|
Post by paulisper on Feb 9, 2019 18:40:33 GMT
Thanks Simon for the organising. Some great games, was on a roll until Paul's LH refused to die. Or was it that you Gen refused to die 😜??! They had their chance and blew it!!!! Cracking day’s gaming and superb fun had watching the two Marks battle it out for the title. How do you win with Libyan against Theban when 2-3 down and then one measly element is flanked twice (Side supported Sp v Ps, with door closed... 5-1... and still lose the roll 2 bounds in succession)? Ask the man with the loaded dice 🎲🤣
|
|
|
Post by paulisper on Feb 9, 2019 18:41:12 GMT
Thanks Simon for the organising. Some great games, was on a roll until Paul's LH refused to die. Or was it that you Gen refused to die 😜??! The boys had their chance and blew it!!!! Cracking day’s gaming and superb fun had watching the two Marks battle it out for the title. How do you win with Libyan against Theban when 2-3 down and the n one measly element is flanked twice (Side supported Sp v Ps, with door closed... 5-1... and still lose the roll 2 bounds in succession)? Ask the man with the loaded dice 🎲🤣
|
|
|
Post by hodsopa on Feb 9, 2019 20:18:30 GMT
Great day. I took Alexandrian Macedonian (6 Pk, Kn general, Cv, LH, 4Ax, 3Ax, Ps). The formula is that you play six games - the first, third and fifth with your opponent's army, and the others with your own.
My first game was against Richard Pulley. I played with his Achaemenid Persians and had to defend against my Macedonians. I had three Sp which I kept safely behind, believing - as I still do - that Sp vs Pk is a win for Pk. I had a nice mounted right wing including a scythed chariot that immediately crashed and burned. The game ended – timed out – as a draw, with me losing 3 elements (plus the chariot, which doesn't count) and Richard only 1.
My second game, now with the Macedonians, was against Martin Myers’ Gauls – 6 fast warband, 5 cavalry and 1 Psiloi. I invaded, with pikes in the centre, psiloi/auxilia refused on the left and the mounted as far on the right as possible. Martin did to me what I intended to do to my enemies. He turned my weak left flank with a strong warband push, then turned them inwards and used their threat zones to immobilise my pike columns. Hard flanking one of the columns, he killed both the pikes. Somehow I killed three of his elements, though I felt myself outmaneouvred. Another draw.
In the third game I commanded a Macedonian-style army like mine, Tim Rogers’ Kassandros army. It had only four pikes while mine has six; but it had an elephant; and plenty of auxilia. I defended again and made a tight battlefield, with the central plain flanked by a difficult hill centrally on one side (my right) and a wood near my opponent’s baseline on the other side (my left).
I put my pikes and elephant in the centre, the mounted on the right and the auxilia and psiloi on the left. This is the game I handled worst. I wasted PIPs to have my mounted troops wander around in front of my army. Instead, my auxilia should've been hurrying towards and through the wood on my left. Because this didn’t happen I got caught in a losing battle in the centre. Once again I lost two pikes hard flanked (by a psiloi that efficiently occupied the hill) and the other two got separated and cut down soon after. 4-0 defeat.
Two draws and a defeat at lunchtime.
Excellent Stilton panini from a café in the town.
In the fourth game I played Craig Allen’s Carthaginians, defending again. My army’s terrain is arable; as I result I placed two ploughed fields on the battlefield; it rained (1/6 chance), making these an obstacle to movement. This helped me by shortening the battlefront. (With a pike army it is good to have a narrowed battlefront because you need to put your pikes in double ranks, and you don’t want to be outflanked.) My line of 6 double ranked pikes beat his line of 5 spears; he could only get one of his two heavy chariots into the battle; that was his general; it advanced so enthusiastically that I could hard flank it; eventually I killed it and won.
In the fifth game I commanded David Weston’s Imperial Macedonians against my own Alexandrian Macedonians. David’s army had six pikes, if I remember correctly, and also an elephant. Again I defended, with my pike block in the centre. David set up cleverly with a psiloi and a light horse in the centre (elements that pikes can't kill), the pikes on either side of them. I shoved the elephant over to my right to avoid it being hypnotised by the psiloi. Yet again, for the third time, I lost two pikes hard flanked. Again, though, an enemy knight general, in combat with my own knight general, advanced so far that I could hard flank and kill it. That reduced my opponent’s mobility. It meant that I could exploit his weakness in the middle and win in the end.
