Cancon 2014 - DBA Competition Day 1

I used to play a lot of DBA, both in competitions and campaigns and 2014 provided me with an opportunity to attend Cancon after a break of three years.  It was massive and fragmented as can be seen from this direction board:

The DBA competition was run over two days, with day one for armies from books I and II.  

Here are the twenty armies that were fielded for the first day's games:

I/02a Early Egyptian 3000-1640BC

I/22b New Kingdom Egyptian 1543-1069BC

I/26a Later Mycenaean Achaian 1250-1190BC

I/26b Later Mycenaean Trojan 1520-1190BC

I/53 Saitic Egyptian 664-335BC

II/03 Classical Indian 500BC-545AD

II/05b Later Hoplite Greek Athenian 450-275BC

II/05h Later Hoplite Greek Siciliot 450-235BC

II/07 Later Achaemenid Persian 420-329BC

II/09 Syracusan 410-210BC

II/11 Gallic 400-50BC

II/15 Alexandrian Imperial 328-320BC

II/15 Alexandrian Imperial 328-320BC

II/19a Seleucid 320-280BC

II/19c Seleucid 204-167BC

II/25 Bosporan 310-107BC and 46BC-375AD

II/26 Later Sarmatian 310BC-375AD

II/33 Polybian Roman 275-105BC

II/49 Marian Roman 105-25BC

II/79a Chinese Northern Dynasty 317-589AD

Day one saw my Alexandrian Imperials take the field.  Perhaps a bit hesitantly as I had only played two games during the past three years.

Game one against some Greeks (the Athenians I think) demonstrated the superiority of pike over spear.

My lads closing in.  General already committed!  Well, he is aggression level 4.

Victory!  Alexander breaks the line, the pikes beat spear.  Only downside was throwing a one with the companions on the left.  I killed five enemy for the one loss.

Game two against some classical Indians demonstrated my superior dice rolling.

The end.  My pikes finished killing the fourth enemy element for no loss on my side.

Game three against some late Chinese was a near run thing, but I was out generaled by David L, one of the master DBA players in Canberra.

My left has been pulling back, but I was very happy to get my pikes in.

My left has collapsed.  Pikes are doing well and one of my cavalry units pushed the enemy off the board, but oh dear, Alexander is in a tricky spot and throws a one ending the game.  I was down four elements, but had inflicted three losses on the enemy.

Game four against Seleucids saw a lot of terrain, but a very much split enemy force which failed to gather enough command resources to get their act together.  This left their brave general a bit exposed.

Dead enemy general, end of game.  He was in a tough spot, but a roll of one to my six didn't help.

Game five was a fiasco against some horrid Egyptians.  Trapped between a marsh and a forest my army was shot up and eventually surrounded coming to a very inglorious end.  No photos unfortunately.  While I did have some poor command rolls it is fair to say I was comprehensively out generalled, not surprising as the player went on to win the day and the competition.  However I did kill one element (on a good die roll).

Game six was the final game of the day and was against some old but nimble Greeks (Achaians).  It was a hard fought affair but victory again went to my superior dice rolling, although it took a good while to achieve victory.

Tough going.  I was down three elements, but my superior dice rolling combined with pikes versus spears, allowed me to get four kills on the enemy and victory,

Six great games against noble opponents.  I was the attacker in all six games.  

A Pair of Camels

For my sixth session of Wings of Glory I took to the air in a pair of Sopwith Camels.

Looks good but a bit too close.  Drats!  

Circling.

Still circling.

Heading for home, trailing smoke.

Played quickly and cleanly.  While there were no kills, after the war we found that three of the four German planes had crashed on landing.  The British only had one serious landing mishap, but the pilot walked away unscathed to fight another day (or in a fortnight's time).

42nd Foot - The Black Watch

Not that I don't already have enough Highlanders in both 15mm (as well as all those Airifx Highlanders I have), but here is the first of the touched up, rebased and in this case refaced unit of my early Christmas present (the lot buy of AB Miniatures painted by Dragon Painting Services).

Apart from the facings and new flag, I redid the drum and bagpipes.  The plumes are special for the 42nd (according to my source book: Uniforms of Waterloo in colour).  I took out the yellow stripe on the kilt with a black stripe.  Major touch up was some chipped paint and bent bayonets - I was rather rough opening the packet they came in.  The other thing I added was the white lace on the cuffs - the solid blue cuffs just didn't look right.

