Gaming in a time of lockdown #2 - Air Superiority 1918

Preparing for this game has taken a little longer than I expected.  I had to add some stuff to the rules and I still don't have a set of spotting rules I am entirely convinced by.  Then again the point of play testing is to settle on the rules that work and are fun to play.

New rules include acceleration and deceleration rates in level flight which vary from aeroplane to aeroplane very slightly and a set of workable kinetic energy rules (at least I think they are workable).  I need to create some kind of height dials for my flight stands so for now the data on the flight charts will have to do.  I have reworked the flight charts by adapting the chart from Richtofen's War.  This was done as that system doesn't require a generic card for each and every aeroplane type.  Which is a relief as I now have a start on the basic game data for almost 100 operational types that flew over the Western Front.

As previously mentioned the point of this game is to try out special manoeuvre rules to allow some basic fighter tactics to be used.  The combatants are a pair of SE5As of the Royal Flying Corps on one side and for the Luftstreikrafte a selection chosen from an Albatros DVa a Fokker DVII and Halberstadt and Rumpler C class two seaters.  The dogfight should involve more than the turning fight typical of 1916 and early 1917, or at least that is the plan.  The toys are from Irregular Miniatures (the SE5As and Fokker DVII) and Heroics & Ros for the remaining German types.  Transfers of German crosses and RFC roundels are  I-94.  The lozenge camouflage and ID letters and numbers I made myself.

The potential participants.  Not much difference between the Irregular Minis and the H&R ones once painted

In the above photo we have a Rumpler CV with the green and brown camouflage flanked by a Halberstadt CLII to the left and a Fokker DVII to the right.  Behind that is an Albatros DVa (Orange and white) flanked by two SE5As.

The table is blank with no ground clutter to worry about and although I have plans for introducing rules about cloud cover, for this game it is clear blue skies.

My original plan was to have both sides enter from opposite sides of the table.  That has changed as when the lockdown started I read an article in Miniature Wargames no 373 by Martin England on solo gaming using a threat generation system.  This seems to be something that could work for solo air combat games as it builds in some fog of war, variable entry and direction and some vague spotting rules via the back door, as in if the enemy appear close by  it's assumed you had failed to spot them.  For game purposes I am playing a when they appear you have spotted them rule for my aeroplanes.  Crude but workable for solo games.  Martin's system was designed for land warfare but the basic ideas could be (and were) adapted.

The threat generation system
Before the game starts draw up a chart of ten potential encounters Using playing cards you could expand that but ten seems a nice round number the worked example assumes a pack of ten potential encounters hence using 10 cards for the initial pack, one per possible sighting.   Remember that these could be triggered on consecutive turns so tailor the number of enemy aircraft produced on each sighting accordingly.  My list for this game is:

1. Two scouts
2. Two scouts
3. One scout
4. Single two seater and two scouts
5. Two two seaters
6. Two two seaters
7. One two seater and one scout
8. One two seater and one scout
9. One two seater
10. One scout

Next take a pack of playing cards and select ten cards from one suit, Ace to 10 (if you use more or less encounters in your list increase/reduce the number of cards). Without seeing the face of the cards shuffle them and select two cards at random for each aircraft you are going to use on the player side and discard the rest.

Now from a different suit add the same number of cards  as you have been left with for actual encounters (I suggest using red for live units and black for the extra cards representing dummy sightings).  These extra cards will be dummy sightings where no enemy appears on the table.

Shuffle the cards and discard 1/3 at random still sight unseen (rounding down if necessary).  Lastly add 2 cards from the dummy sighting suit for each aircraft you are using on the player side, shuffle again and place face down to the side of the playing area.  This means most turns will generate a 'dummy' sighting.

If I have done my maths correctly for two player aircraft this should give me between one and three actual encounter cards At worst if they drop consecutively and the worst options come up I could face 6 scouts and a two seater almost simultaneously  At best a single two seater all on it's lonesome.  That seems like a reasonable mix and the worst case is pretty unlikely to happen

At the start of each enemy turn, turn over the top card and if it is a sighting check the encounter table.  Discard that drawn card it has done it's job.  Once all the possible live encounter cards have been turned then the game continues until one side has driven the other off the table or shot them down.

Of course you will also need to determine the speed, direction, distance and altitude of the threat.

For speed I assume that enemy aircraft are flying at cruising speed  Under my rules I set this as maximum speed less 3 movement points subject to always being at least  one above stall speed.

Direction uses the tool below to decide where the enemy are (using the nose of the lead player aircraft as the starting point.) The arrow on the tool is pointed in the direction the lead player aircraft is facing..  Throw 2D6 and that is the direction the enemy are spotted in.  The numbers create a bias towards creating threats ahead rather than behind.  Mine was drawn using MS Paint and glued to a passing 8cm x 8cm  2mm MDF base I bought for DBA camps.  The player leading aircraft is regarded as located at the centre of the tool when checking direction and distance of the enemy.

