Pikes in DBMM
We organised a small DBMM200 (222AP) tournament last weekend. It ended up being held in my gaming room. As we were only six persons participating in the end, space was no problem and we had three separate 200-tables in the same room. Could have fitted a fourth in without major problems, and a few more elsewhere around the house. But anyway, it worked out well. Very nice not having to transport my stuff to and from the competition as well, it more than compensated for the extra work before and after the event I would say.
Theme was Book II period, but it ended up being a very roman-centric competition:
3 Marian roman armies, 1 Polybian Roman, 1 Ancient British, and 1 Seleucid (mine).
I had been toying with various concepts, but decided to try something different. People always say (at least those that I’ve talked to) that pikes aren’t worth taking – which for me is a challenge that needs to be accepted.
So I ended up with maximum allotment of pikes J
12 phalangites, 8 argyraspides, and one Argyraspides commander. 21 pike elements in total.
To that some Auxilia and Psiloi, a few Light Horse and one Cataphract element and an element of Companions – plus two mounted commanders
I knew there would be at least one Roman army, which I thought could prove problematic, and I feared there would be warbands coming. But I wasn’t prepared that for all armies having loads of Bd or WB…
Ah, well. Not much to do.
—
First game against Marian Romans with Bd S. Ended up fighting mainly with my “support troops” (Ax S, Kn X, Kn F) and a bit with the Pk S. The phalangites mainly being a blocking force.
The combination of S troops and Knights – and relatively aggressive play – caused early losses to the legionaries and they struggled to reorganise themselves after that. After a while they broke, but not before they had managed to kill my Cataphract Sub-General. Apart from that only minor losses. 24-1 to me
—
Second game against a horde of chariots and fast warbands… It’s hard to run away from stuff on a 200-table. But I had to try and avoid being hit by all the warbands, so I danced around to the best of my ability. At the same time I had to inflict enough casualties to break the enemy commands before they overwhelmed me. In addition their mounted arm was way larger than mine, so I couldn’t let their chariots roam around.
I sent the Phalangites forward, together with the Cataphracts, to block the cavalry between a marsh and a wood. They kept them there all game and almost managed to break them in the end.
The argyraspides danced around a bit before attacking one of the warband commands at an angle together with the Thureophoroi and the Companions. They combination inflicted serious casualties on the Brits, and after a while the first British strike command broke. But by that time the second one was getting close and my units were getting swarmed. I lost the C-in-C command, but the army as a whole was rather intact still when time was called. 15-10 to me.
—
So second placed come the last game. Again a Marian roman army with loads of Bd S. The superior blades are a bugger as they quick kill pikes on equal, as my Argyraspides general was about to find out.
But that was late in the game, and mainly postponed the outcome a bit, even though it gave me a scare in the end.
The romans attacked close to the sea. The battlefield had two main approaches to attack, separated by a steep hill. Next to the sea was another steep hill which I intended to grab to threathen the roman flank forces.
Three 1’s in round one made my attack a bit slow. But I sent Psiloi over the crest on the hill on my right in order to make it hard for the romans to capture it. (I had more light troops there than my opponent, and uphill advantage).
Then I moved my Argyraspides towards the gap, facing the smaller Roman force, but I couldn’t capture the other hill as I hadn’t got the pips for it. So I had to be a bit cautious. Ended up being a game of manoeuvre on that flank as neither sided dared advance to far, as that would have ment exposing our left flank to the opponent.
So the main fighting had to be done elsewhere. The main roman force with mounted troops and legionaries advanced towards my left and centre. I counterattacked and managed to close with the phalanx, flanked by companions, and the cataphracts. My light horse fought a desperate and valiant stalling game against the Roman cavalry to prevent my line being overrun.
The Phalanx pushed the romans back, giving overlaps to the C-in-C who proceeded to kill the fist line of legionaries in his way, which in turn increased the odds for the companions who killed their frontal opponents. The cataphracts and the Sub-general faced enemy cavalry, and managed to kill one of these. Meanwhile the light horse continued to survive…
The roman counterattack failed to kill a single phalangite, and that meant that it would basically be a matter of time (unless the dice gods would betray me) before that command broke. Another attack on my part made their lines crumble.
The Roman commander then launched a desperate counter attack against my Argyraspides, hoping to break them before their own command would be overwhelmed (or the mounted command was destroyed as well, as that was now in a pretty tight spot).
This attack was initially very successful – killing my general in the first combat – but the command stayed in the fight long enough to allow me to envelop the romans.
