The Corlears Hook Fencibles played a couple games of DBA last night, for the first time in a long while. I made a mistake and used the March 21012 version of the rules. I have since deleted that file so we will use the September 2013 version until the new edition is finally for sale. Yes, I need to make new camps. The ones here are swiped from my Italian Renaissance Condotta armies. You think artillery redoubts don't look like camps in 1066? I agree. But it's what I had.
Tom rolled high and drew the hard job of running the Normans against the Anglo-Danes. Ken hadn't seen DBA before and decided to watch. I played Harold Godwinson. For the first game I tried to cut down the amount of open terrain with mixed success. As you can see here, I ended up with one wooded area and a hill in the Norman part of the table but still had a wood and a hamlet on my left.
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Tom came forward and slowly and then paused in front of my lines, his left flank slightly closer than his right.
I then moved forward and charged with my force in one line. From my right I recoiled one unit of Breton cavalry, made the other flee and recoiled the archers. Duke William himself now faced supported spears (5) with one flank overlapped (3). He rolled a 1, added to 3 for 4. I rolled a three, added to 5 made 8. With scores of 8 to 4 he was doubled. Duke Willy had his head bashed in and his knights scattered to the four winds. Tom threw in the towel. Technically the game wasn't over yet though I could see his point. I don't have any pictures of the end-game position but it's not that different tat the end of turn 5. With some flipping back and forth through the rules, this had taken 25 minutes.
After a bit we decided to try it again, same sides. This time I got two woods and a hill on my side, with the hamlet in Norman country. On came the Normans.
On the second turn the Breton cavalry started moving to envelop my left. I sent one spear unit back to cover the camp.
A decent Norman pip roll saw the Breton cavalry deploy threatening the camp. I sent a second spear unit back to cover the camp, but they were mighty close to the camp.
The Breton cavalry charged and drove both spear units back to the camp walls. In the earlier version of DBA they'd have been dead. But this was coming soon. Norman infantry stormed into the woods and forced my javelinmen to flee. They also would have died in the earlier version.
I should have sent the pears forward to try to gain some space. Instead I used my lone pip to send the javelins back into the woods. The Bretons came on again and beat both spears. With nowhere to run, they dissolved. The Norman archers rolled a 1 against the javelins, begging to be dispatched. My javelins chivalrously also rolled a 1 and the fight was tied. Duke William watched from a safe vantage point.
On the next turn the Bretons stormed the camp. I was down 2 units and the camp, one away from defeat. The Norman archers rolled a 1 again. This time the javelins rolled high and sent them to their maker. The Normans charged elsewhere. Norman archers managed to recoil a spear unit in the edge of the woods, giving an overlap to the next fight. Norman knights (3) beat overlapped supported spears (4) and rode them down. I was defeated but the turn gets played out. If I could dispatch 3 more Norman units the game would continue. Fat chance. The next Norman knight also rode down a spear unit. The next two Norman knights rolled low and were doubled by the spears facing them. Both were routed. The game ended with a Norman victory 5 – 3.
I lost 4 units and had the camp sacked. Oh my, the tea service was taken by those beasts. Tom lost 3 Norman units, all in the last turn. The game had taken 30 minutes, again with some looking through the rules for details. We haven't played this in a while.
All in all, I like DBA 3 better than the previous version. You can opt for a hamlet rather than a city with restive populace, ridding the game of one of my pet peeves. The faster movement makes for a more dynamic and faster game. This is the first time in a long time that I've played on a regulation 2 x 2 surface, previously opting for 32 inches square. But it seems to work. I'll have to try the Huns out and see how they do. In previous versions light cavalry armies float like a butterfly and sting the same way. I'll see if their sting has improved at all.
The other big advantage of DBA is it requires nothing in the way of set up time. This is a change from other stuff I've been doing lately which takes a lot of pre-game prep work. DBA is like a pub burger, dependable and tasty, if not very fancy.
begins his series on how to paint a 15mm DBA army well, in a reasonable time frame.