Finally, with my own army, I fought John Saunders’ Lysimachids – a Macedonian-style army with ‘only’ 4 pike and, to compensate, 4 rather than 2 peltasts (auxilia). Once more I defended. I managed to get my mounted elements lined up against John’s lighter infantry, had a couple of lucky dice rolls and created an advantage from which he couldn't come back.
People say this game is decided by luck. Maybe. But the same players always finish above me. Congratulations today to Mark Johnson (first), Mark Skelton (second) and Richard Pulley (third). Thanks also to:
1) My army, which scored more points than I did..
2) Rob Rush, who gave me a lift to Bakewell from Chesterfield. You’re right, Rob, this is a terrific rule set.
3) Simon Wilson, the organiser. It was a treat to spend a day doing this.
|
|
|
Post by Simon on Feb 10, 2019 13:19:50 GMT
I hope everyone had a good day in Bakewell for the Winter Warmer yesterday. The theme was Wars around the Mediterranean 400 to 275 BC and players alternated using their opponents' armies and then their own. The final rankings along with armies brought were: - Mark Johnson
Early Libyans 1/7d - Mark Skelton
# Thebans II/5c - Richard Pulley
# Later Achaemenid Persian - Tim Kohler
Later Achaemenid Persian - Phil Johnson
Armenian II/28b - Scott Russell
Ptolemaic II/20a - Colin O’Shea
Ariarathid Kappadokian II/14 - Baldie
# Bosporan II/25 - Paul Hodson
# Alexandrian Macedonian - Paul Murgatroyd
Later Achaemenid Persian - Patrick Dale
Pyrric !!/27b - Martin Smith
Spartan Overseas Expedition II/5k - Tim Rogers
Kassandros II/18c - Phil Steele
# Gallic - Martin Myers
# Gallic - Tom Dent-Spargo
Thebans - Craig Allen
Early Carthagenian - John Saunders
Lysimachid II/17a - David Weston
Alexandrian Imperial II/15 - Frank Shaw
Thracian - Rob Rush
Sarmatian - Nick Wright-Carter
Early Rhoxolani Sarmatian II/24
# indicates final ranking decided by Sum of Opponents' Scores.
Congratulations to Mark J for coming top!
Thanks to Scott Russell, Paul Murgatroyd and Mark Johnson for helping develop the format.
A couple of lessons for me and others who may want to run a tournament:
1. Get a third party to look iver the players' scoresheet to make sure it makes sense. 2. Send out a reminder of the format to players just before if the event was set up some time ago. Some players had forgotten that they would be swapping armies during the tournament!
Date for the Bakewell June Midland Open will be set shortly.
Regards
Simon
|
|
|
Post by colinthehittite on Feb 10, 2019 13:41:00 GMT
I thought travelling to Bakewell from the south coast was a long trek but Brussels is probably twice as far. Well done Paul. I have to say though, that the hours roll by when you are in a car full of DBA enthusiasts. Ah, the joy of a PIP fuelled counter attack and of launching your light horse all around your opponents army to fall on his rear. I charged down a valley with Kappadokians to the left of me and Kappadokians to the right and came out smiling. I fought on a board without a single terrain piece. Short game. About to lose a game I threw two 6s to two ones and destroyed two elements. But, of course, it’s not all joy in DBA... knights being forced into bad going... struggling to manoeuvre and fight when my opponent can’t throw less than 5.
Like a number of other players I finished on four wins but could not amass the huge number of destroyed elements accumulated by the top players.
There was obviously a lot of interest in ‘the final’ between Mark and Mark much of which I missed, but how? As those in the car on the drive home who know all about probability explained, a one in a million chance of disaster happens all the time.
Great tournament Simon
Colin
|
|
|
Post by attilathenun on Feb 11, 2019 8:48:09 GMT
That's right Colin. It's a statistical fact that a 1/1296 chance comes up 9 times out of 10.