A quick game which ended 21-4 to me and that also meant I ended up top spot, getting the trophy that I myself had gotten for the competition. Maybe not that polite, but anyway…
DBMM stats
Just finished this year’s LinCon DBMM tournament. It did not end well, despite using a rather familiar army. I have used my Samnites in 43 competition games it seems, and although I have a win ratio of over 60% with them I failed miserably this year. Ended up not rock bottom, but well away from any podium places.
And my Statistics took a bit of a hit as well. 2016 is beginning to looks like a really bad competition year. But at least I have already played more games than I did in 2015, which is at least something.
Battle Reports
I usually find battle reports fun to read, but writing them sometimes tends to get boring as they are generally rather similar in style. Thus, every now and then I tend to do something different. A bit like back in the days when we played the Empires in Arms boardgame a lot and I usually took the part of chronicler. After a few games I got bored of just noting down the events and created a French (I was playing France) paper. So all the events were seen through very French eyes, and only the items that were of French interest got good coverage. This in turn encouraged the Austrian player to do a similar thing etc.
By chance more or less I found a DBMM League report I wrote a couple of years ago. The log on the Rankings page says something like:
Scots Isles and Highlands 21 4 Konstantinian Byzantine
Scots Isles and Highlands 11 14 Early Bulgar
Scots Isles and Highlands 3 22 Fatimid Egyptian
Scots Isles and Highlands 22 3 Norse Viking and Leidang
I could have noted down commands, deployment, main events etc, just like I would do normally. Instead I did a little piece on the imaginary hero, the unbelievable, Bogus MacDeath (the commander of the Highlander Allied Contingent).
Finding it now it brought back memories from those games that I am not sure a regular report would have done… But then again it might be a total bore to read for someone else. So read at your own peril
A famous charge
I took my Polish cavalry to the SiF 2013 competition in Stockholm (actually Sollentuna) last weekend. Basically it was my first “real” FoW competition ever. (Have played a few test games before, but never with a completely painted army, so they don’t count.)
It was also my second ever v3 game (I had a test game against a friend two weeks before the comp to get to know the rules and to try army composition as well)
Game 1 – vs Russian Infantry
First game was against Soviet infantry. A fun game against the endless hordes where none of us managed to win. In the end a 2-3 loss. At least my cavalry got to run done a lone infantry team before being blasted to bits. (4 out 5 failed saves on 3+ on the incoming fire after the charge)
And the armoured train got blown to bits (It always does, but it is such a cool thing so I find it hard to be without).
We also had an very cool shootout between tankettes, armoured cars, and Russian tractors… The FT-17 was also involved and got a few kills.
Polish Winter War
The second game was defending against German pioneers in the winter. I argued I shouldn’t be allowed to play on that table, as Poland wasn’t in the war come winter. However, stranger things were to come.
Anyway, the Germans came at us through the snow, infantry dismounted, and tanks bogging down every now and then. I held the mounted cavalry in ambush, and then unleashed them early. They made a fast circling move, hitting one of the infantry platoons near a small woods. The infantry took casualties and retreated into the woods. The cavalry charged again and rode them down. The German commander responded by encircling the woods with tanks, in order to protect his artillery from being charged by the cavalry, and the cavalry dismounted and dug in in the woods. This tied up the enemy so much that the main thrust lost power enough for me to defeat it, especially when the train arrived soon after.
The third game was another defensive battle – this time in North Africa!!!
Italian armour, tankettes, and motorcycles en masse. The stalwart Poles fought bravely, trying to stem off the horde of attackers. In the end the Italians failed to capture any objectives, and also failed to knock out the train that kept gunning away at any Italians coming too close on the Polish right flank.
There was a big naval gun shooting at the train for most of the game. However, it had extremely little impact… On the other hand, the heavy artillery car bombarded it over and over again, with very little effect as well. The tankettes were just out of range, and couldn’t move in for the kill until very late either, as their commander was hiding under his tank, refusing to get back in… I think my main heroes in this battle was the AT guns and the HMG team. They did their best to fight off everything the Italians threw at them.
Ok so one losing draw and to wins in day one. That’s good! Little did I know what day 2 had in store for me. There had been signs. I just hadn’t seen them. The cavalry’s failure to save in game 1, the train’s inability to destroy the Russian AT guns… The Tankette Commander’s inability to get back into the tank against the Italians. I was thinking those were just unlucky dice rolls, things that even out in the end. But no, they were the tip of the Iceberg – the lead up to the Grande Finale…
Ok, so come on day two!