The threat direction gadget- this is 6cm square for my 1/300th planes

To determine distance throw 4D6 this is the number of movement units they are away.  In my rules the aircraft are mounted on hexagons and all movement is measured as the distance across a hex flat to flat.  Aircraft carry their hex around with them as a base, if that makes sense, all other hexes are measured relative to that.  So one movement unit is one hex width. You can adapt this to your own game rules and change the distance max and mins accordingly) 

For direction of travel use the direction tool again place the centre on the enemy location and point the arrow towards the player's nearest aircraft.  Throw 2D6 and you have the opening direction of flight.

For altitude we don't want them too far above or below as the whole point is to fight the random enemy!  I set three possible positions:

Above - a band 2,500 feet high above the top of the level band
Level - a band 1,000 feet above and below the current altitude of your aircraft.
Below - a band 2,500 feet below the bottom of the level band.

So if your aircraft are at 5,000 feet, 'level' is from 6,000 to 4,000 feet, 'above' is from 6,001 to 8,500 feet and 'below' is from 3,999 to 1,500 feet.  I have decided that entry heights will be capped at d at is 20,000 feet and the lowest is 1,000 feet.  This is for playability purposes.  I simply dice for the height band then the actual height within those altitude bands is further selected at random using  height divisions based upon your rule set of choice, mine are 50 feet, not that it matters.

Once placed on the table and the initial position, height and flight path has been set then play the enemy to your best  ability.  Remembering that two seaters will attempt to escape as they have a mission to complete while scouts will attack if they can and if not will attempt to gain a good attacking position.  I have some ideas about an AI combat system but more on that in another post.

The game.
I'm going to steal a good idea from the Jolly Broom Man's blog and put game mechanism explanations in red so you can spot when I break off from the game narrative.

The two SE5As (A and B but Algy and Bertie sound so much more personal) enter at 6,000 feet in echelon formation with Algy leading.  They are both standard pilots so have a resolution of 10 each .  [Pilot resolution is reduced as hits are taken.  Hits don't do damage to the aircraft which are mostly a lot of nothing wrapped in canvas, but they can trigger a damage check]. They fly straight and level this turn cruising at  8MP (about 160 KPH/100MPH).  On the enemy turn a card is drawn.......it's a dummy sighting, let's put it down to a flock of birds or caster oil smears on the googles.

Algy and Bertie continue on their merry way.  The next card is now drawn.  Its.....another blank, the boys are starting to get a bit jumpy.  This time our intrepid aviators make a turn to starboard (right)  (it's ingrained not to fly straight and level in the combat zone).  Next card.........another blank.  Algy signals Bertie and they start a steady climb gaining  150 feet to place them at 6,150 feet.  Next card .....Tally Ho!

A six of hearts gives a pair of two seaters with no escorting scouts in view.  Direction check next which rolls a 5 on 2D6 so the enemy are at the 3 o'clock position of Algy but passing towards the rear of the SE5As (an 8 on 2D6).  Speed is 5MP and height is in the level band but slightly above  at 6,600 feet [I used an online randon number generator for calculating the exact height within the 'level' band] and 17 MPs (1020 metres or just over half a mile) away.  The two seaters are cruising and don't appear to have seen the British scouts.  [We could have worked all this out before putting toys on the table and used the threat generator to simply create the opening positions].

Algy signals an attack and opens up the throttle to 10MP while starting a climb towards the enemy.  His intention is to achieve a lead pursuit position (with his nose ahead of the enemy aiming for where it will be when he reaches firing range.  This also creates a situation where he should be in the blind spot of the German two seaters as he climbs. He ends the turn at 6,300 feet [gains 150 by climbing but no hard turns which would loose 50 feet for a second hex side turned in the same hex] still two turns of hard climbing away from interception.  The next card is another blank so the stalking continues. The German pilots fail their spotting test and continue heading for home. The SE5As continue to climb while turning into the two seaters predicted path.  An attack from below and behind should have the least risk for them.

Turn three and another dummy card is turned however this turn with the SE's closing the German's spot the threat.  They go into a shallow dive and turn into their attackers.  This is probably not a good time for the RFC chaps to realise that the Halberstadt CLII is classed as an escort fighter and ground attack plane so is a bit handier in a scrap than most German two seaters.  It can turn with the SE's out climbs them but isn't as fast and can't out dive them.  Oh and it has a nasty sting in the tail. There is only a 200 foot height difference now and both Germans open fire (I have added a 3D range chart so targets above or below can be fired on, if the shooting aircraft is able to bring guns to bear).  The Rumpler scores hits on Bertie but doesn't do any serious damage (hits reduce the pilot's resolution, a second check might create critical hits and actual damage).  Bertie fires a long burst (double ammo used and a +1 to hit coupled with a slight chance of jamming the guns) and sees bullets striking the Halberstadt but no apparent damage.  Bertie flies past the enemy and then carries out a rolling reversal (a half loop and roll out) to get onto the tail of the Halberstadt, sheer luck ends the move with him behind and below it, safe in it's blind spot under the tail.  Algy is still trying to line up a decent shot but without success.

