Spartans for DBA or HOTT

I just finished a 1/72 Spartan army for DBA or HOTT. I could not resist the well-sculpted Caesar models, and I have always had a soft spot for hoplite armies, and Sparta in particular. I used some VeniVidiVice shield transfers and a couple of special additions for HOTT elements and away we go:

All elements arrayed

The army includes the following elements:

Psiloi (DBA) or shooters (HOTT) by Zvezda

Single base of auxilia (DBA) or warband (HOTT) (i.e. light hoplites)

Up to 10 elements of ubiquitous spear

Hoo-haa! The hero Leonidas in the background...

Leonidas (HOTT hero), standing and gesticulating in defiance of the gods and anyone else who wants to have a go. The columns are wooden dowel pegs from Ikea.

The "evil flying pony" (HOTT flyer), my daughters were hoping this guy would end up in pink..

The obligatory, ill-tempered, Lacedaemonian Cyclops (HOTT behemoth)

Our strategos (Spear General)

Next up: I dunno. I might tackle my 15mm Achaemenids, or perhaps work on ECW a bit.

Over the 10 days I completed my first regiment of 28mm ECW infantry by Warlord. I really enjoyed this, these were excellent models, very crisp detail.

This was most of a box I received in trade, there are 2x 12 musketeers and 1 x 15 pike with command. There are a limited number of poses on the sprues, but the diversity of hats and bit of variation in colour goes a long way.

I especially like the commander with two pistols blazing



I wasn't sure which regiment (or even which side) to go with, for the most part they were very similar. Red was worn by both sides, although it was the colour that defined the New Model Army.

Since Mark has pledged to do Parliament I will start to work on Royalists, and since I don't trust Mark to actually finish an ECW army :) I will do Covenanters as well. I plan to start with armies for DBA-RRR, which looks like a very promising variant for the period
http://www.scribd.com/group/82216-dba-rrr-renaissance-reformation-and-restoration

I will build up to playing Warhammer ECW but also I am looking forward to the Black Powder ECW rules. Either of these options requires sizable armies...

So, I enjoyed doing these so much that I am going to buy/swap about $200 worth of Warlord stuff. So much for the pledge...

On the bench: A 1/72 Spartan army for HOTT/DBA until I get my hands on more ECW goodness.

DBNot

Today Mark and I tried a game of DBN using my 1/72 stuff. I ran a scenario for the battle of Vimiero, Nosey's first victory in the Peninsular. Mark played the British and I took the French

Mark, wondering what to do next.

The scenario favours the British, there were roughly equal forces and Nosey had good defensive terrain, Junot tried a right hook flanking manouever and the objective (Vimiero) is on the left.

Initial deployment

I advance the right to draw off as many rost-boeufs as possible, then moved the left flank strike force forward in two assault columns of regulars and converged grenadiers with artillery support.

The left flank advance on Vimiero

The right flank advances to draw the British away from the main attack, in the background can be seen Mark's cup of hot coffee. It was 26C today. Mark is from Newfoundland. The only other Newfie I know this well also drinks hot coffee on hot days (my dad).

The French assault columns close in on the rostis. As fate would have it, they should have worn their bullet-proof underpantalons.

At this point, the British muskets opened fire. DBN has the uber-British rule, where all British are treated as elites for shooting. So they always shoot at +5 to my +4. This was a game winner for them, my formations were pushed back on their way in, arrived piecemeal, and even elite grenadiers died due to musketry before contact. Merde.

Assault columns tripping over dead comrades on their way to the British lines, where they were promptly hoisted onto their pig-stickers and shot in the derriere following the recoil.

So the French broke shortly after making contact. We tried it again a second time, and I did better getting the columns into actual contact. Then we rolled ones and died after recoiling and getting shot again.

This +1 for being British modifier in DBN is pretty devastating. It means the British should never melee unless the odds are overwhelming. +1 shooting is a pretty big advantage (50% better skirmishers, 25% better line troops) and I think historically unjustified. C'est l'arse. I hate games that do this "uber-mensch" kind of modification. The French just as often benefit from it (e.g. Shako) and it still sucks. I'll tell you, England sure as hell could have used that +1 yesterday in the World Cup against the Yanks....

I liked using DBA mechanics to play this game, but I am inclined to go with DBA-Hx next time perhaps.

Next up: I've lost my mind and started a new 28mm English Civil War project.

Mark recently got me into playing HOTT, wow, what a blast I really enjoy creating an army from the ground up- you can add whatever you like as long as it fits under the 24AP allowance, and it has theme. This gave me a perfect excuse to paint up my 1/72 Zvezda Persians. This was great, what an awesome set of models. All those pinheads on TMP who knock 1/72 can boil their arses, these models are beautiful.

The army consists of one element of riders- Scythian or other types of cavalry, used to support my heavy hitting Hero on the army right flanks since they move 500 paces and can keep up.


