Pre measure

I think Pawsbill is referring to the “Sequence of Play” rules on page 8 paragraph 4:-
“(3) Any Artillery, War Wagons or Bow elements of both sides that are eligible to do so, must shoot once each…”

So you can’t decide that a shooter will not shoot this bound…they have to shoot at something, if they can.
This means pre-measuring before they roll their shooting die, to make sure the declared target is actually in range.

But getting back to Bob’s original question: I think that pre-measuring is inevitable in a system like DBA.

Take deployment for example.
Before you place any element on the battlefield you must pre-measure to make sure it is the correct distance from the table centre-line and side-edges, and is at least 1 BW from an enemy city or fort (see FAQ).

Then there is the reason for having “Barker Marker’s” (see the last sentence on page 2 paragraph 10).
What’s the point of having these if not for pre-measurement purposes?

Lastly, there is the question of Command Distance (page 8 paragraph 7).
If my general is on the far right of my battleline, and I want to move an element on my far left, I have to first pre-measure to ensure that the element is within the Command Range of my general for PIP cost purposes.
If it’s out of Command Range, do I have enough PIPs to even make it move?

Now, you could draw up a list of all those things that can or can’t be pre-measured…but that would be very awkward.
So all-in-all I’d say that pre-measurement is not only permissible, it’s absolutely vital to make the DBA system work correctly.



Some potentially useful player aids can be found here, such as the “Quick Reference Sheets” from the Society of Ancients,
and the new “Army List Corrections” file: fanaticus-dba.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Reference_sheets_and_epitomes
And this is the latest January 2018 FAQ: fanaticus-dba.wikia.com/wiki/FAQ_2018