Bertie goes head to head with the Halberstadt before his rolling reversal

The next turn starts and the card turned brings a third German into play.  It's the Albatros DVa off at Algie's 5 o'clock but some distance away and up at 8,750 feet, the scrap is almost 2,000 feet below so it will be a turn or more before the scout can interfere.  The Albatros drops it's nose and enters a steep dive loosing 650 feet but picking up 2 movement points of kinetic energy as it drops taking its actual airspeed up to 8 MP (160 kph).   The 2 seaters do what two seaters do and start to circle trying to keep rear guns on the British scouts.  They both fire on Algy who takes control damage from the Halberstadt, he can't turn to the right anymore.

The DVa continues to dive and is closing in on the actioon

We are now starting the fifth turn since the two seaters appeared that's 50 seconds of combat so far.  The two seaters are still turning and the SE's have been suckered into playing the German's game rather than using boom and zoom tactics.  The Albatros continues to dive hard coming down to 7,300 feet and closing the range on Bertie he opens up.  It's at at long range but with twin Spandaus up front and a good di roll scores a critical hit damaging Bertie's engine.  That SE can't make full power anymore (probably blown a cylinder) and has top power reduced by 2MP.  Even worse follows and the rumpler's rear gunner scores a critical hit on Algy......he's a flamer.  Engine blazing and taking 2 damage and 2 resolution hits a turn unless he can extinguish the fire. (Putting the aeroplane into a steep dive might do that but it needs a 6 if in a steep dive and a 5 or a 6 in a power dive).  Algy puts the nose down and enters a steep dive.  Bertie also breaks off and follows his leader.

The Albatros tries to follow Bertie but he can't dive like an SE and in trying he exceeds his safe dive speed and has to test for structural damage.  There is a nasty cracking noise and he takes two points of damage.  Bertie is pulling away and there seems to be no point in chasing him and risking the wings coming off.  (The steep dive added more kinetic energy adding another 2 MP taking the albatros one over safe diving speed.  on a roll of six his wings would have folded and as a fragile plane he adds one to the dice giving a 33% chance of that fate, not a chance worth taking). I called the game at this point and for completeness continued to check the fire on Algy's SE.  Sad to say there was an empty seat at dinner in the mess that evening.  Algy didn't extinguish the flames and his SE broke up at 500 feet.  Whether he had continued to attempt to blow the flames out or had taken the 'easy' way out, courtesy of Messrs Webley, to avoid burning to death we shall never know.

The last sight of poor Algy, desperately trying to control the flames by diving.

We should always remember, especially on VE day, that we make a game of something horrendous.  The things we recreate on a safe tabletop, real people actually did.  Where we roll a dice and make a note on a piece of paper or change a marker, in reality there was pain and death and suffering.  Let us never forget.  For our today they gave their tomorrow.

Stay safe everyone.

Progress in April - the leadpile diminishes

Lockdown has actually slowed down my painting output, odd isn't it.  I suspect it is because while still working, I'm now doing this from home every day and not just three days a week.  That means I have more freetime and things I would have been putting off are getting moved up the priority list which means that figure painting is being moved down!  The good news is that I haven't bought any more figures so the leadpile is still diminishing.

The photos are pretty poor I'm afraid its really sunny here today and my phone camera doesn't seem to cope well with contrast.

As well as the 6mm stuff, I also painted a couple of old castings in 25mm (or possibly 28mm) that have been sitting in the lead pile for a couple of decades or more.  I think they are Grenadier fantasy figures from the 1980's or 90's but I'm not sure.  They don't feature on the leadpile statistics as they aren't part of the 6mm pile.  I'm not sure how I am going to texture the bases yet.  I might try something different from my usual sand and flock approach.  These are big beasts at 30mm from the soles of their feet to their eyeline.  I have an idea in mind to use these to throw a spanner into the works for any French and Indian Wars skirmish games I might host in the future.

Not sure what these are but they will be fine as Sasquatch

During April I managed to complete 11 elements based for DBx or ADLG totalling 60 cavalry figures and 56 foot figures all in glorious 6mm-arama.  This is made up of two Late Roman Auxilia Palatina bases, 2 Sassanid LMI Javelinmen bases, 2 Gothic heavy cavalry (Roman Foederati), and 4 Late Roman Heavy Cavalry (Equites).  On top of which my resin pile is slightly smaller too.  I have completed 3 Dark Age buildings and a Roman villa.  The buildings are a mix of Levan and 2D6 and are as always lovely sculpts.