I paired a Hero in chariot on the right flank. This is the quick strike force, in the first 3 games this pair of elements threatened a stronghold and rolled up the flank of a line of Elven blades. The chariot model is very nice:

In the center, I used one war elephant (behemoth) which gives the line punch:
The jumbo is flanked by 2 heavy cavalry (knights) who match the pace and also pursue, so are good elements to support a behemoth. Just don't get stuck behind the elephant.

My general is a Spear element with a second spear in rear support, this makes him +6 versus anything and the rear support element can strip off or turn to face a cheeky aerial in the rear. I like this combo for 4 AP, and the models are superb:
And finally, as a Persian you must be able to blacken the sky with arrows. I use 3 Shooters for my left (refused) flank, but these are very important elements in HOTT since they are very effective against aerials and lurkers, especially when they are in forest.


Today, we beat 2 undead armies and an elven force. We were VERY lucky not to lose to the elves, I rolled high on three critical shots that each could have won the game for Mark.

I suppose that confirms the result of the poll. Doesn't matter what you do if you can roll 6s.

DBA on a rainy Saturday

Bob and his daughter Jessica came over for a playdate today, Jessica played tea-party with the girls and Bob and I managed two games of DBA. Bob brought his eastern Franks (7 knights, 4 spear and a psiloi) and I faced him with my beloved Dacians (Cavalry general, 2 blade, 2 psiloi, 6 warband and a light horse). This match-up is brutal for one side, depending on who gets the terrain. Bad going favours the Dacians, open terrain favours the Franks. Fortunately for me (good fortune being a major theme for me today) I was defender in both battles, so we fought on a board dominated by big blobs of steep hills and forest.

Starting positions, Dacians are west, Franks east.

Bob concentrated his deployment in the north corner and tried to run the north flank,

Bob's schwerpunkt in game 1, preceding the ill-fated steep hill climbing expedition

then he ran into a steep hill full of warband

The trap- don't do it Bob!

Two knights died horribly in the jaws of the terrain trap, then I ran out of pips and Bob skillfully reversed out of the trap and reformed in front of his camp.

A tactical withdrawl that Rommel would have been proud of

I eventually caught up with him and formed up, I drew one knight forward with my light horse and the knight eventually died flanked, then fortunately for me his general ended up with his butt against the board edge when he filled the gap in the line and he died on a recoil.

The second game was dicier, similar deployment, but Bob managed to run a schwerpunckt down my flank and a knight actually reached my camp- at this point in the game the score we 2:2 and he had a chance to win the game with a +3 to +3 attack on my camp. He rolled a 1 to my 5 and it was basically game over. Bob played well, but rolled poorly. But he was a wonderful sport about it, and the cursing was modest.

Good run for the Dacians today, they now have 10 wins to 3 losses. I don't understand how this army ranks as one of the big losers all-time in the DBA stats tables, I think they are very tough on their home turf and they have some nice punch (knight & blade options) to go with their warbands.

DBA is a funny game, I reckon the outcome is determined by one third terrain, one third tactics, and one third capricious dice. If this was true, even the best players probably only win about 2/3 of the time since they cannot control 2 of the 3 factors, they can only play good tactics and hope for terrain and 6s. Today, terrain and 6s were in my favour. It's not always that way. But chance is a tremendous attribute of the replay value of the game, because this is what keeps it interesting and guarantees that no two games are alike.

I think I'll poll this. Which of the three do you think is the major factor determining DBA outcomes?

- the army's fit to the terrain
- tactics
- dice

Who says I'm bad luck?

Big batch of Brits done and dusted

I just finished a big batch of British Peninsular infantry and Rifles for Black Powder. They make up 6 battalions of foot and 2 battalions of rifles:

The rifles are the Italeri 1/72, not bad, good variety of poses:

And the foot were the new Hat box set, these are really very nice, comparable in quality to the French set I painted earlier:

I'm getting close to having the order of battle for Vimiero done. I still need a regiment of light dragoons (ordered metals since cannot find plastics with Tarletons) and to paint up another regiment of French dragoons.

The other thing on my to-do list is a Persian army for HOTT. I have been looking for an excuse to paint a 1/72 Persian collection up, and Wall got me onto the idea of playing HOTT. I think my first army will feature a behemoth (war elephant) some scythed chariots (knights) cavalry (riders) and lots of bows (shooters).

Italian allies for the Punic Wars

This week I finished off a box of Italian allies for the Punic War (1/72 Hat). This set has quite a nice variety of poses and shield types. It also gave me the opportunity to finish off a bunch of shield transfers for Greeks and Romans.


I struggled with the decision of whether to make the stands varied in appearance, according to shield type, colour, etc:
Or whether to make them more uniform, so that each stand represented forces from particular area:


I dunno, what do you guys think? I think I like the variety style basing for these troop types, whereas for Romans or Napoleonics I prefer to keep more uniform pose composition on each stand.