Super Seleucids

Yesterday I finished basing the Seleucid DBA army (Book II, army 19a) that Andy bought me a while back.

The army comprises (right to left) a Knight general, Cavalry companion and Light Horse:

...two Elephants and a Scythed Chariot:

...four Pike:

...and two Psiloi, plus two variants of Auxilia either of which can replace the Scythed Chariot:

I took the army over to Andy's this afternoon where he had identified five historical opponents that were selected in rolling a die.

First up was the very similarly-constituted Ptolemaic (II/20a) army:

My Scythed Chariot successfully mowed down Andy's General and a lucky roll saw my Light Horse take out Andy's.  

Andy's Auxilia killed one of my Psiloi on the hill, but my mounted troops managed to surround Andy's last Knight and kill it for the win.  Final score 4-1.

Next up were the Classical Indians (II/3a).

I tried to close up quickly as Andy had three Bow in this army, and I managed to take out a Bow and Knight on the left flank.  A couple of 6-1 rolls saw Andy kill my Light Horse and one of my Elephants.

After another loss each, I managed to break through and get my General on the rear of a Bow being attacked from the front, to scrape a 4-3 win despite a final roll of snake's eyes.

The final match was against Arabo-Aramaean (II/22f), a very different army with half of it Bow.

This was a surprisingly fluid game.  Andy's Light Horse made a dash for my Elephants but were cut off - and cut up - by my other mounted troops, who were subsequently killed by Andy's bowfire.  My Scythed Chariot made it all the way to other table edge and sacked the camp.  The final kill came by my Pike surrounding a wayward Bow, giving a final score of 4-2 for the Seleucids.

Tempting as it to now retire the Seleucids as Champions of the Ancient World, I am prepared to submit them to a potential reversal of fortune the next time I bring them to the DBA table.

Ancient Battles

 Andy and I got a few more DBA battles under our belts.  Last week we played Early Neo-Assyrian (I/25b) versus Early Achaeminid Persian (I/60c).

Andy lined up his Persians near the river I put down and advanced to the bank.  Leaving my horde behind to keep an eye on Andy's element in the fort on my side of the battlefield, I made my way towards the river.

As I reached it, I rolled a 6 revealing that the river slowed crossing, banks aided defence and only single elements or columns could cross.  As if that wasn't bad enough, Andy's 6s against my 1s saw his bow kill two heavy chariots before I even got a chance to cross.  And his superhuman horde even managed to push back another chariot despite being double-outflanked.

I soon lost my Psiloi and Blade on the right flank giving Andy a 4-0 victory.  I couldn't even kill one of the three hordes although as Andy informed as I was leaving, they don't count towards breakpoints anyway!

Yesterday we played Classical Indian (II/3a) against Graeco-Bactrian (II/36a).

I took another risk with the river and this time the river roll was a 4, slightly better but still reducing my Graeco-Bactrian knights to a feeble 1BW move as we waded through, and they never got in to the fight.

In the centre, battle was met but I didn't have the PIP dice to engage enough elements at the same time.  My elephant trampled one of Andy's bow but his Indian elephants did more damage.  Final score 5-1 to Andy.

We swapped sides for a rematch and I dispensed with the river this time.

My bow pushed up and killed a light horse.  There was a big battle in the centre with losses on both sides but elephants being able to quick kill knights gave me the edge, and after taking out Andy's general, I finally won a game with a score of 5-3.

Invading Italy

 Andy and I are trying to play more figures games.  A couple of weeks ago my Mongol Conquest DBA army invaded Italy, defended by Andy's Condotta.

The terrain was ploughed fields so James deployed across it as it counts as Good Going unless the first PIP roll of the game is 1.  Which Andy of course then rolled.  

By the time the Mongols had extracted themselves from the crops, the Italians had lined up a superior force of cavalry.  The match-ups were in Andy's favour and he rolled up all four of the Mongols.  In the meantime, James had taken a couple of elements in the centre and right flank, so Andy won the game 4-2.

Yesterday Italy was invaded even more improbably by Samurai.  Andy deployed an element in a fort which James thought he could take out early in the game.