Auxilia Palatina with home made transfers on the shields

I have used Moorish Infantry for the Daylami LMI as they are Ax(Fast) in DBA and Light Medium Infantry in ADLG so a less well regimented look seemed right.  There are only 12 figures per base compared to 16 for DBA Solid Auxilia or the ADLG Medium Infantry Sword which also helps distinguish them.

Daylami Javelinmen for the Ssassanids.  

The Roman Equites are part of the revamp of my Late Imperial Romans they are Baccus late Imperial Roman Heavy cavalry.  To be honest apart from the lack of cloaks they seem almost identical to the Goth heavy Cavalry.  If need more I may try the earlier period Heavy Cavalry instead just for some variety.

Roman Equites

The Goth heavy cavalry are the first ones I have actually painted as Goths.  All the previous ones to cross the painting table have become Strathclyde Welsh noble cavalry.  I have some Goth medium cavalry in the queue and likewise those will be the first of those to be actual Goths too.  I really like the Gothic range from Baccus, nice sculpts and capable of being proxies for a huge range of other armies as they are generic Dark Age migration period barbarians.  My only historical quibble is that none of the foot have the strange, stepped shoulder, coffin shields, although that would stop them being such useful proxies.

Gothic Heavy Cavalry.  Lets claim it was at dawn and they riding out of the sunrise...or something!

The buildings are a Leven Roman Villa which has been sitting around for a year or more a small viking hut also from leven and two thatched 2D6 dark age buildings.  These work well with the leven anglo-saxon and viking range but seem a bit big compared to the leven Roman villa, still tey are never going to be side by side on the table so it's all fine, and both are simply lovely sculpts.

More Urban sprawl.  I remember when this was all rural drop terrain

The leadpile is still ahead by 265 6mm figures compared by the start of the year, but I have actually painted more cavalry than I bought so I'm ahead there by 19 figures.  Still not going to run out of figures anytime soon though, although I may need to give Irregular Miniatures some of my money for some castings that Baccus don't do, or at least don't sell in small enough numbers for what I need.It's not going to be much of an order mostly foot command figures, but you know how it is once I start to look at the online catalog almost anything could happen!

More on Ancient gaming and lists

Blogging sometimes sends me off in unexpected directions.  I like to pretend that I have some sort of idea about what I intend to write about in my next couple of posts and then one thing leads to another (or to be more accurate its more a case of  one post leads to another) and I'm off down a different rabbit hole!  So it is with this post.  My last post on army lists and balance in DBA got me thinking about the development of the DBx family of rules and how they represent a complete change of direction from the older WRG Ancients rule sets.  So I dug out the copies of the WRG  rules I have (4th Edition through to 7th) to remind myself of how they worked.

Barney looking for me down that rabbit hole or possibly digging out the rules from my filing system!

I should say at this point that I have a soft spot for the WRG ancients rules.  Like many gamers of a 'certain' vintage they were the first proper rules I used.  Before WRG I had rules by Charles Grant and John Tunstall which were as much tutorials on how to write rules as they were a fully formed set of rules.  WRG were different, from the start they were written as a set to use in competitions so had to be full and complete, or at least complete enough to not need house rules for competition use.  Second they tried to cover everything needed for the period they covered, weather, time of day, troop definitions the whole nine yards as they say.  With WRG rules an opponent and I could buy a set of rules and use them exactly as written by and large, although there was always the small matter of Phil Barker's writing style to give rise to some points of debate on interpretation.

Those rules were pretty much the only game in town, as it was a couple of years before competing rule sets arose.   Those I tried were no improvement and were often worse than WRG.  At best some were Ok but for whatever reason they came and went while the WRG sets soldiered on year after year.  I started playing using 3rd edition and as each new edition appeared switched to the new set.  The core mechanisms stayed pretty much the same right through to 6th edition.  They were detailed and often slow to play and most games I played struggled to come to a natural conclusion in a single session.  Part of the after game ritual was the discussion which usually started with 'well if we had time to play another turn I would have....'

It was 7th edition that made dramatic changes to core mechanisms.  Basing as elements and no figure removal (as with DBx) came in with that set, although the weapon and troop classes remained the same.  The command rules became more detailed and there was less scope for changing things on the fly.  One of the issues that confused me was that although units were based as elements some formations required troops to be based in part elements (such as wedge or rhomboid) which partially defeated the element concept.  For a lot of gamers the 7th was too different to earlier editions and it simply wasn't WRG ancients anymore.

Phil Barker's original concepts had stayed unchanged from 1st through to 6th edition ancients and similar concepts were used by scores of other sets as well.  Combat focussed on the armour type of the target unit and the weapon system used by the attacker.  Units lost figures once the casualty calculation reached multiples of 20 casualties (as each figure represented 20 actual men).  This had drawbacks as units tended to contract along their frontage which isn't how things worked in reality as casualties would be replaced from the rear ranks to try to maintain a units frontage.  In 7th the actual number of casualties was determined but was then used to determine if the unit became fatigued and influenced immediate reaction to the combat.  Then the casualty slate was wiped clean. Instead fatigue carried forward and impacted on the unit's performance in future turns.  No figures were (or could be) removed so frontages stayed intact.