My fourth game was against German Panzers. I was surrounded and defending. I had the railway track going across one flank, and placed some defenders there as well, but the majority of the forces were on the other side. I was hoping the train would knock out whatever was going to show up there, and then let all the other forces redeploy to face whatever was assaulting my other flank. With some luck the train would survive and be able to barrage the area around the other objective as well… Well that was the plan anyway.
The train came up against a bunch of Pz IIs, some heavy Panzerspäh, and two 88’s. On the other flank, PZ Is, Pz IVs and some Panzerspäh made their way towards their objective. I needed effect quickly to whether the storm. Also, I failed a bit in my deployment so my AT-guns didn’t have optimal fields of fire.
OK the train came on, missed, survived, missed again and was blown up by the Pz IIs…
I blasted everything I had, including the tankettes and the FT-17 at the German Tanks and 88’s. I bailed one tank, and destroyed one… In two complete rounds of fire from a full train…
The somewhat poor deployment, and the miserable performance of the train meant I couldn’t focus on defending one objective, and in the end I failed at even breaking a single enemy platoon…
The army didn’t have enough AT capability so this was always going to be an uphill struggle, but deploying badly, and then dice rolling even worse made it a total misery.
Last battle of the tournament, attacking dug in German infantry in the desert.
So, back in the desert again. This time the approach was blocked by three impassable cliffs. To make matters worse the German pioneers threw out barbed wire as well… Three objectives; two clustered close together along the railway line, and one far from them, behind the barbed wire. My plan was to feint towards the lightly defended objective on my left, and then swing in everything against the heavily defended duo, in order to prevent my opponent withdrawing it before I captured it. Risky plan perhaps, but at least I would have a target rich environment. Additionally there was AT-guns ambushing somewhere.
I decided to try the “Bypassed” rule to keep my opponent guessing, and to be able to come on and attack his massed AT guns and mortars from behind. So I sent my dismounted cav on a journey…
My train rolled on, the Tankettes and the FT 17, rolled off and more or less onto objective one. We opened fire and after that the FT-17 and his two TKS comrades decided to try and assault the guys holding it… The assault went well, and the German Schützen, Pioneers, and AT guns holding were soon running away…
So troops on the objective on turn one. Decent start, but of course the action as just about starting. The Germans unpinned and started to dig in again. They opened a return fire, and the Luftwaffe arrived… I lost some troops, the front artillery car, and the FT-17. Both of the TKSs were ‘Bailed’, so the platoon needed to make a Platoon Morale check. Of course, with the commander dead they wouldn’t be able to move, but they were where they were supposed to be, and if they could use their MGs they could hopefully keep the Germans down a bit… Ok, so I rolled a 2 on the Platoon Morale.
Actually, in short order I rolled 5 Platoon Morale checks over the coming turns, rolling 2’s on the first four of them – no re rolls…
Ok so things were going badly. However, I managed to pin all defending units, and the mounted cavalry had recovered from some pinning and were on the move again (after of course failing to recover in their first round pinned, despite being able to re-roll). I swung them over and almost got within charge distance of the infantry protecting one side of the two objectives. Ok they would suffer some fire on their way in, but hopefully enough would make it to contacts, which would hopefully have effect. All I needed to do was roll a 3 or higher. Guess what? I didn’t
I don’t think I need to go on. I think you get the picture. The bypassed dismounted cavalry? They never showed up. Oh, and all these failed Platoon Morale checks meant I had to roll for Company Morale as well…
Anyway, suffice to say I didn’t win that one. By the end I was just laughing. The funny thing is my opponent certainly didn’t need any help. He was a better player than me anyway, in a god position… J
So end result: 12th out of 22 I think. But at least I was voted best sport… Got an OSS blister as prize. I wonder what they may be… And I had a good time, met some really nice people and got a weekend of gaming.
Danish DBMM International Challenge 2013
The following is an attempt to describe my attempt at using an Early Libyan army competitively.
I took it as I felt I had the chance of actually getting it up to 400AP if I focused my painting a bit, and in the end I more or less succeeded with that part…
I didn’t really expect to do well as I had only tried it 3 times (at lower AP) with really depressing results.
Army Structure
Basically the army has three Libyan commands and one rather small Sea Peoples Command
I also selected the Delaying Battle stratagem to be used when attacking.
- Command 1 is a Bow I (18) and Hd S (11) command, with some Ps O and I and a few Cv O chariots.
