Double based elements

When I started DBA I had quite a few heavy foot based on 25mm depth, 6 figures. My Persians were all spear (Immortals) carrying Bows. I think a case can be made that mixed formations are a new element type, that do not need to be based as DBEs.

Think "weaker" Sp that shoot. Alternatively, make DBE get a +1 in shooting vs foot as well, reflecting the forward ranks able to shoot. Of course that will render them all but invulnerable to Ax ... So perhaps the +1 is in good going only, and is in both shooting and CC? In bad or rough, the ranks are jumbled up more, footing is less sure, and the lead ranks are preoccupied with maintaining formation?

It is important to note that these are designed for playing more historical battles and campaigns. They are NOT a series of line edits, based on a plagiarised "guide" designed to be plugged into the rules. Ergo, no, they are not DBA v3.0+.

In fact, we suspect a lot of the suggested rules will form a shopping cart of ideas for most of you, to try here and there. Heck, we even hope some.of you will use them as raw materials to come up with your own enhancements and mods that are even better!

For us, we find this collection is a nice compromise between official tournament format, and house/scenario/campaign rules that are nevertheless still very playable, and lead to the results that more closely align with history. All in one place!

So DBA GBoH can be thought of as a smorgasbord of awesome scenarios, that you pull together and play as you see fit. The hoiserules we found just may scratch itches in other spots for ya. Remember, these are mere suggestions for rules you might like to bolt on, which is pretty much what folks have been doing with DBx since it was released.

We remain committed to the tournament game being left alone for the pick-up game genre, for those who love it the way it is. For those, like us, who don't play in tournaments, and who'd like a bit more flavour and alignment, hopefully they'll scratch your back as well as we found they scratch ours.

Many of the sugfestions you have already seen, but they are scattered across the forum. This is a way to gather the best (in our view) of them in one convenient spot.

Obviously, our (biased 🤗) view is that these are the cream of the crop. But please do give 'em a spin and see how/if they work in your scenarios and campaigns!

As it stands, there are great ideas for house rules scattered all over the forum and the internet, and it is an exercise in frustration trying to dead-thread through all of it to find a vaguely-recalled house rule you liked, now that you've finally got together an army to which it is relevant.

It has been a really productive exercise to gather some of those rules that really work well, into a single compendium, along with rationale, description of game impact, and corresponding historical accounts.

Feel free to pick, choose, add to, subtract from, and above all, ignore! Ome never knows, some of them might even make it into the official game at some point, if popular enough, like the Warband/Shooter move switch in HotT!

What in the world is GBoH?

First rule of improving DBX - NO NEW TROOP TYPES.

Best way to deal with double elements is to get rid of them but allow +1 Rear Support from some combinations (Thebans did not create a new form of Spear they simply massed them in deeper ranks - likewise many armies from time to time thought of the idea of putting missile troops behind melee troops). Missile troops could be allowed to shoot over one adjacent rank (though perhaps at a -1 CF).

TomT

Last night one of the locals was using 8Bw as part of Cyrus’ Early Achaemenid Persians. After clocking up two victories across three games I asked him how he felt about 8Bw. He seemed very comfortable with how they are modelled and their effectiveness.

And I have a nice Asiatic Greek hoplite army he'd have a very hard time with ...

Remember, under v3, bowfire is nerfed at close range, he can't shoot from marshes and riverbeds, and there are now fewer actual shooting elements than under 2.2. I believe you lose the 3Bw, which was a fantastically competitive LI piece...