WRG didn't develop their ancients set any further then 7th edition although others did (Warrior were, I think, developed from WRG 7th edition).  Instead Phil Barker wrote DBA.  Then he bolted on additional chrome to DBA to create firstly DBM and then DBMM, in effect he started to move back to something like a simplified 7th edition but from the other direction.

About the time 7th edition were published I drifted out of figure gaming for a while due to the usual reasons, young family, change of job and my gaming group breaking up to take new jobs in different places.  I bought a copy of 7th, read it and made notes on the mechanisms, but never played it.  To be honest I couldn't get my head around the newfangled idea of basing as elements and the lack of figure removal as that had been at the mainstay of every other set of rules I had ever used until that point.  My 25mm collection stayed based for 6th edition and didn't morph into DBx armies.

My 25mm Late Imperial Romans based for 6th Edition.  These are a mix of Hinchcliffe, Prince August hand casts, Irregular miniatures plus a few Essex

My 25mm 6th edition armies went to a good home when I downsized. The video shows them as they were when I was checking them before they went to their new home.  They hadn't been out of storage for a decade at that point which explains the loose spears and shields. The unpainted stuff had been that way for about 20 years at that point!

Having looked back over the old rule sets I can see what the design objective with 7th edition was.  I even wish I had had the chance to play them as there is a lot of good in them.  Strangely when I came to write my homebrew ECW rules many of the concepts from 7th solved design issues I had and addressed some of the playing decisions I wanted to focus on.  Looking back I can see the first glimpse of DBM, DBMM and related games like ADLG in those rules.   Personally I think that Phil Barker recognised that there was tension between detail and playability and wanted to address it with 7th.  I don't know that he achieved that  to the satisfaction of players.  The fact that he turned to DBA as a new starting point and them developed rules more akin to 7th with DBM and DBMM suggests that he was close to what he wanted but couldn't quite get there with the mechanisms of the previous sets.  None of which really matters when looking at whether DBA and it's further developments deliver a good game or not, but it is interesting to see how we got to the place we currently occupy with WRG rules.  I suspect DBA 3.0 is the last hurrah for WRG ancient and medieval rule sets but 1969 to date is a damn good run by anybodies standards and many of the current rule sets for the period owe a lot to the work done by WRG.

Over 20 years gaming right here in one place - WRG 4th - 7th editions

Comparison of army lists

Following on from my Roman v Persia DBA game over Easter I got to thinking about the balance of the standard 12 element games of DBA.  So as an exercise I converted the two armies to DBM, DBMM and ADLG equivalents using the closest matches to the DBA element choices I could find.  The results confirmed one of my views about DBA's 12 element selections which is that the armies don't give balanced match ups, even between historical enemies. DBA doesn't distinguish between Inferior, Ordinary or Superior troop categories  as DBM or DBMM do (shown by the initial after the type in brackets so (O) is an ordinary example of the type).  It doesn't have points values either as selections are made assuming all troop types are of equal value.  What the comparison did was show that this simply isn't true.

The closest match is DBM as there is almost a 1:1 equivalency in the element types if we assume all DBA troop categories are equivalent to Regular  and Ordinary troop classes in DBM.  The Army lists for my game were: 

Early Sassanid 
General (Cv), 5 Asaravan (Cv), 1 horse archer (LH), 1 elephant, 1 Daylami (4Ax) and 2 Levies (7Hd).

Western Late Imperial Roman
General (Cv), 1 Equites (Cv), 1 Cataphract (4Kn), 2 Equites Illyricani (LH), 2 legionaries (4Bd), 3 Auxilia Palatina (4Ax), 2 Light Infantry (Ps).

DBM equivalents
The DBM armies are (based on my admittedly elderly copy of DBM (1994) and equally old army lists (1993)) as follow.  All troops are solid unless noted as (F) for fast or (X) for exception.

Early Sassanid (all irregular troops)
General (Cv (S)), 5 Asaravan (Cv (O)), 1 horse archer (LH (F)), 1 elephant (El (O)), 1 Daylami (Ax (O)) and 2 Levies (Hd(O)).

Western Late Imperial Roman (all regular troops)
General (Cv(O)), 1 Equites (Cv (O)), 1 Cataphract (Kn (X)), 2 Equites Illyricani (LH(O)), 2 Legionaries (Bd(O)), 3 Auxilia Palatina (4Ax(S)), 2 Light Infantry (Ps(O)).

The points totals are interesting the Sassanids cost 90 points but the Romans are 97pts.  There isn't an option for 4Ax (O) in the DBM Late Roman list, but using the raw point cost it would only reduce the total by a further 3pts to 94.  It seems like Phil Barker considered that the Roman army is actually worth between 4.5% and  10% more than the Sassanid when he wrote the points for DBM.  Which reflects the outcome of the DBA game.  It might be argued the true cause of the discrepancy is the difference between regulars and irregulars and that does account for the points difference within DBM itself.  The way to test it is to replay the game using DBA but with DBM points values which would give the Sassanids an additional 9 pts to spend for at least one more element.  That would allow an extra Asaravan or LH element for example.