Here are some before shots (actually of the unit still to do):

And now for the finished product:

In retrospect I should have put the drummer and piper in the front rank of their own stand.

I was hit by serendipity when I saw this post the other day: Waterloo Highlanders: The 42nd Regiment of Foot.html  It also provided the inspiration to touch up the new flag as I had just used the generic one for blue faced regiments from Warflags.  Still not sure I have it right, but time to move on to the next unit.

Miss Fisher Cluedo

Possibly slightly off-topic, but this was a  gift to the family for Xmas: Miss Fisher Cluedo.

Actually it was my Trojan Horse, hoping to lure them into playing a boardgame on a subject I knew they loved, Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries (think Aussie Miss Marple but with sex appeal and local colour). My secret plan is to lead them from this to a game like Shadows Over Camelot and then World In Flames ... here we come.  Ha ha, it is not going to happen, but as Miss Fisher says, she likes a man with a plan.

I'd always wanted Cluedo, although I can't every recall actually playing it, although I am sure I did.  It is just so much part of popular culture.

The mechanics are simple but play well - how can I use them in a wargame?  The graphics are good and the little model murder weapons are cute.  The only let down, and rather a big one as it also confused play, were the character pieces: just  generic clear plastic tokens on coloured bases with no relation to the character at all.  This would just not do!

First I thought I would get some figures and paint them up.  An hours fun searching and learning more about the world of pulp then I care too, I decided this was not the best immediate option.  I then thought to make up some cards (stupidly forgetting the game came with cards).  Finding pictures of the six character was relatively easy however and using my Excel skills and a colour printer I generated some paper tags to attach to the aforementioned offensive plastic tokens.  These were easily fixed with wonderful PVA glue and viola!

I probably should have resized and cropped Mr Butler and Constable Collins so that their heads were of the same size with the other four characters.  A red background for Miss Fisher would also have been better (it was just by chance that Jack and Dot appear colour coordinated.  However my long term aim is to replace them with figures.

WRG Ancients 6th Edition Competition in Newcastle, Australia in 1984

Another blast from the past, thirty years ago in fact.  WRG Ancients 6th Edition competition in Newcastle, Australia in 1984.  

Some things were fairly rudimentary ...

These first two pictures look like my mate Myron's Tibetans.  I can tell by the crappy die rolls!

There's my boys!  Tin Soldier Greeks (with some borrowed Minifigs to fill them out).  This was in the days of "flat basing" (think "flat earth" is more like it).  The only consolation is that the bases matched my wargaming table which in those days was a table tennis table.

Looks like my guys are in trouble. 

 Not sure what the columns were for, probably trying to dodge the chariots or something.

My guys again.  At least the scenery was flat too.

The WRG reference sheet visible.  

I think this was the rules with the +1 for seeing the army standard advancing.

There I am, eighteenth row in the left hand column, one draw and one win amongst many losses.  

Looks like I beat Myron by one point.

What was special about this competition was the man himself was there:  Phil Barker.  

Probably why I'd made the effort to go to Newcastle 

Phil is the gentleman in white standing on the right hand side adjudicating.

And for my troubles the great man presented me with this little trophy.  And very proud I was too!

Snipe

Fifth game of Wings of Glory and I'm still in training.  For this game three Sopwith Snipes and one Camel took on three Fokker triplanes somewhere over the Western Front (where it was anything but quiet).

My planes, Number 2 and Number 8 of Squadron 4.

First pass, Number 2 got some shots in but then its guns jammed.  Bother!

Bad collision by number 2 resulted in eight damage points.  Ouch!

Number 2 heading for home.  In the background one of the enemy Fokkers crashes and burns.

Things look bad for Number 8 which is in the sights of the Zebra, but help was at hand.  The none flaming plane being piloted by my compatriot circled round and shot the Zebra down.

All up a decisive win for the British with two enemy planes down to one of our own (which burnt to a cinder).

Invasion Norway - GMT Boardgame

My first game for 2014.  Richard and I had a go at playing this.  While not a huge game, it has a level of complexity from providing a combined air, land and sea combat system.  Both sides have lots of options - too few troops, lots of places to go and challenging terrain.

So today was just a taste.

http://www.gmtgames.com/nnin/gmtnnin0.htm

Given the small size of the units it would lend itself as a vehicle for doing a round of miniatures games.  I can even imagine it as a base for some kind of DBA campaign type game.