|
|
|
Post by sheffmark on Feb 11, 2019 9:29:31 GMT
Thanks Simon for the organising. Some great games, was on a roll until Paul's LH refused to die. Or was it that you Gen refused to die 😜??! They had their chance and blew it!!!! Cracking day’s gaming and superb fun had watching the two Marks battle it out for the title. How do you win with Libyan against Theban when 2-3 down and then one measly element is flanked twice (Side supported Sp v Ps, with door closed... 5-1... and still lose the roll 2 bounds in succession)? Ask the man with the loaded dice 🎲🤣 "Ask the man with the loaded dice 🎲🤣" !!! Is that libel or slander, I can never remember which one's which?! Ok I admit I had my fair share of luck, particularly in the games against Martin, (where he threw a run of 1's and 2's which swung the game) and particularly in the last game against Mark. However throughout the day I also had at least three combats where I had hard flanked a unit, was up on the dice and lost. Also in my first game I lost 2 Cv elements to Ps out in the open, so it wasn't high rolling all day, just mainly when it was important, particularly in the last game. That and having a 'Killer' army helps ! Except of course in this format, you only have to win with it 2 or 3 times, the other times you have to beat it. Although I wouldn't have chosen that army if I'd have known we were going to fight with it alternatively, it did perform quite well for me. Even the one I lost to Baldie it came back from 3-0 down to 3-3 and could have won on the penultimate bound before Baldie got the final element he needed. It also seemed to introduce an extra morale factor in some games where, if you were fighting with it you didn't think you'd got much chance, whereas if you were fighting against it you felt under extra pressure to win. Maybe the deciding factor in the final game was Paul M's blessing when he said "Well good luck with THAT army in the final game!" Now we all know know Paul has mystical powers, having successfully predicted the winner of the Northern Cup year after year, some maybe that's what decided it? But another fun day gaming against some great opponents and it didn't snow! But the highlight of the day? Has to be Mrs Wilson's Chocolate Brownies.
|
|
|
Post by scottrussell on Feb 11, 2019 9:54:45 GMT
To be honest Mark, I thought your Libyans fought like Trojans!
Scott
|
|
|
Post by martin on Feb 11, 2019 12:42:39 GMT
Mad day, lots of fun and frustration in equal measure.....3Ax’s and LH evaporated by Ps on 6-1’s, coming back to a 4-3 win after being 0-3 down, using unusual armies in strange situations, and playing new faces. Three wins, three losses. My army had four wins, better than I’d expected. Worth the major run north. Thanks Simon. Congrats to Mark J, Mark S and Richard P for podium places, and to the carpool members for keeping me sane (ish....) on the way home.
|
|
|
Post by davidjconstable on Feb 11, 2019 19:12:28 GMT
Libel is letter (writing), slander is spoken, a simple rule but it works. There are a lot of problems with it, try a legal bookshop and you will find bookshelves full of books on the subject.
David Constable
|
|
|
Post by diades on Feb 11, 2019 20:11:54 GMT
A very entertaining and enjoyable day. Thanks all, and especially to Simon for arranging.
Lesson one: read the question! I had not spotted the fact that we would fight against our armies half the time. My army did better than I did! I took the Gauls, which I feel if used properly are a very strong army in this mix.
I beat them once 5-4 after Tom played a brilliant Hannibalesque weak centre with them.
I lost with them once 3-4 when several LAP single spear elements refused to die when hit with double warband and an overlap!
My one Draw was against Paul H's Alexandrian Macedonian. I tempted Paul into advancing his phalanx with bad going on his left flank. I turned my warband through the bad going and hit him in the flank. Constrained space, PIPs and lack of killing blows led to much threat zone chaos, rule book thumbing and inevitably a timeout.
The Best Gallic performance was against me, when I was using Kassandros with which I had had so much success and luck in Penarth. I advanced my auxilia on the right to halt a column of six warband. I moved my elephant and knight up behind to do the damage. Before they could arrive, the Warband moved into 3x2 and destroyed all four auxilia...a 4-0 thrashing, well played Tim!
On to Newark!
|
|
|
Post by hodsopa on Feb 11, 2019 20:33:03 GMT
On to Newark indeed!
|
|
|
Post by martin on Feb 12, 2019 17:30:53 GMT
My army was Later Hoplite Greek, Spartan Overseas Expeditions of Agesilaus (398-394 BC), with 6 Spartan hoplite elements (6 x Sp), three Paphlagonian peltasts (3 x 3Ax), one Mysian psiloi (1 x Ps), one Ionian Greek cavalry (1 x Cv) and one Paphlagonian light horse (1 x LH). Aggression 4, littoral topography. I’d never used it before, but it looked like a challenge.
Game 1 - I played Baldie, using his Bosporans (Kn, Ax and Bw in general). We formed up near the beach, being both ‘littoral’ types, and the temptation of a landing was irresistible. My archers and skirmish foot duly splashed ashore behind his lines, caused no damage at all (wet bowstrings, perhaps...) and were crushed by the Paphlagonian peltasts. Meantime my Sarmatian-style noble cavalry crashed into the Spartan spear wall, but were repelled, and lost enough casualties to end the game, a 0-4 loss, in record time. Short and sweet, but an inauspicious start to the day.