DBMM equivalents
DBMM points are identical for the Romans but has differences for the Sassanid Persians as they have to take Cv (S) for Asaravan which brings the totals to a close match of 99pts Roman and 100 pts Sassanid.  This will be something I might refight using DBMM 100 (the 100 pt DBMM light variant).

ADLG equivalents
ADLG has a different set of troop definitions although the points values are broadly similar to DBM/DBMM so I have gone back to basics and tried to replicate the troop types in ADLG terms.  I used the DBM/DBMM descriptions as they give more detail than the DBA list and make it easier to compare troop types to get the closest match possible.  In ADLG ordinary generals don't have a points cost, it is only the better generals who have to be paid for.  As result I based the list on the (stay with me here the next bit is a bit convoluted) the DBA list converted to DBM ordinary category troops and then looked for the nearest ADLG equivalent.  It isn't possible to match the DBA list exactly due to the slightly higher points costs for some troop types.  What we get is:

Sassanid (pre 430 AD)
1 x General, 5 x Asaravan (HC- Bow), 1 x Cataphract, 1 x Horse Archer (LC - Bow), 1 x Elephant, 1 x Javelinmen (LMI - javelin),  2 x Levy (levy).

Late Imperial Roman
1 x General, 2 x Equites (HC), 1 x Cataphract, 2 x Eq Sagittarii (LH - Bow), 1 x Eq Illyricanii (LH - Javelin), 2 x Legionaries (HI- Sword), 3 x Auxilia Palatina (MI-Sword, Impact), 2 x Light Infantry (LI - Bow)

I considered comparing the relative values of the two armies under the old WRG ancients rules using the 1982 6th Edition Ancient's lists.   However, the rules are so different that it wouldn't really add anything other than remind me how much I miss my triple armed legionaries!  I have a set of 7th edition but have never used them in anger, they would be closer to the DBx rules family as they are element based.  Short of trying out 7th solo, the next step is to refight the action under DBA using the DBM list and then doing it again under ADLG rules.

After all of this I have kind of reached a conclusion.  Which is that DBA as written is fine as a basic introduction to wargaming in the period prior to 1500 AD, but.....   The but being that the lists don't really provide the incentive to play some of the weird and wonderful armies that live out ot the fringes of playability because of the 12 element format.  In future I may very well simply play games using DBA rules but selecting 100 pt armies from the lists for DBM/DBMM to give a bit more balance.  That way it might actually be interesting to see a match up between lets say Italian Hill Tribes and Burgundian Ordonnance.

Random Thoughts #2 - home thoughts from, well, home

With this period of enforced lockdown restricting access to news (when was the last time there was anything of substance reported that wasn't Covid-19 related) I have begun to realise how life must have been before the mass media.  While I still turn on the news I don't actually miss the lack of the details of latest events in some far flung ex-outpost of empire or the inability of some people to realise that shooting large numbers of other people is not a sure fire way to solve problems.  I suppose it's the curse of news programmes having a set length, they have to find something to fill the bulletin with even if it's pure drivel (or Donald Trump as it is more commonly termed around here).

It's almost like we have moved backwards in time to the long ago days of my childhood.  The skies are bluer, the birds sing more loudly and sound travels without being drowned out by the incessant rumble of passing, planes, trains and automobiles.  All that is missing is the sound of passing Blackpool trams in the distance and I could be back in Anchorsholme, in my grandparent's garden in the early 1960s.  For me at least the pace of life has slowed too, as I'm working from home, so no mad rush to get to the office, no worries about travel delays and very few frantic calls from clients.  I'm begining to see the attractions of my retirement next year.

Strangely I don't seem to have as much free time though.  The absence of work related time loss means we (that's Mrs E and I) have the time to take on those bigger jobs around the house and garden we had put off until we had enough time to start and finish them at one go.  So the extra free time bizarrely means I have less free time for the things I spent that time doing before.  The real bonus is that Mrs E and I haven't spent such a long and uninterrupted period of time together since we were students.  I don't disappear for a couple of days at a time to go to visit clients  and we are both home all day everyday.  It's a wonder she hasn't done me some serious harm for being underfoot all the time (only joking).

Even George and Barney seem to be enjoying us being at home all the time. Although they are not getting as many walks as before they are getting more time with their favourite humans.  We get time to play with them in the garden and if we are doing gardening things they amble around out there taking in the smells and hoping to catch a hedgehog (which we disapprove of much to their disgust) or a small crunchy rodent.  George has signed up as apprentice hole digger, he will move up to journeymen status once he learns to dig where we actually want a hole.