- Command 2 is a Wb F (20) command with some Hd S (6) and some Ps I
- Command 3 is a Hd S (15) command with some warbands (9) (and Ps O and I)
- Command 4 is the allies with 8 Bd F and some 8 Ps I
Day one
Game 1
Vs Sea Peoples – Jonathan
I was invading but terrain fell relatively well for me anyway. A sea on my left flank, a gentle hill and some dunes in the middle of the table, and some more dunes to my rear left.
Early Libyans vs. Sea Peoples – Initial Set up
I delayed my Wb command and placed my Sea Peoples on my left. The centre was held by the Hd command and the left by the Bows, hordes and chariots.
Relatively early I got the warbands on and squeezed them in between the Hd command and the Sea Peoples. This meant Jonathan had to slow down his advance on that flank as he tried to widen his army and at the same time move out from 2 deep before I hit hm.
His main attack was on my right where his blades, chariots and especially his Ax I !!! did a sterling job against my bows, hordes and chariots, always threatening to envelop that flank.
There was a long skirmish in the centre where his huge Bd F command held of to get troops through the Dunes, and waiting for the outflanking move on my right to come off. In the end I had to let my Hds and Wb go down from the Hill they had been on, and attack him to try and force a decision. He had some initial success, but after a while, both there and on my left, where some heroic Ax I had held out against my blades for 3 bounds to prevent me from getting round the Sea peoples flank, his blades ended up 2 deep and my warbands started killing a handful at a time.
However, the last push was not to be, I had a few blades overlapped two deep that where about to be hit by the central warbands when time was called.
I had broken his right and he mine, but neither of us had had time to capitalise on it properly.
Early Libyan vs Sea Peoples, bound 2. My allies moving towards far left to outflank opponent Bd O and to leave space for the delayed Libyan swordsmen.
My losses where 38% and his 31%, so a 13-12 to me for being the invader. .
A decent start, although I would really had liked to have that final round of combats in my bound, as it could have tipped the scales a bit…
I then learned that the Kushite list used had loads of irr Bw O and no knights, and I really hoped I would be facing that next, as it felt like the best possible match up for my army. Alas that was not to be during the whole tournament. Not sure I would have defeated it of course, but of the armies there I feel that one had been the best possible match up for me.
Game 2
Vs Italian Hill Tribes (Hernici) – Richard.
A very strange game where I decided to flank march the Hd command (didn’t show up until last bound and had no effect whatsoever)
Basically Richard took a very aggressive stance and I had to fight the battle without a third of my troops.
Crap deployment and a desperate fight following. Good beer though.
I deployed poorly, and let him get around my left flank. He spearheaded the attack with his Ax S, and I tried to recover from being totally outflanked. My Hordes and warbands were fighting Ax S and my Ps I were fighting Ax O !!!
Fighting soon ensued all along the front, my Sea Peoples fighting his Greek Ally, and my Bow command was facing Cavalry on a hill that started dismounting as Wb S, and more Ax.
Vicious fighting indeed. My main tactic was to try and kill as many Ax S as I possibly could even when it meant exposing my troops to counter-attacks, as they were double the ME of the ”core units”.
In the end that paid off. The command leading the assault broke, taking the allies with them, and their losses, together with the losses on the other command and the ME carry over effect broke the army.
Despite having lost quite a few elements the total was less than 20%
23-2 to the Libyans, and 2nd place after the first day.
Day 2
Greg was top of the gang after day one. His LSA list is a very good combined arms list, and Greg knows how to use it.
Goal for the day was to get enough points to remain on the top half at least.
Game 3
Vs. Later Sargonid Assyrans – Greg
The LSA army is small fast, and hard to break with its reg BG (including S) so I did not want to risk a flank march this time as I felt I could be ripped apart before I really had the time to do anything about it.
I invaded again, but managed to get some pieces of rocky flat down, especially a large central area, and a rough hill in my deployment zone. Additionally Greg place a few vineyards, one ending up on my far left.
Early Libyans vs LSA mid game
Of course I doubled him on the deployment dice, and got to deploy first. I put my Bw command on the shrubby hill and intended to move the Hds with the CinC to block the gap between the hill and the Vineyard if Greg would attack there, and then try to get the Psiloi into the Vineyards. The Warbands faced the large rocky patch, and the Sea peoples deployed behind them. The large Hd command deployed on the left.
I figured Greg would have to pick a side to attack on and I intended to make sure he wouldn’t be able to switch once committed. He deployed opposite my left flank, so I pushed the warbands forward as fast as I could and the Ps oO from the Hd command on the extreme right. The sea peoples moved to cover the gap between the shrubby hill with the Bw and the warbands.