Game 2 - I defended against an invasion by Patrick Dale’s Pyrrhic force from Epiros and Magna Graecia. I placed quite constrictive terrain, as Patrick’s army was mainly heavy foot and mounted, so a hamlet sat mid table, and seaside marshes cluttered his deployment zone. My Paphlagonian foot emerged from the beach to mob the Epirot psiloi, and then threatened the enemy phalanx from wetland on Patrick’s right flank, causing the phalangites to fall back. Elsewhere, Pyrrhic cavalry began to test the Spartan right flank, but were seen off. The enemy elephant was nobbled by Mysian psiloi, while a peltast v peltast fight in a central marsh saw another element loss for Pyrrhos, with unlucky dice for the Epirots (6 v 1), ending the battle on a 4-0 Spartan win.
Game 3 - A successor army for me this time, as my Lysimachids faced the Spartans under the control of John Saunders. Terrain was generally open, a small hamlet on John’s left being the site of a clash of light foot which went badly for my Thracians. The Macedonian phalanx initially did well, but pushed too far into the Spartan line and was flanked and severely mauled. Lysimachos led the Companions in a last ditch charge which overran Agesilaus, but was then counterattacked, surrounded and killed. A nasty 2-7 loss, the phalanx crushed and both generals hors de combat.
Game 4 - A historical clash, as Agesilaus invaded the Later Achaemenid Persians of Richard Pulley, one of my regular opponents back south. His scythed chariots caused mayhem on my far right, while Agesilaus in the centre dithered (painfully low PIP rolls). The satrap led his cavalry in support of the scythed death machines, and soon it was all over, as hoplites, peltasts and Ionian cavalry all fell in short order, the main Spartan line barely moving towards the Persian centre. (0-4).
Game 5 - Taking Frank Shaw’s Thracians, I faced the imposing Spartans across an uncluttered battlefield, in a Society of Ancients Championship encounter. The Thracian foot struggled against the tough Peloponnesians and were soon 3-0 down. A fortuitously good initiative dice let me fall back and regroup, after which the Thracian general (3Kn) and light horse counterattacked Agesilaus, killed him, charged through the resulting gap and attacked Frank’s lighter foot to snatch a 4-3 win, against all expectations.
Game 6 - Last game of the day was against Epaminondas and his Thebans, under the command of Tom Dent-Spargo. My phalanx clung to a gentle hill, while my various light troops supported the left of the Spartan spear-line and also held a wood on my right flank. Seeing a chance to outflank the enemy, my right flank advanced upon a pair of Theban psiloi elements to their front. How weak they looked, but how deadly they proved to be, despatching Paphlagonian peltasts, light horse and Mysian psiloi in quick succession. The protective right flank wood was thus lost, and my phalanx’s flank was under serious threat as the Theban deep-ranked juggernaut closed uphill upon the Spartan shieldwall. A long shoving match ensued, but the Spartans managed to hold the hill just long enough. To their left front my cavalry and peltasts were taking on and defeating the Theban horse, allowing Agesilaus to snatch a late victory, 4-3. It had been an extremely tight game. One more bound and the Theban phalanx would almost certainly have broken through.
Three wins and three losses for me. Four wins out of six for my Spartan based army, Agesilaus perishing twice during the day. A fun day, though with some extreme highs and lows as the PIP and combat dice played their usual tricks, for better and for worse.
ON TO NEWARK!! Indeed, indeed...what army do I need to bring 😳
|
|
|
Post by cgothicus on Feb 13, 2019 12:01:31 GMT
Huge thank you to Simon for once again organising a splendid day of entertainment in glorious Derbyshire.
Good to meet up with DBA friends from across Europe. An interesting selection of armies to fight with making for some dangerous games.
Congratulations to Mark ' King in the north' Johnson, for keeping southerners at bay. I did hear ( and this may be slander but it was from from a close family member ) that Mark's victorious army was only his third choice army on the day. The previous two armies he selected were not actually on the list! An easy mistake to make I'm sure as there were only sixty or so to chose from. Certainly Libyans not an obvious competition winning army, but this is now the second Bakwell tournament in a row where Lybians have featured at the top.
Just a thought...are we seeing a renaissance of the infantry army? They did feature quite strongly in Wales this year.
|
|
|
Post by martin on Feb 13, 2019 18:54:30 GMT
Album of pics just added to the Yahoo Groups photo files. Enjoy (and if you have extra pics, pleeeez add). 👍
|
|