George (L) and Barney (R) say stay indoors like this.

While the cause of this temporary slow down is not a thing to be happy about in any way, shape of form, if you look hard enough there are some silver linings.  With clouds as dark as these it would be horrible if there weren't.

Stay safe everyone and I hope you and yours are all virus free.

Hitting a minor landmark

Just for clarity this is not about traffic accidents, I would have to be allowed outside for that to happen!  No I have finally crawled above 20,000 pageviews.  It only took 104 posts and seven years.  I make that an average of 192 views a post or about 2,850 views a year.  which sounds a lot until you look at the stats for some of the blogs I read.  I still haven't managed to reach a huge number of followers either, clearly I have a select and discerning readership.

The most popular posts were a bit of a mixture.  The 'how to make' and 'how to paint' posts are right up there often with several hundred hits, although they take a while to to build to those numbers. Product reviews and game scenarios are also popular and tend to build up hits much more quickly but to fall away rapidly too.  I suppose I should do more of those things.  What it shows is that there are some core interests that do bring people to the page.

Putting a link on to The Miniatures Page always brings in a good number of hits surprisingly rather more than similar links from Facebook.   Perhaps I should start spamming more forums?

The good news is that this was never about my becoming a web celebrity (good thing really) but more of it being an outlet for my gaming thoughts and obsessions.  Given that I'm a gamer in his 60's sat typing in a back bedroom on a topic that is never going to set the world on fire I think I'm probably doing OK.  So here is to the next 20,000 hits.  I suspect this post will not generate many of them!

Gaming in a time of Lockdown - Solo play DBA Romans v Sassanids

As I can't play with an opponent during the current Coronavirus lockdown here in the UK I have printed off the solo expansion rules for DBA from the Fanaticus website.  These are intended for use with DBA2.2 but only need a couple of minor tweaks to adapt them to DBA3.0.  These concerned force selection and ensuring forces maximised the support rules.  DBA 2.0 amd by default DBA2.2 has rear support but no side support and that needed correcting to ensure solid bows and solid spears selection reflected the change.   I have since also added some options for garrisoning cities and forts as well.  To be honest the game I played didn't really benefit from the changes I made but they are there for next time.

In this game a Late Imperial Roman force faced an invading Early Sassanid Persian force.  It was the first outing for the Sassanids and my first attempt to use elephants.  As you will see I have learned a few things about their use.  The two armies consisted of

II/69(a) Early Sassanid (Aggressor)
General (Cv), 5 Asaravan (Cv), 1 horse archer (LH), 1 elephant, 1 Daylami (4Ax) and 2 Levies (7Hd).

II/78(a) Western Late Imperial Roman (Defender)
General (Cv), 1 Equites (Cv), 1 Cataphract (4Kn), 2 Equites Illyricani (LH), 2 legionaries (4Bd), 3 Auxilia Palatina (4Ax), 2 Light Infantry (Ps).

The solo rules require the player to select his 12 elements before  working out the options for the non player (let's call that the AI from here on in).  The rules require you to dice for the options but have modifiers to each di roll to create a balanced force related to the troops chosen by the player.  For example it has a modifier to increase the chance of taking pike elements in pairs as they get a rear support bonus which of course requires two units of pike.  You  then decide on the terrain, if the AI is the defender there are rules to determine the AI's choices and placement of the terrain.  Next you deploy then again the rules select the AI formation, group make up and deployment.  this can be a bit random and I will add a rule to avoid anything other than LH being out on a limb. They then go on to determine if you are facing an aggressive, neutral or defensive AI player.  That result will influence the tactics available to the AI each turn as the game unfolds.  There is an option to allow the AI choice of tactic to be overturned by the player if the AI seems to be making a choice which is particularly poor, but it isn't an automatic ability there is a dice roll with a small chance of the AI tactical choice being kept.

As the defender I had the choice of terrain items and placement.  Given that the Sassanids are cavalry heavy and had an elephant I decided to close the terrain down as much as possible and to try to force the elephant to attack where I wanted.  I took the obligatory pair of plough, a difficult Hill, a Bog and a wood.  The dice were reasonably kind and allowed me to load my left flank with terrain but placed the wood to my right.  With Hindsight I might have done better to select an enclosure rather than the second plough as that is always rough going.

I deployed with the Auxilia on the hill covering my left flank, cavalry and cataphracts to the centre of my line (as I expected the Persian cavalry to attack down the central avenue of good going) then the Legionaries lastly the Psiloi with and Light Horse stacked up in column at the end of the line.  I had split the Sassanids into two cavalry commands, as required by the solo rules, an infantry command containing just the levy and an elephant command with Nelly and Daylami support.  The General I kept as a separate command to be able to move him to join the best positioned command as the game developed. The dicing for the Sassanid deployment weighted the centre of the battlefield as expected but put the Levy out on the Sassanid right behind the bog.  The Elephant formed the centre of their line with the Daylami directly in front and the General sat slightly behind.  To it's right are three Asaravan Heavy Cavalry with Light Horse in the second rank.  On the other flank are the Cataphracts then two more Asaravan.