Greg put up a defensive force of Ax s, Ps, and LH to stem my attacked and moved a strike force against my left, with Bw, SP S and O, Ax S, and most importantly Kn S chariots. He also had a mounted contingent hovering in the centre.
My plan now was to delay for as long as I possibly could on my left, moving Ps and Cv back and forth to ensure it took as long as possible for Greg to deliver his attack. I didn’t have enough troops there to win, so it was more a matter of stalling. On my right I pushed forward with my warbands and try to wheel them to get a good angle.
My first assault was ver successful, and the Ax were starting to take losses. So I pushed forward even more, hoping to break through and damage the Baggage command as well.
The Sea Peoples could only attempt to stall as well, as they where left facing a mix of Cv S and Kn S.
A view of the attacking Libyans from the enemy Baggage
After a while I had broken through all along the line and I got some rear attacks on various troops, invluding a Cv S or two. That broke that command and I was at that stage also attacking the Bg S. However, the Bg withstood three straight attacks by my Wb.
In front of the baggage was a large collection of levies (hordes) that provided a tempting target as well for my victorious warbands.
However, my left was under pressure, and in an attempt to stem off disaster Greg threw everything at me (including the kitchen sink). He killed enough Sea peoples to almost, but not quite disheartening them, and my left was bulging. I survived that onslaught, but took extreme losses due to some bad dierolling.
So I tried to remove my General from the danger zone, but could get him far enough away, I again had a go at his right flank, but failed to get enough impact and he again threw everything forward. A broken Cv S (That had been locked in combat for a while killed a Bd and three unlucky Ps getting caught in a column behind. And a Kn S reached My CinC thanks to killing one of my units and being able to follow up in my bound.
Of course I rolled a one with my general and that plus the losses on the Hordes and the chariots broke that command, The +2 ME effect broke the Sea Peoples Command, and the +4 ME effect was enough to dishearten the WB command. What was worse, those 4 extra ME was also what was needed to break the army.
The Assyrians had taken just below 30% so I only got 4 VP from the game. Very disappointing as I felt I had played really well.
Game 4
Vs. Lydians – David
The worst match up of the weekend for me. Dave had loads of Kn F and these were supported well by Lh and Ax S and Ps S and a bunch of AX O to beef up morale and numbers.
I tried flank marching the Sea Peoples, delaying the battle to increase the chance of them arriving.
Unfortunately there was almost no terrain of any use on the table. And David got very high pips on the first bound and his army surged forward before I had the chance to spread out. I then rolled two ones and a 2 for the Libyan commands, meaning I had to go forward with my Wb (against his knights) which I didn’t want, and I couldn’t get my Hordes out to face his Ax S, instead these managed to trap my Ps O.
The bow struggled to get into a good position against his LH and Ps on my right.
The only good thing was that the Sea Peoples rolled a 6. However, they would have to race to be able to hit something, as they were mainly going to face thin air. (And a few Cv and LH to stall them).
The knights hit the Hds screening the WB, and destroyed more than a few of them. The Ax on the Lydian right were hacking away against my Ps and Hd. I diverted a few Ps from the Sea Peoples to attack the supporting Ax O in the rear but in the end I onl managed to kill one Ax in three attempts.
Meanwhile the CinC’s command killed a few elements, and opened up the flank on my right. The Warbands killed a few knights with their counter-attacks, and the Sea Peoples reached the enemy baggage, and managed to kill a LH and thereafter Box in a Cv Chariot.
The rightmost (from my pov) Knight command broke, but it was too late really. About the same time my Hd command broke, and that in turn disheartened the warband command, which basically took away all their momentum, and also meant they wouldn’t really stand a chance against the knights any-more.
One last bound of mine, where I tried to cause some more damage was followed by an onslaught against the warbands, which was enough to break them, and with them the army.
21-4 to David (who had taken somewhere between 20 and 30% losses)
these two results meant I dropped all the way down to 6th place. A tad disappointing considering I was so close in game three. and I miserably failed to achieve the goals for day two, instead dropping down to 6th place.
Summary
A good weekend, four really nice opponents, brilliant weather (my first ever DBMM comp outdoors), nice beer, and generally good games – but a disappointing second day with the results in mind. The Ally contingent is a fragile thing, and both the 2ME carry over and the effects of losing Generals can be devastating for a “1/2-ME army”.
I do actually think I can make this lot work and I felt the Hd S / Wb F combo actually works.
There might actually be a next time – but with a slightly different army composition.
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