Print your DBA army list on a 3″x5″ index card

I created a Word document to print your armies on a standard 3″x5″ index card. It saves me a lot of time when registering at conventions, and I also keep them stored on my computer for easy access.

See my webpage here for details and the document. Download the document, edit it with your army details, and print away!

 

June Games at Legions

June’s DBA game day at Legion’s Hobbies started a liitle late, but there were six participants for gaming. Jim and Larry played the first game and John and Joe, veterans of StoogeCon, arrived later with Laura (who wanted to learn the game). John and Joe paired off with Vikes and Irish, and I got into DBA “teach mode”.

We used my classic Matched Pairs of Medieval Germans and Italian non-littoral Condotta.

Condotta deploy..

Laura deployed the attacking Condotta well, with knights concentrated on the right and two 8-man bow units menacing my horse. It was a see-saw battle for a long tinme as neither one of us could roll a kill, but my psiloi was the first to go. I evened the score with a spear.

Then I lost a spear but shot a knight out of his saddle with my solitary bow. (I even warned her about my deadly archers!).  Game now 2-2. As normal, my German knights haplessly moved back and forth in combat, mostly losing, but not getting killed (for a change).

The crack archers proved the victors as they whacked two more knights in the following bounds….5:1 and 6:1 splits sure help!

Our game went long as she was learning the rules and our dice were both pretty bad, so Jim and John played (sorry, didn’t get the armies). My new veteran then matched wits with Joe on a Dark Ages Littoral fest…both armies choosing to land in a wild game.

Last Game!

The gamers at Legions

Last game of the night is to right. The waterway would spin to the right, so both armies chose to land…Viking blade marauders and wild Irish chariots!

I think the game ended about 11:15 or so with Joe getting the win.

Hope to see everyone again for the next game dayy in July!

 

Naval battles off Guadalcanal

Last Friday was a change in pace as Eric brought up his ships for a nite engagement off Guadalcanal. Larry and I were the “bad guys” as Jim and Eric took the Americans. Neal played Eric’s forces when he arrived later. Our forces were Haruna, Nachi, Jintsu, Hatsuyuli, Uranami, Nowaki, Hamakaze, Kuroshio, and Ushio. ( 1 BC, 1 CA, 1 CL, and 6 DDs). Among the similar-sized forces opposing us was BB Mississippi , CL Honolulu, and CA Chester.

This was a night engagement using General Quarters 3rd edition  rules.

Jintsu's column hammers the Honolulu

The US ship’s radar gives advantages at night, so they have an edge for detection. Basically, each ship column roll to detect and acqire enenmy vessels. If enemy is detected, ships may elect to fire star shells to illuminate potential targets.

Each side scored several hits to each other, with Haruna on fire from the big guns of the Mississippi. Fortunately, I doused the fire on the next turn and several turns later repaid the damage with a critical hit on Mississippi…a turret pentration which endangered the ship if uncontrolled. Jim couldn’t control the damage, so scratch one battleship!

The battle was pretty much over at that point. The picture shows Jintsu’s column raking the hapless Honolulu. Although Jintsu is afire, it’s guns were still active! What’s not shown are the tracks of the 9 torps in the water heading dead for the slow-moving US target! The “circles” are the star shell bursts for illumination.

We called the game at that point.  Jintsu would manage to put out the fires later, but her speed was down to a crawl. We thought she would make a juicy target for the Marine aviators on the island and wrote her off.

 

StoogeCon II, April 25, 2009

StoogeCon II is history, with 8 gamers contesting in two events. I think the beautiful weather limited participation as a lot of potential local warriors had new “honeydo” lists to complete! There also was an event in Columbus OH the week before which stopped a lot of Ohio gamers who couln’t do two weekends in a row. Our thanks to the out-of-towners Frank Popecki and  John Loy for making it a tri-state event! Two new Pittsburgh gamers came to the event (John Conomikes and Joe Drazovich) and we wish to welcome them to DBA madness! Larry provided the donuts and there were none left to mail to the Cleaver! <G>

Twilight Zone time: John and Joe are Pitt students who re-started the Pitt Gaming Club that WE started in 1972! They were taught to play by “a guy who learned how to play DBA in England with Phil”..who is Doug Welsh, a gamer we have known since the early 80’s!! Deja vu all over again. As we were cleaning up two old West Virginia gaming adversaries from WRG 6th edition tourneys (Tom Hazlett and Steve Herndon) were vising the store….the gaming community is one big family!!