The starting deployment, Romans to the right

Turn one saw the Romans adjusting their line to place the Auxilia more squarely onto the hill with it's rough going and to bring the Light Infantry towards the centre of the line to face the elephant.  I should have remembered that in DBA any light troops or Auxilia  can quick kill Elephants.  The Auxilia would have been a better match up than Psiloi.  On their right they start to make a flanking move around the woods.  The sassanids throw for cautious tactics and only get one pip which means they can only move one element and choose to advance their right hand cavalry group.

End of turn 1, you can see the Roman line being sorted out, lucky the Persians were not more on their game!

Next turn the Romans get 3 pips and use them to continue to sort out their line, they don't have enough to move the Light Cavalry though.  The Sassanids roll cautious again but at least have a decent pip score and are able to move forward almost everywhere.  Who didn't move, yes it was the Levy!

Turn two ends and the Sassanids have started to roll forwards

Turn 3 the Romans are now fairly comfortable with their formation now and have enough pips to start the Light Horse moving again.  The Sassanids roll cautious for the third consecutive turn and again roll a single pip.  they choose to move the elephant group up, which means that they have no counter to the Roman Light Cavalry. still it's going to take a while to get anywhere dangerous.

Turn three the Romans reversed their line slightly and the Sassanids move the Pachyderms forward

By turn four things are starting to look interesting!  The first shock of the game occurs the Roman Psiloi take a chance and engage the Daylami who are exposed ahead of the elephants.  They roll well, have an overlap and the Daylami roll very badly and recoil.  Except they have a big problem, a big gray trampling type problem!  They are in base to base contact with the Elephants and can't recoil through them.  1-0 the Romans.  I told you I learned a few things about using Elephants.  On the Sassanid turn they roll aggressive and get good pips.  They throw cataphracts at one of the Roman Psiloi separate  two Asaravan from their left to attack the Roman Light Horse and charge the right wing Cavalry into combat against the opposing Roman cavalry group.  However the Psiloi are having an outstanding day and force a recoil on the cataphracts.  The main cavalry attack doesn't create much traction either with recoils going both ways but no kills.  It's only over on the Persian left where a Roman Light Horse is trampled under foot due to being unable to recoil that they taste success.  1-1 at the end of turn 4

Those Psiloi are tougher than they look, the Legionaries look on awestruck as they repel a cataphract charge.

Turn 5 sees it all go wrong for the Sassanids.  The Romans throw their cavalry forward and create an overlap with the auxilia who come down off the hill as there is nothing threatening their front.  Both in the Roman bound and then the Sassanid one they Persians have terrible dice rolls and in three combats are doubled by the Romans on their right wing.  4-1 to Rome and game over.  Even had the cavalry fight gone differently next turn would have seen a guaranteed Persian win over the Roman Light Horse but Roman flanking attacks going in against the Persian line at either end.  It would have probably stretched the a Romans slightly but still be a 4-2 win.

The end, there is a striking absence of Persian cavalry at the far end of the line!

The solo rules are OK although the mechanism for tactical options could be better and the way to fix that is with better descriptions of the available options and perhaps some different options, or possibly a grand tactical stage before the game commences as part of the deployment phase.  Either way I'm pretty sure I could beef them up.  I made some poor tactical choices such as not allowing room for the Daylami to recoil and not being more cautious (hard to imagine that with the Sassanid dice) in preparing attacks.  In effect  the Sassanids lost in the approach phase of the battle.

I know an awful lot of people really like DBA but the more I play it the more I see some weaknesses that really should be addressed.  It has it’s strengths too of course, it plays quickly, the rules come with full army lists and decent explanations of the mechanisms in action.  What I don't like is the lack of distant shooting other than for Bows and Artillery, this really hampers bow armed cavalry armies like the Sassanids who would have stood off and shot, evading local counter attacks wherever possible and coming straight back to shoot again.  I understand that the game tries to simulate that at a very high level but it just doesn't have the feel of those tactics.  For the standard game the other serious limiting factor is the 12 element basic army.  I accept that it also allows players to build an army without too big of an outlay but it feels constricting.  Big Battle DBA offsets that to a large extent but still only allows the limited choice across the original 12 elements.

Overall I prefer the two follow up expanded variants to the system DBM and DBMM with their more detailed army lists and extensions to troop types.  I also like ADLG which has mechanisms which cover distant shooting, although it has accuracy issues with it's army list composition.  I am hoping the updated version later this year will have been improved in that respect.

All that said though when I want a quick game that lets me get the toys on the table DBA is a good shout and the solo play modifications do make you think about tactics more than would otherwise be the case.  I'm wondering if I could adapt them to other related games.

So thats week three of lock down done, stay safe everyone and try not to go stir crazy.