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Post by Cromwell on Mar 24, 2019 8:53:03 GMT
I think DBA is a generic game based on history. If you want to do specific battles then players should do as suggested above. Research the situation and set it up as the research suggests. That is exactly what I do if I am using DBA too stage an historical battle. I look at the historical description of the relevant armies and draw up my own army lists from that. I rarely use the DBA lists for specific battles.
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Post by stevie on Mar 25, 2019 10:26:59 GMT
I'd like to present your vision of Cannae to our group sometime this spring. Please consider taking your Cannae ideas one step further by polishing it off as a DBA Scenario (ideally based on roughly 12 elements a side), complete with hard-coded Initial Deployments, OOB's, and any Special Rules. It could be posted along with the other "Helpful Downloads" for any and all to use. Well Paul, what you see is all there is really. Order of Battle: as shown. Terrain Pieces: just a non-paltry river next to the Gallic Cavalry (probably a deep river). Deployment: as shown, although have the Roman Cv back a bit and facing both mounted elements. (This will prevent them being ‘hard-flanked’ too soon, as the Carthaginian horse won’t be beyond their flank-edge...see figure 8 on page 19 of the rules) Special Rules: just the locations of the generals. Have them with a Blade in their centre’s. (As an extra, you could have the loss of a general not counting towards victory. So the loss of a general’s element only counts as 1 element lost. The extra PIP costs for having no general is punishment enough. This makes the battle last longer, and reduces winning by pure luck) For visual effect you could have the Roman Blades as ‘decorative double-bases’ to show their deep formation, but they act as a single ordinary element, so there is still 12 elements a side. Having the Carthaginian Spanish and Gallic Cavalry fighting as if 3Kn is very useful... ...they get to pursue making it easier for them to get behind the Roman battleline. That’s it. Some Helpful Downloads can be found here: fanaticus-dba.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Reference_sheets_and_epitomes And here is the latest Jan 2019 FAQ: fanaticus-dba.wikia.com/wiki/FAQ_2019_1st_Quarter
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Post by lkmjbc on Mar 25, 2019 16:47:07 GMT
Here is my suggestion for the army lists for a Small Cannae game.
The Cannae game plays very, very well.
In order to better simulate Cannae, I have expanded the regular game to 14 elements apiece and the break point to 5 elements. The differences in army sizes is rationalized by differences in troop quality.
This renders the battle as the following: Romans 1x Cv Gen 1x Cv 4x Bd Legions 2x Triarii 4x 4Ax Italian Allies 2x Ps
Carthaginians 1x Cv Gen 1x Cv 2x LH 4x Sp 4x 4Ax (Mixture of Spanish and Gauls) 2x Ps
This gives a rather fun Cannae game.
Joe Collins
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Post by medievalthomas on Mar 25, 2019 17:00:26 GMT
Stevie:
You need to give up on the concept of the 12 element version of DBA being used to fight historical battles. It is not made for that and will never be able to do a task for which it was not designed. When we did 3.0 the idea was to add historical flavor as 2.2 had drifted away from reality by way too many "design for effect" nonsense rules (generally this really means design to make some specific army more tournament comparative), not to reproduce historical battles.
For one thing the army lists are too rigid (as I pointed out to Phil despite the HYW English having four lists it was nevertheless almost impossible to use them to create any specific English army that fought in a particular battle and I've had to do separate lists for almost all the major battles).
But fatally the troop classification system is far too stereotyped. The touted "behavior" aspect rarely applies - in fact most troops are classified by weapon: Spear, Blade, Bow etc. It is a very slippery slope to begin reclassifying troops in different slots to get "better" troops so Hannibal's spear become Blade because this makes them "better".
Likewise the four odd element loss counting as "defeat" makes no sense (better to at least go 1/2 as HOTT does). Picking off the four weakest elements in an army would rarely have actually led to defeat.
Lets take Mongols as an example: They should be Light Mounted with Evade (so they turn Double Destroy into Flee) but they should also get Shock v. Foot (Destroy on More) due to ability to exploit a foes weakness (and fierceness). Its really quite easy to correctly represent them - once you get outside the troop classification straight jacket. Again despite some above commentary DBX can produce very historical capabilities and remain very easy to play, understand and administer.
As to better versions of the same troop type (veteran Spear), its better to just give them a boost (say they count "1s" as "2s" or they get a +1 on any Destroyed on Double result or if offensive minded they get a +1 to any winning score.