Gamers at work!

I ran Achaian Greeks, I/26a, in the Open and fared badly. John Loy (Libyan Egyptian, I/38) massacred me in the opening battle 0-4Camp. Yes he killed 4 and ALSO captured my camp! The four 6’s he rolled for the first four combats didn’t hurt…

Frank Popecki cleaned my clock next with Early Sumerians (I/1c), 4-0. At least I won my third game vs.  Joe Drazovich (Scots-Irish, II/54) 3G-1.

Overall winner, finishing undefeated was Larry Chaban (East Frankish, III/52). Larry only lost two elements in three games, and also played the most recent army. For some strange reason everyone chose early armies to play!

Diceman congrats winner Larry Chaban

Next up was Warbandia!! Minimum of six warbands and no ellys allowed. I used Boudicca’s Ancient British, II/53. john Conomikes whupped me (4-3) in the opener with Suevi, II/72c. I managed to win the next two versus John Loy (Caledonian, II/60) and Kevin Serafini (Gallic, II/11). The winner was Joe Drazovich (Early German, II/47(b)). The great thing is that Joe and John..yeah, the “noobs” fought each other for the championship!

I guess it shows well that DBA is a great game system when new blood can whup the “old guys” and emerge with the victory!

Frank Popecki was awarded the “Best Painted Army” gift provided by Steve Parillo and Kevin Serafini. Nice toys, Frank!

A great time was had by all, and we hope to see you all again at the next StoogeCon event…

Larry present Joe with the winner's certificate

Kevin presents Frank with his gift card

 

New Watch Dog…NOT!

Sad to say that the picture of Mulder on the prior post is the last one taken. He collapsed on Good Friday, and the vet determined that a form of cancer was causing internal bleeding. We held him while the vet euthanized him, but it was weird because there were no apparent symptoms. Tough way to lose a good friend of ten years..

We had been looking for an Irish Wolfhound puppy without results for three years, but unexpectedly got a note from a show-friend who recommended a breeder with pups. What’s the chance of that?? After thinking long and hard on it, we got the new female home on Thursday 16th, so welcome the new war-dog Kiera…

Kiera says Hi!

Born Jan 10, she’s now 42 pounds and taller than our Sheltie! The name Kiera comes from an Irish origin. It is the feminine form of Gaelic Kieran, and means “Dusky; dark-haired.”

She won’t rep;ace Mulder on the top picture, though….he’ll always be the “Top Dog”!

 

Doggy alarm clock

Wake up, daddy….we need to go out!  Old guy Mulder in front, my head just visible, and Daren the puppy (now 13 months old!)

Mulder and Daren try to wake me up

Mulder has one of his Sacred Treasures, the soft ball in his mouth.

 

Cold Wars 2009

A great time was had by all (especially me…more later) at Cold Wars 12-15 March in Lancaster, PA. The first event was “Big Guns” hosted by Larry Chaban and yours truly. The armies used must include at least one artillery piece. Since we only had 11 participants, I was FORCED to play <G>. Unfortunately, my Italian Condotta Venetians overcame all opponents, including two pike armies (and me with FIVE non-dismounting kniggetts), so I won my own tournament!

Big Battles teams was next, with Team Stooge (Larry and me) vanquishing two fine teams to get into the finals versus the Two Davids (Kuijt and Schlanger) . This was played Sunday, so more later….oh, the suspense!!!

At 11pm, I hosted “Midnite Madness”, a single-eliminations tournament. Our field was only 12 contestants, as theere was a competing event for the first time. GLADBAGger Mike Demana triumphed over Alex Bostwick for the last win at about 2:20 am.

Alex (right) congratulates Mike on his win

I actually got to sleep in next morning and went to spend some money at the Dealer’s Area. Best find was Splintered Light’s new 15mm Irish Wolfhounds and handlers. Now I just have to send a photo of my dog to the painter so they match the color! Also looked for some Mongols to finish an army I bought on EBay, but Essex was sold out of them…somebody must be building a FOG army!

Matched Pairs was next. Here you furnish two armies, historical opponents. The other player you face picks which army to use so the armies better be balanced! I used Italian Condotta (arable variety) and Medieval Germans. After three rounds I was undefeated, so won the tournament (WOW! Two event championships..I was on a roll!! And NOT the Diceman type!!)

