’t made a ruling on this (and I have not seen anything) it would be good if they could come up with a clear method for determining uphill.
Colin
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Post by colinthehittite on Feb 16, 2020 9:18:08 GMT
Talk about splitting hairs (see Welsh Open thread)! I found myself in a game yesterday arguing the finer points of being uphill and only slowly realising I was in the wrong. In all the years I have been playing this flawed but fantastic game nobody has ever claimed uphill of me in the situation I found myself in yesterday. It’s probably been a case of ‘gentlemanly’ play and not bothering. I have never understood ‘uphill’ and there seem to be nearly as many interpretations as players. Fortunately, it is usually easy to observe if an element is clearly uphill – but yesterday, to my eye, it wasn’t. Since both of us playing the game were near the top of the table and since the uphill issue was critical to us both within the game, we argued. Nothing unpleasant but both assertive. It wasn’t really until Mark Skelton gave me an excellent lesson that I understood how to quickly identify ‘uphill’. So, thanks to Mark for the eye opening eureka moment and apologies to my opponent again. Incidentally, we drew the game. An impossible situation where knights could not enter the steep hills and light troops on the other side could not venture out.
Mark’s method (as it shall hence forth be known in my mind) gives some uphill positions which to the casual eye do not look uphill and situations in which players have never claimed uphill against me, but technically I can now see the logic of it. Doh! Don’t ask me to explain it or to post a diagram; I need someone with a better brain than mine on the job.
I love playing this game and now at last I think I have a means of quickly and simply deciding ‘uphill’. I plan to explain it to all my opponent’s in future in the hope that I don’t start splitting hairs and worse, find to my horror that I am in the wrong.
As for the wider Bakewell Winter Wimps tournament, it was a great theme which generated many excellent games and was played, as usual, by a warm and friendly group of guys. It may never get warm in the Peak District but visually it is stunning and after a long drive, it was a joy to behold.
I took Nabataeans II/22a. Having just painted the Ps bowmen for the army just before the tournament was announced I knew that if I was able to attend it would be Nabataeans. Although not a strong force, particularly since it needed to be Ps strong, knowing that alternate games would be played with my opponent’s army I felt that it didn’t much matter what I took. Mark let me use his excellent Petra inspired camp which was perfect. I expected lots of knights and light horse which is why I took maximum fast bows and it was the bows, when in my hands, that did the most damage yesterday. With the extremes of army types – some very light and others with lots of knights – terrain proved to be a very significant factor. I saw knights mowing down their light infantry enemies in open terrain and at other times knights having nowhere to go and being played completely out of the game. Thanks Simon, for a great day – I only wish we lived a bit closer to each other.
Colin the Wimp
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Post by colinthehittite on Feb 12, 2020 7:58:16 GMT
The art of splitting hairs four ways - I assumed! Colin Splitting a hair four ways would be pilotetrasection. Or perhaps more specifically longitudinal tetrapilosection, to distinguish it from simply cutting a hair into four bits, which would not need a surgical postgraduate qualification. Scott Yeah but no but yeah but… what about context, mate? Arnaud’s imagined book ain’t about surgery is it! Wot about entymololololololology? Maybe it’s a synonym. Maybe it was misspelt. Maybe it’s Franglais or a French spelling. Yeah, that’s it, Arnaud lapsing. Perhaps we need a translation. Somebody should look it up in a French dictionary. I wouldn’t want to be pedantic or even fracture any of those fine, cylindrical, keratinous filaments that used to grow profusely on my younger head but… Colin (Just practising an argumentative stance for Wimp Wars on Saturday in case I need it to justify my view that my element is uphill of my opponent)
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Post by colinthehittite on Feb 9, 2020 20:24:08 GMT
The art of splitting hairs four ways - I assumed!
Colin
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Post by colinthehittite on Feb 8, 2020 8:51:52 GMT
Tetrapilectomy
Well, thank you for teaching me a new word, Arnaud… and such a fun one! It might be useful one DBAday.
Colin
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Post by colinthehittite on Feb 4, 2020 8:24:16 GMT
I am very pleased to see this improved format which should benefit all players and provide for a much more satisfying day. And! This army list might finally press me to update my Hittites from the 2.2 list.
Colin
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Post by colinthehittite on Jan 31, 2020 10:03:19 GMT
The Tamil pachyderm doom stack is 3 elephants and 2 allied elephants isn’t it? So you need to roll 4 or more PIPs to move the stack forward else risk exposing a flank.....and I can’t even roll sufficient PIPs for my 3 Classy Indian elephants. Every time I have seen the Doomstack army play it has played in its own terrain and always the same terrain, ensuring its flanks are protected. If it wasn’t aggression 0 Arnaud would not have picked it. With secure flanks it just has to stand there and dare the enemy to attack! Colin
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Post by colinthehittite on Jan 30, 2020 17:43:15 GMT
*Still can't think of any army better than the Tamil pachyderm doomstack, and am very surprised to not having had to fight one yet. Never fear, Arnaud, sooner or later someone else will field the Tamil Pachyderm Doomstack army of doom. There are lots of reasons why players have not done so to date. Colin
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Post by colinthehittite on Jan 26, 2020 7:53:03 GMT
Having painted King Arthur’s army recently I took the opportunity of an open tournament to give him an outing. I didn’t like the fact that there were no shooting elements, but a solid line of spears can usually cope with most things. As we could play a different army in the plate competition I also took the Palmyran a list – an old favourite and more balanced army with plenty of bows.