TomT
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Post by stevie on Mar 25, 2019 17:39:30 GMT
Oh I understand Tom. IF the the 12-elements-a-side format was not capable of re-creating a battle, then yes, I’d change it. However, IF the 2-elements-a-side format can re-create a historical battle, then why change it? It all depends upon the situation. As for the Spanish, how many were Celtiberians, or at least became as good as Celtiberians...so 3Bd. As for Hannibal’s veterans, Polybius says they were re-equipped with captured Roman gear...so Blades. Giving the Libyans some sort of boost is fine...if you want to stay in the straight-jacket of defining troops by what their called or by what they carry in their right hand (what happened to “battlefield behaviour”?). But you’re right about the Army Lists... ...they are purely for tournament play, not for re-creating actual historical battles (but they could be). Some Helpful Downloads can be found here: fanaticus-dba.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Reference_sheets_and_epitomes And here is the latest Jan 2019 FAQ: fanaticus-dba.wikia.com/wiki/FAQ_2019_1st_Quarter
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Post by macbeth on Mar 26, 2019 1:04:56 GMT
Stevie,
I am not sure that reclassifying any of Hannibal's centre as Bd (be they Celtiberian - 3Bd or Roman Equipped Libyans - 4Bd) IF you want to play a "Delay in the Centre, envelop the flanks" tactical game against a rigid block of Roman Bd.
What you want to do is keep your line together at it gives ground while the mounted wings fall on the flanks and rear of the enemy. This cannot be easily achieved if your steady centre rushes off to follow up an enemy element as it gives ground or rushes off in pursuit of a broken enemy. This is one of the characteristics of Bd and if we remove that characteristic then the Romans will not follow blindly into the trap. Catch-22.
Hannibal's tactics at Cannae are hinged entirely on his centre always rolling lower than their Roman opponents but not so much lower that they are destroyed. If any of the Carthaginian Line beats or sticks against their Roman Foe they are then sitting in overlap for the next round and more likely to be destroyed. So the other part of the problem is that Carthaginians that fought well when facing the Roman charge cannot break off contact and fall back to join the rest of their line.
As I understand it Hannibal thinned and stretched his centre so that his wings could be reinforced - we can't do that in a 12 element aside game, in fact we cant' do it in an element based system at all.
I am not sure what the solution is but it hasn't stopped me playing the game and painting armies - these are the bits I enjoy rather than trying to slavishly follow the battle order, deployment and tactics of a long past battle and wanting to tweak the rules until the original result is a foregone conclusion. After all - that is fun if you are Hannibal but not so much if I have to be the Romans time and time again. When wargaming Cannae, Why does the Roman General have to follow the original tactic, especially once they see the trap being assembled?
I have nearly 100 DBA armies built up to DBA3 standards, many of them set up in 10-13 army campaign sets and we play out a simple campaign game over the course of a year. Its fun.
Cheers
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Post by primuspilus on Mar 26, 2019 3:15:03 GMT
Oh I understand Tom. IF the the 12-elements-a-side format was not capable of re-creating a battle, then yes, I’d change it. However, IF the 2-elements-a-side format can re-create a historical battle, then why change it? It all depends upon the situation. As for the Spanish, how many were Celtiberians, or at least became as good as Celtiberians...so 3Bd. As for Hannibal’s veterans, Polybius says they were re-equipped with captured Roman gear...so Blades. Giving the Libyans some sort of boost is fine...if you want to stay in the straight-jacket of defining troops by what their called or by what they carry in their right hand (what happened to “battlefield behaviour”?). But you’re right about the Army Lists... ...they are purely for tournament play, not for re-creating actual historical battles (but they could be). Some Helpful Downloads can be found here: fanaticus-dba.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Reference_sheets_and_epitomes And here is the latest Jan 2019 FAQ: fanaticus-dba.wikia.com/wiki/FAQ_2019_1st_Quarter
Given how thin the historical data and accounts actually are, I doubt that having 24 or 36 elements is THE way to get a historical battle "right". I suspect it has more to do with wanting more troops on the table. But the reality is DBA in 12-element form already gets about 80% of battles right in my view, about 80% of the time. I think 95% and 95% is highly do-able with minimal changes. The 4Ax/4/8Bw fix is a really good one for getting us to about 87% and 87% in my view.
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Post by wingman on Mar 26, 2019 12:15:35 GMT
I was thinking more along the lines of any Mongol element shoots or fights at say, +8. Nice & simple. :^)
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Post by primuspilus on Mar 26, 2019 20:23:26 GMT
Seems a bunch of Mongol LH should QK just about everything ...
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Post by wyvern on Mar 27, 2019 12:31:10 GMT
Here is my suggestion for the army lists for a Small Cannae game. The Cannae game plays very, very well. In order to better simulate Cannae, I have expanded the regular game to 14 elements apiece and the break point to 5 elements. The differences in army sizes is rationalized by differences in troop quality. This renders the battle as the following: Romans 1x Cv Gen 1x Cv 4x Bd Legions 2x Triarii 4x 4Ax Italian Allies 2x Ps Carthaginians 1x Cv Gen 1x Cv 2x LH 4x Sp 4x 4Ax (Mixture of Spanish and Gauls) 2x Ps This gives a rather fun Cannae game. Joe Collins When adding additional elements, at what stage do you add another general, perhaps 16elements? Plus at which stage do you extend the size of the battlefield? Cheers, Paul.