The DBA Team Cup was next and The Dicemen (Alex Bostwick, Jonathan Bostwick, Larry Chaban and I) didn’t fare too well . I  played Book I and used Meroitic Kushites and won one, tied one (time ran out on a good game where we tried and tried but couldn’t get one more deader to end the game…3G  to 3  was the final score), and lost one to John Manning, who said it was the first time he ever beat me. It was the only game I lost all weekend!!! Team WADBAG claimed the well-deserved honors.

The Two Davids (K and S) win and set up terrain

Sunday saw the finals for the Team Event. The Two Davids pit Thessalians with Phokian ally and two artillery against our Southern Dynasty Chinese with three ellys. They placed several woods and a gentle hill to try to channel our attacks where they wanted them…sly dogs. They had some aux and psiloi, but all our heavy foot is blades, so we didn’t fear the bad going as much as their spears.  They set up the Thessalian two commands first, both near the center of the board where their camp was. We had to deploy all our forces next, and chose to weight the left with our cavalry wing led by our CinC. The left center in front of our camp was a blade and bow force, and the Elly command went on the right. We tried to compact our frontage and had some concerns over his group of light horse which we knew would bet used sooner or later to try to turn our flanks or head to the camp.

They deployed the Phokians in the center, with the artillery opposing our ellys….surprise!! But little did they know that we predicted it and maneuvered the Junbos in column to the right open flank on top of the hill, their movement was covered by interposing blades in front of the artillery to mask its fire.

Ellys on parade!

The gentle hill is in front of the elephants in the pic with a small wood to their left.  My great luck continued for the most part as our pippage was rarely bad enough to hurt our plans. The low command rarely got a 1! It took a long time to maneuver our troops as both teams tried to get local advantages. Kills were few and far-between as the combats occurred mainly in the large woods opposite our camp and the small woods in the picture to left. My Ever Invincible Bows of the Willow Spring finally got a spear after about 12 shots! David K and Larry fenced on the left and exchanged a few elements. David S and I were basically stalemated while I worked a force of three blades and a psiloi around to menace his flank.

Stalemate in the Center

The pic on left shows the center of the game for most of the time. Phokian artillery is to left of center, and the horse element in the center is the Thessalian CinC. The Chinese blades throw back most of the attacks launched against them. Chinese horse brings up the rear, ready to plug any gaps if needed.

Suddenly, the unexpected happened as Larry’s left flank cavalry based attack took out the Thessalian general and broke his command!

The enemy camp was in sight! With shattered resistance, the attack was pressing until…le disastre!!…our CinC fell, stuck through the heart!

One broken command on each side now, and we were only still in the game because our opponents had more casualties. DK pressed on the right against our smallest command (needing 3 more casualties to break) as DS mounted the Light Cavalry sweep around the right that we had expected. Of course that’s when our pippage started to suck big time! (I AM the Diceman). Our hopes were still high as DK tried to finish off a trapped bow who fought magificently versus a Thessalian auxiliary. The bow was pushed out of the woods, but managed to kill the aux with a bowshot aided by one of the routing left flank’s bowmen.  Next he tried a psiol, and he moved a unit to it’s rear so it would die if recoiled.

I WOULDN’T die!!! I pushed the attacker off and killed one in the next bound.

I threw a Jumbo into a lone spear after unexpectedly clearing the small woods (DS rolled 3 1’s for combat!) and was promptly rewarded by a dead elly, as DS rolled big and I didn’t….

Then DS’s two maniac Light Horse approached our camp. If the camp fell we were doomed as it counts a 6 dead (2 per command). I intercepted and ZoCCed one with a Light Horse general of the center command, but couldn’t stop the last as he hit the camp!! Big die roll on the line, and the result was 6:1 and I rolled the 6!! Light horse fled and both lights were killed two turns later, breaking the Greeks. Chinese victorius!

View at game end

Here is the view of the battle’s end.The only troops standing still face each other in the center. Larry’s cav command is almost all off the board in rout, and the troops at the top have all fled off the board or were killed. Our white tent camp has a routed bowman near it and the victorious Light Horse general is seen after he killed the remaining enemy light horse for the win.