Sadly, the dice were on Andy's side.  The three elements in contact with the fort were all able to attack, and all failed.  The same happened in the second round.  In both the third and fourth rounds, an attacking element was destroyed.  A 6-1 outcome on shooting saw James lose another element.  Finally, the Samurai actually killed a Knight, but a second 6-1 roll by a Knight killed a fourth Japanese blade to give the win to Andy 4-1.

In the rematch, James had more luck to start with, killing 2 Knights with bow fire, and a Light Horse in close combat.  Going in for the kill he surrounded a Knight with a Light Horse and his Cavalry General, but another extreme dice roll saw both of them destroyed, taking the score to 3-3.  Andy then took out another element winning the game 4-3.

This week's Rule 23 was clocking that command distance, and the terrain the General is in, does make a difference to the PIPs required to move elements.

Mongol Conquest and Yuan Chinese DBA Armies

Back in 2003, Andy and I fielded a Burmese army at Anderida.  The army had an ally in the form of the Yuan Mongols.

This 16 element command was drawn from the Yuan Chinese DBM army list but didn't have the right elements to form either a Yuan Chinese or a Mongol Conquest army for DBA.  So I painted up the extras needed so that I could field either DBA army.  I also rebased everything as my basing technique has advanced beyond my earlier "style" of painting everything green and just dry-brushing with sand.

Common to both armies are six cavalry elements including the General:

The Mongol Conquest army is completed with six light horse elements:

And the Yuan Chinese army has blades, crossbow, archers and a light horse:

Both armies can swap out a light horse for a stone thrower.  These were specified as rope-pull stone throwers in the Mongol list and I found the perfect model from Ancient & Modern Miniatures with four men pulling on the ropes.  Pulling hard is strongly incentivised to avoid the stone falling onto their own heads!

Anderida... for the record

We were talking about Anderida earlier so I thought I'd dust off my files so we had a record on the blog.  Between us we came away with at least one award every year except one.  Can anyone fill in the gaps for 2002 and 2003?

2000 - “The Macedonians and their Enemies”

• Polybian Roman - Adrian, James & David - 31= of 44 - Best Painted Navy

2001 - "The Byzantines and Friends"

• Normans - James & David - 14= of 35 - Society of Ancients Special Award "good eggs"

2002 - theme?

• Assyrians - James & Andy - ?
• New Kingdom Egyptian - Adrian & David - ? - Best Painted Army

2003 - "Eastern Empires"

• Burmese - James, Andy & Kieron - 18= of 38
• ? - Adrian & David - 37 of 38

2004 - "Mitteleuropa - Germany through the Ages"

• Later Polish - Adrian & David -  24 of 36 - Best Painted Army
• Burgundian Ordonnance - Andy & Kieron - 36 of 36 - Bravely Fought Award

2005 - “A Thousand Years Ago” – All armies dated 1005 AD

• Khazar - James, David & Andy - 5= of 36
• Middle Anglo-Saxon - Kieron & Stuart - 29= of 36 - Society of Ancients Special Award "for their courage in bringing Middle Anglo-Saxons"

2006 - “Holy Land” – armies which campaigned or were based in Palestine or southern Syria

• Ptolemaic - James & Andy - 18= of 28 - Best Painted Army
• Seleucid - Adrian & Orhan - 19 of 28
• Early Bedouin - Kieron & Stuart - 26 of 28

2007 - “The Great Commanders”

• Aztecs - Adrian & David - 17= of 30 - Best Painted Army
• Medieval French - Kieron & Stuart - 27= of 30

2008 - “The Grandeur That Was Rome”

• Marian Roman - Adrian & David - 7 of 20
• Imperial Roman - James & Andy - 18 of 20  - Best Painted Army

2009 - "The Greeks and Asia 499BC-10AD" (1st Fields of Glory competition)

• Seleucid - Adrian & David - 11 of 18 - Best Painted Army
• Alexander Macedonian - James & Andy - 13 of 18
• Early Armenian - Kieron & Stuart - 18 of 18 - Bravely Fought Award

Camping It Up

I finished these in August but forgot to post about them.  You might have spotted that the Mamluk army I posted about a couple of months ago didn't have any baggage.  What I bought at the time was a set of tents - Mongolian yurt, Arab desert tent and Chinese tent:

And a set of dioramas - pig roasting, market sellers and campfire

My aim was a flexible set of bases that can be combined to form baggage for my Mamluks and my forthcoming (don't hold your breath) Mongol and Yuan Chinese armies.  They will suit of course a variety of other nomadic, Arab or East Asian armies, and combining two of the dioramas without a tent could be baggage for pretty much anything.