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Post by greedo on Mar 27, 2019 14:51:49 GMT
Here is my suggestion for the army lists for a Small Cannae game. The Cannae game plays very, very well. In order to better simulate Cannae, I have expanded the regular game to 14 elements apiece and the break point to 5 elements. The differences in army sizes is rationalized by differences in troop quality. This renders the battle as the following: Romans 1x Cv Gen 1x Cv 4x Bd Legions 2x Triarii 4x 4Ax Italian Allies 2x Ps Carthaginians 1x Cv Gen 1x Cv 2x LH 4x Sp 4x 4Ax (Mixture of Spanish and Gauls) 2x Ps This gives a rather fun Cannae game. Joe Collins Joe, do you use any special rules? Such as 4Ax backing up 1BW? Or is this vanilla DBA with the 14 elements?
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Post by lkmjbc on Mar 27, 2019 16:09:05 GMT
I have developed a rule of thumb for Historical DBA. This applies to both using standard scale (infantry =400-600 troops, cav = 200-300) and when scaling down for larger battles/battles for which I don't have enough troops.
Commands can be up to 24 elements. I find larger command sizes better for DBA in general... The economy of pips with larger commands produces a better narrative. Events are more sequential and troops are forced to operate more in groups/units rather than as individual elements... as you would expect and want in larger games.
So, err towards fewer commands and make them larger. Of course certain circumstances argue against this in certain battles, but this works for most.
Clontarf for instance has one command per side... but Brian Boru's command is 17 elements... while the Viking/Irish rebels are 15 elements. Just one command per side.
Since Cannae is huge, you have to scale it down.
The above above is my scale down for one command.
You can find in my book "Great Battles of History for DBA 3" another great scenario using 2 commands per side by Graham Evans.
Both scenarios represent Poor and Veteran troops by changing the scaling per element.
Graham's scenario uses several special rules... one shows Hannibal's genius and another forces the Romans to move forward the first few turns. (The Carthaginians win).
I suggest using the Ax recoil 1 BW from Pk and Bd for both games...
Joe Collins
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Post by wyvern on Mar 27, 2019 21:49:44 GMT
Hi Joe, all that sounds really cool. Will have to try it out. Thanks, Paul.
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Post by hamilcar on May 10, 2019 11:17:23 GMT
I think that any rule set including DBA can be modified to represent particular circumstances/battles or whatever. This clearly applies when played with a group of like-minded people, rather than tournaments.
In that light, we have played Cannae with many different modifications, some of which were fairly radical: - playing with larger armies (sometimes the obvious choice!) - adjusting the army lists - similar to some of the suggestions here - changing the victory conditions to 6 elements lost - Giving Romans 15 or 18 elements, but reducing their PIP score by -1 or -2 (with a minimum of 1). This forces the Romans to move in a single body and makes their cavalry fairly passive. - Giving the Romans 14 elements, but allowing the Carthaginian CV a +1 combat modifier. - Giving the Romans 15 elements, but allowing the Carthaginians to add +1 to their combat score when they lose the roll. This clearly slows down the deterioration of the Carthaginian line and makes it give ground, rather than being swept. - Allowing the "general" to move between elements - as clearly happened (Paullus for sure, but also Hannibal and Mago moved along the Carthaginian infantry line to steady it). This should be limited to once for Romans, but not for Carthaginians. On the other hand, the Carthaginians could not switch from infantry to cavalry - so they could start on CV (to help break the Roman CV), but once they switch to infantry they stay there.
There were others, though I can't remember everything. We also combined some of these.
Some worked better than others. I for one quite liked the one giving Romans more elements, but reducing their PIP score AND giving Carthaginians +1 modifier when losing (won by Carthage, but could have gone either way). In most other games the Romans actually broke through and won, mostly thanks to their compulsory follow-ups. They held a second line of reserves and thus prevented, or rather slowed don the Carthaginian cavalry rampage). I also found I enjoyed the unmodified 12-element version, with changed army lists (without it was a walk-over for the Romans). The bottom line is we had a good day of DBA(ish) fun.
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Post by vtsaogames on Jun 24, 2019 19:42:37 GMT
I have an army of 1/72 plastic Mongols - Zvezda, methinks. They haven't seen the table in many a year. It might be time to get them out again. Mostly they fought the Teutonic Knights and have a good record against them. Even when they lose, the light horse drives the other side crazy first.
The problem is that the only other plastic forces I have are Carthaginians, Polybian Romans and Gallic. The Mongols have pretended to be Parthians against the Romans and I don't recall they ever lost a fight. I think the last time all these guys saw the table was either the first edition or 2.0.
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