Apart from a slaughtering from Arnaud’s fast blade Chinese army I had a successful morning. That put me into the plate competition in the afternoon, which I don’t normally enjoy as the reduced playing time makes it so frantic, but I had some exciting and close games, particularly against Patrick’s Celtiberians and Baldie’s Bosporans.
Results will be posted soon, I’m sure, but loaded down with trophies and prize armies, the Hampshire car was a fun drive home.
Thanks Alan; I suspect my day wasn’t nearly as much fun as Baldie must have had all those years ago, but I really enjoyed it. Thanks also to Magister Militum for the prizes.
Colin
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Post by colinthehittite on Dec 12, 2019 7:46:51 GMT
In the PAWS system it is still possible to have most experienced players in one group as players are placed into their group randomly. At some PAWS events I have faced a string of experienced players, at others I haven’t. Incidentally, just because you get matched with a less experienced player does not mean you will likely have an easy win. In my experience there are other more important factors.
Martin makes a very significant point about start time and one that really ought to be addressed particularly as PAWS is a half day event.
As gregorius says, does there really need to be a final? DBA is not a spectator event and players who do not make the final often leave before it begins. If there was no final could there be 5 50-minute games in the time available? And yes, it needs to be well organised, but that is one of the things participants pay for. If PAWS could start promptly and offer 5 50-minute games, then I think that would be a welcome improvement. It would be good to hear the views of others – if I’m just a grumpy lonely voice I’ll shut up.
Colin the grumpy old Hittite
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Post by colinthehittite on Dec 11, 2019 16:39:22 GMT
50 minutes is the UK standard; I can’t think of another tournament that does not offer 50 minutes. I think 60 minutes may be more likely abroad. Another 10 minutes does not sound much but on the UK circuit, which has a tournament just about every month, I am much more comfortable with the slightly longer games.
Colin
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Post by colinthehittite on Dec 11, 2019 9:59:56 GMT
I am disappointed not to be coming to this event. I have been a regular for many years and continue to enjoy this brilliant game, however, I have not enjoyed some PAWS events over recent years because of the rush to fit it all in to 40 minutes. As players gain experience, they learn to overcome setbacks and continue fighting knowing that the game can easily turn. With only 40 minutes drawn games are now not surprising results.
For me, 40 minutes often prevents the kind of manoeuvre game that I enjoy; it doesn’t give me time to await my opporchancity; it means I have to choose a hard charging army from the list provided rather than one I’d like to play with; it forces me to limit terrain choice in order to avoid slow moving deployments and stubborn defences which will eat up time and I even have to avoid talking with my opponent for fear of wasting precious seconds! It’s just not fun!
Colin
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Post by colinthehittite on Nov 10, 2019 7:04:51 GMT
Tarrington Tourney never disappoints – the format, the games, the setting and the management of the day. And, positioned fairly centrally in the UK it attracts players from north and south.
For the first time that I can remember I took a balanced force of knights, spears, crossbows and psiloi; Papal Italian. Part of my reasoning was that as players are becoming adept at constructing armies that are difficult to win with (after all you only use your army once in the tournament) a fairly tough, balanced army should easily beat some of the strange concoctions sure to turn up – confounding even the most competent players. In the event it won the strongest army trophy and I actually won with my own army in the last round!
My first game was with Khazars against my Papal Italians. How do you beat a knight, crossbow and spear line snuggled up against a wood with light horse and cavalry – and a single psiloi? The answer, of course, is that whatever you do, be lucky. My single bad going element rushed for the wood whilst light horse went around it and cavalry came up in support. Almost every die roll went in my favour, just, allowing me to steal the wood and chip away at the knight line. What a great start – winning against the odds. In the next game I drew and in the third I lost...
How do you defend a city with a Numidian army without a blade? How do you attack when your strongest units are a command post and a command wagon? Trying to win with armies that are specifically constructed to thwart you at every move is perhaps the greatest challenge of the UK DBA circuit. I came across the fiendishly cunning Norse Irish with its ally three times, drawing against it, then losing with it and finally sweeping it away with my Italians. If I had won the terrain all the bad going that I had to place would have aided the Norse Irish, instead the Irish open terrain did what it was designed to do - scupper its own army! Once again, I struggled with a number of rules issues, in particular moving into contact and in the use of command wagons and posts. This tournament forces players to consider all troop types, terrain types and areas of the rules. I don’t think I have seen so many camels before.
Congratulations to Phil and thanks to Diades who also provided a collection of interesting books for us all to choose from. If you didn’t make it yesterday you gotta be there next year!!
Up at 5.30am, table top mayhem all day and then on the drive home in the rain and dark my companions taunt me with tales of Indian takeaways and kebabs. What a day!
Colin
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