The Corlears Hook Fencibles tested the new ancient/medieval rules "Triumph!" last night. If you don't like DBA you won't like Triumph! It is a similar game, same small armies, same fast play.
I rules-meistered the first game. Ken was Harold Godwinson while Rick was William the Bastard. Ken rolled high, Rick rolled low and the Anglo-Danes invaded Normandy, a pre-emptive strike, no doubt. This led to jokes about the amount of mead that Harold had the other night.
I had picked the armies ahead of time. The Anglo-Danes had 3 elite infantry (Huscarls), 8 heavy foot (Fyrd), 2 skirmishers and 2 horde (Great Fyrd). That made 15 units at 48 points. The Normans had 4 knights, 2 Breton cavalry (Javelin cavalry), 2 levy bows, 4 elite foot and 2 horde, for 14 units at 48 points. Rick could have traded his pair of horde units for a single skirmisher, which would have been 13 units at 47 points.
Ken is our relatively new guy and we all haven't played DBA in a couple years.
Rick's deployment was a single line.
Both sides slowly advanced at the speed of the slowest troops. In time Ken pulled his skirmishers back and sent them to his left flank, a wooded hill. Rick's tight flank slogged across a steep hill, slowly. His main line advanced at a slow pace.
The lines got close enough for bow fire. Ken rolled low, Rick rolled high.
Ken pulled his flanking unit back and Rick charged along most of the line. In the open, knights merely need to edge the foot to ride them down.
It went from bad to worse for the Anglo-Danes.
Soon they were over their breakpoint and the Normans celebrated. It had been a one-sided victory. We broke for dinner.
Afterwards Harold had a personality transplant as I inhabited his soul. And apparently more mead because Harold invaded again, provoking more levity. There were three terrain pieces, a gentle hill, a woods and a village. The first two ended up on the Norman side of the table. With only the village and having seen the results of a general clash the previous game, I decided to base my defense on skirmishers in the village and refuse the right flank. I should have placed some reserves behind my left center. 20/20 hindsight is always good,
Rick deployed in one long line again and came on. The Bretons and the hordes attacked the village. The skirmishers facing the Bretons fell back while those facing the hordes sprinted back at some speed.
A unit of Huscarls got into the village pushed the horde back. The skirmisher who had fled got back into the village on my left, facing Breton horse. My middle skirmisher was chased out of the village. Rolling low again to Rick's good roll, the skirmishers were ridden down in the open.
The Bretons went on to strike the flank of my main line. Harold was cut down with his bodyguard because there was no place for him to retreat. As far as I can see, there are no extra points awarded for felling the enemy general/king, so I was still in the game. But I now had to use an extra pip for every action, making for sluggish command. A knight rode in and trampled another Huscarl unit. I hit the knight front and flank, wiping it out. The Huscarl in the village cut down one Horde and survived being struck in the flank by the other horde. The Breton back in the village was taken out by a flank attack. The Breton that was rolling up my line was taken front and rear, just managing a tie. Rick moved William and his bodyguard to be able to flank the remaining Huscarls in the village. At the same time, the surrounded Bretons went down fighting.
It was knife's edge now, the next kill would decide the game. My remaining huscarls were already in combat with the last Norman horde. My skirmishers, fresh from the defeat of the Bretons and on the horde's flank, fell on them. The horde was beaten, could not retreat and I pulled out a victory.
Many Normans were in a long line that wheeled very slowly, with levy bow on the flank moving slowest of all and never got into the fight. Both sides had many units that never fought.
The Normans lost 16 points (just enough to break them) while my losses were 13. And then there was the little fact that Harold was dead and the search for his successor was on. The first game took a little over an hour. Even with my looking at the rules from time to time, it took that long because the lads were mighty reticent to start. The second game took about 45 minutes. I figure as we get used to the rules the games should go faster. There are more troop types than in DBA. As you can see, armies are not all 12 elements.
One thing I really like: you cannot flank a unit unless you start off behind a line extending from their front edge. Fast units can't just move up and flank units right away.
We will be playing more of this. The terrain system is fast. There are chances for flank marches, though neither of our early medieval armies managed that.
The rules say camps without garrisons defend themselves at a value of 2. With armed camp followers painted up, I figure we might as well use them for "un-garrisoned" camps.
Minor point: there are no pretentious troop type names like psiloi. Oh, how glad I am to have skirmishers. On the other hand there are rather too prosaic terms like "bad horse" and "battle taxi". Well, I can always say horse archers instead of horse bow.