All of the tents and dioramas came from Baueda.  The exception were the market figures which came out of one of Andy's boxes of bits a few years ago!

Mamluk Egyptian DBA Army

I finally finished the Mamluk Egyptian DBA Army that Adrian bought me a couple of birthdays ago.  They are opponents for the Knights of Malta among others.  The original pack was a V2 army so I bought a number of additional figures to address the changes and flexibility required by the new V3 army list.

The Cavalry General is accompanied by four compulsory and two optional Mamluk cavalry units:

Other mounted are Turkmen and Bedouin light horse:

And the infantry comprises (from left) Psiloi archers and naffatun throwing incendiaries (which I converted from Assyrian slingers), Auxilia javelinmen and Warband ghazis (armed with swords and kite shields), an element of mutatawwi'a horde, and two halqa Bowmen.

Ready for battle!

Samurai DBA Army

Adrian gifted Andy a beautifully painted Samurai army for his birthday.  He had kindly offered to paint one for me as well - and presented me with it yesterday too, so we don't have to wait until August to fight some civil wars!

Mine is the Hojo clan.  Here's the general with the clan's crest of Mitsuuroko (“three scales”) in the background.

The Hojo are known for fostering Zen Buddhism and for leading the successful opposition to the Mongol invasions of Japan, which means that I could use my Mongol Conquest army as an opponent, even though it's not listed in the DBA rulebook.

The army comprises a General and mounted Samurai, which can be double-based with foot.

Four Samurai (blades):

Nobushi and Ashigaru bowmen:

The remaining four elements of the army are either followers with naginata (auxilia):

or Sohei (Buddhist warrior monks) blades:

The army has a statue of Buddha to protect as its camp:

Altogether, this makes a very impressive army:

Even more impressive close-up... Thanks Adrian!

Knights of Malta first battles

Andy and I played a couple of games of DBA this afternoon using version 3 of the rules.  We spotted quite a few more changes that a cursory flick through the rules hadn't uncovered.  These included:
 - defender rolls for terrain placement (like DBM)
 - attacker then chooses their battlefield edge (with no dice roll)
 - defender can no longer swap 0-2 elements around after the attacker has deployed
 - deployment limits allow elements closer to the centre but further from the edges than v2
 - overlapping elements can shoot and be shot at
 - Bow is more effective with a 3 basewidth (BW) range
 - single elements conform to groups, even if they are partly in Bad Going; now has to be completely in Bad Going to not conform

These generally feel like good improvements and the increase in movement (now counted in BW rather than inches, so 40mm instead of 25mm) means that battle is formed swiftly.

The Knights of Malta first battled their historical opponents, the Ottomans.

We forgot a couple of movement restrictions and Andy's cavalry and light horse left the dunes far quicker than they should have done, and so James' spears and knights hadn't really formed up before they were being engaged.  However, after a string of extreme rolls in the first bound (6-2, 5-1 etc) Andy lost three cavalry to James bowmen straight away.  A few turns later, James had won 5-1.

Andy kept a tally of all the dice rolls, and although his PIP dice totalled 23 against James' 18, his combat rolls were only 33 against 47.

In the second game, Andy fielded Burgundian Ordonannce.  James deployed a defensive line and used his army's Littoral option of deploying two spearmen on the edge of the waterway on Andy's flank.

These spearman defied Andy's two bowmen and artillery piece all game, and killed one of the bow, strengthened by the flank support they gave each other.  Andy's knights eventually reached James' defensive wall and slammed into the infantry.  We made another mistake of allowing the bow flank support from the blades, when that is only against foot not mounted, so the two knights that were destroyed were only one if we'd played that properly.  So a second win for the Knights of Malta with 2-0, as we played a timed 60 minute game rather than playing to 4 elements lost, as per the rules.

The rules are still written in legalese but there are more diagrams to explain things in this version.  I may be biased by today's result, but I think it plays well.  We played slowly as we wanted to test the rules properly and not play a version 2 rule without checking, so I think future games will be quicker.  Good fun though!