Our great thanks go to the Two Davids for the fabulous game…it looked like we would have no decision for the longest time until things broke free. I’m sure we will all remember this one for a long time…

See here for my photos taken at Cold Wars,

 

DBA hits the Newspaper

Mary Ann Thomas wrote a real nice article on wargames for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review this past Sunday. Check it out here. DBA was featured and they ran some good photos. For all those thinking about coming to StoogeCon on April 25, 2009 ,the photos were all taken at Legions Hobbies where the gaming will take place.

StoogeCon web notice here.

 

Hungarians on the Website

I posted pics of my Later Hungarian army on my companion website.  Along with Germans and Poles, this is a “Baier family” heritage project! My aim is to do all three armies in the late Medieval period…Poles will follow next.

 

December-January Gaming

The guys got together Dec 26 for an all-day session at Jim’s place. Rich Fisher and son Andy visited from Virginia, and nephew Steve came in from Arizona. The four of us played a WWII battle in the bocage moderated and provided by Keith Kunkle (rules Battleground?..dunno). Team Baier played the 29th US Division battlegroup attacking the wily German Fishers. Three of us never played the rules before, so the game ran slowly until we learned the fundamentals.

The Battlefield

At left is Steve, Andy and Rich surveying the field before the game

We had two infantry compies with the support of a platoon of armor to attack with. The hedgerows proved hard to crack as the game progressed, just like it was for the 29th in the month after D-Day.

Visibility and movement are handled well by the rules, but combat seemed very hard to remove enemy stands..basically you need a modified 10 on a ten-sided die to kill and there aren’t many “plus” modifiers!

Final result was judged a narrow Allied win….no thanks to me <G>

My verdict was that I’d rather play Spearhead, although that’s a higher organizational level game. Our thanks to Keith for the afternoon festivities!

Ambush at the Crossroads

Under the cover of a smokescreen laid by mortars, Steve advanced his armor to the crossroads where Andy’s Germans tried to ambush them.  Partially successful at first, the guns of the tanks proved too much for the defenders who pulled back hastily after losing the company commander…postumous Iron Cross awarded to his family.

January 12 had Steve Parillo, Larry Chaban, and me at Legion’s Hobbies for a nite of DBx gaming. I had a “virgin” Late Hungarian army newly arrived from Sri Lanka, so Steve obliged me in the first game with his beautiful Post-Mongol Russians.

Wagons, Ho!

Hungarians to the bottom advance to the Russian lines. Steve had one war-wagon to my two, and his horse were all cavalry. My horse were a mix of knights and light cavalry.

Tricky Steve attacked along the front before I was set and managed to kill a bowman at first charge. Then I got lucky and killed his war-wagon by combining a shot with crossbow support.

Russian Cavalry

I hated to kill these guys…they’re so pretty! Steve printed parts of the flags and cut them to cover the shields. When the edges are painted up and sealed they look damn good!

My German 6-man knights once agin proved terrible in combat, but didn’t get killed for once (damn mercenaries!). One Russky fell to a wagon shot, and Steve double-overlapped my supported blade to no avail. After mt turn without managing to kill anyone with 5:2 and 4:2 modifiers (Diceman rules!), Steve flanked my blade and double over-lapped it to boot!

Hah! I actually rolled high enough to push him back. It was Evil Steve’s undoing as the next bound I picked up another cav and drilled a Light Horse (1:1) to pick up the win.

Chaban laughed as there were three or four combats where we BOTH rolled 1’s!

Next up was Steve playing Athenian Hoplites versus Larry’s Thessalians.

Suffice it to say that Steve ROLLED FIVE SIXES  IN A ROW for combat….guess who won?

Steve's Camp and War-wagon

Next up was Larry (Roundheads) versus Steve (Royalists) in Engish Civil War DBx style, using the Humbersides Extensions to DBA downloaded from the web.

Larry and I had not used these before, but the basis is DBA, so the differences are easy to learn.

Royalists (Steve) versus Parliamentarians (Larry)

Steve’s luck or Larry’s lack of it gave victory to King and Country….

I always like the period of the English Civil Wars so this is a good reason to dust off some old figs, and maybe do those Polish Winged Hussars I love so much!

We also cleared dates with Legion’s Hobbies, so announce Stoogecon II DBA con, to be held

Saturday , April 25. There will be two events, an Open Tournament and a Theme tourney, probably Book II. Details to be posted in the usual places and in this blog.

Get your armies ready now and boogie to Pittsburgh in the Spring!