9th November, Tarrington

 

After our weekend in Kenilworth, the following Saturday saw us head off towards the Welsh border for the first round of a new Society of Ancients sponsored UK DBA League season.

This event uses the scramble format ... everyone picks/takes their army but, mostly, the army you play with is drawn randomly from a pool of everyone's submissions.  But (a) you fight against your own army the first round; (b) you fight with it in the last round; and, (c) in between, you will always get a different army and it won't be your own.

Further, the terrain selections come as part of the package.

I particularly like this last aspect as it allows the 'thinking' of the army to be complete.  I also think it speeds the set up ... it is difficult enough to hit the ground runnig with an army which might be completely new to you.  Being defender and having to choose the terrain modules as well would be a lot to think about.

 

I decided to go with Early Lombard as I was looking at needing to refurbish the warbands and updating the photographs ...

Here is the new gallery: Early Lombard 

That, and I thought it would be a solid sort of an army that I knew how to play with.  Tarrington requires that you specify before round one whether dismountable troops will fight on foot or mounted (and then everyone has to follow that choice): the 4 'follower' knights can dismount as warband (so I opted to define them as infantry).

So the Lombards would fight as a 3Kn Gen + 4x 3Kn; 4 x 4Wb and 3 x 3Bw.  I managed to defeat them in the first round and win with them at the end - so, for me, at least, that arrangement was the right one!

 

(Double prize fund ... books (left) offered in reverse order ... trophies for the players and their armies)

Armies I fought with and against over the six games included Dacians, Hyksos, Irish, Early Achaemenid Persian, Tuareg, Midianite and Khazar.  And Lombard.

 

(Baptism of fire ... taking the Dacian/Sarmation combo up against my Lombards)

 

(Tarrington 2019: some more of my games)

 (Tarington 2019: with the Early Lombards against the Khazars ...)

 

(Tarrington 2019: prizes for the best and worst armies plus the slayer award for the player with the bloodiest games)

 

Surprisingly, I won all six games, and so won this round of the UK DBA League.  I was able to beat the Lombards in game 1 and win with them in game 6.  And I got the lucky for the games in between. 

Actually, I'm surprised how badly the Lombards did (13th out of 16 scoring only 7 points all told, 3 of which were mine in the last game): then again, I was lucky not to have to fight Tuareg with it.

The top scoring army was Papal Italian.  The most challenging was one of the two Tuaregs (the other tuareg did quite well so don't read too much into any of this) ...

Here's some results

Position Points         Player                 Army                   Army Points Army Pos. Slayer Points
      1        18         Phil Steele         Early Lombard                       7              13                   33
      2        12         Patrick Myers   Dacian/Sarmatian                  13              4                    34
      3        11         Craig Allen     Later Carthaginian/Spanish         9             10                    27
      4        11         Colin O’Shea    Papal Italian                           16              1                    30
      5        11         Stephen Finn   Medieval Irish                          14              2                    31
      6        10         Richard Pulley  Khazar                                  10              8                    33
      7          9         Baldie              Early Ach'm. Persian/Lykian   10              9                    30
      8          9         Alan Davison     Later Hyksos                          7             11                   37
      9          9         Pete Duckworth Norse Irish/Anglo-Norman        4             15                   34
    10          9         Scott Russell     Tuareg                                 13               3                   36
    11          9         Neil Mason        Midianite                               11              5                    35
    12 Mark Johnson, Tuareg; 13 Mark Skelton, Numidian; 14 Martin Smith, Makkan; 15 Matthew Davison Early Imperial Roman; 16 Pete James, Sub Roman British (Vortigern)

 

(Tarrington 2019: the top 3, with Craig in the middle)

 

(more armies from the Tarrington scramble credits to Martin Smith)

So, another UK DBA League season begins.  Tarrington is a great event and a special challenge.  Well done Martin for putting it all together.

On a broader note, I know the players would like my to register our thanks to the Society of Ancients for their continued support of the League.  It brings people together and that is much appreciated.

 

(Tarrington 2019: the 'players and umpire' publicity shot)

DBA Special ... III/2 Early Lombard

This is the army I used in a pair with Maurikian Byzantines at Bakewell (where it did very well), and as a standard entry at the DBA English Open in Portsmouth a week later.

It is 15mm of course.  The foot are quite a mix.  The mounted combine Lurkio (the most numerous) with Chariot and those splendid Ochmann sculpted Goths*

The army comes from the ducal period of Lombard expansion in Italy and Faroald was a constant thorn in Byzantium's side.  The element uses all Lurkio figures.

The army has a lot of knights ... a general plus 8 more, half of which can choose at deployment to dismount as warband (all or none) ... so is superflexible too ...

I have to confess to getting the slashes (all or none) wrong at Bakewell - but it was consistent for both players and didn't win anything (so hopefully no harm done and all fixed now)

 

(Wagons by Gladiator)

 

(the raider with captives is an Essex piece - the only one in the army)

And just in case you need a BUA ...

*originally, Metal Magic, then Gladiator, subsequently at Black Hat (but now, I'm given to understand available from Fighting 15s) ... Lovely figures and always worth a look.

28th October, Portsmouth

A week later and it was down to Portsmouth for the final round of this year's UK DBA League ...

The English DBA Open

Let's get on with the games ... I took the Early Lombard half of my new pair of armies blooded at Bakewell ...

As in previous years, four games were played within a pool (with your own armies) to promote four players into a semi-final/final run off using preset armies ... and the rest of us (mostly) then support a 'plate' competition.

Here are my pool games ...

(Early Lombard vs Maurikian Byzantine!  Who'd have thought it?)

(Early Lombard vs Indian)

(Early Lombard vs Tuareg)

(Early Lombard vs Imperial Roman)

I made it to the Plate competition, where I lasted one round!

... I was knocked out by the eventual winner ... Meanwhile the top players played their finals ...

Which Arnaud won, reshuffling the pack for the League positions also.  This one did (all) come down to the final round!  Well done to all the players in a tightly fought season.