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!

 

DBA and FOG at Legions…

I’ll combine two different days here, first up is DBA day at the new Legions store. The hobby store we call home has moved to a bigger place just down the road from the old site (Get ready for StoogeCon II, bigger and better!). Three of us met for some inaugural DBA festivities.

Look at all the gaming space here! I used my Medieval Germans (IV/13b) much better than they performed at Fall-in..or at least my dice were better!

A few days later, on the first Monday in December, we had a bigger crew to try to learn FOG, or to get FOGged. Field of Glory uses more troops than DBA, and we had three commeander per side with the Mongols versus Fatimids .

Here I confirmed what I had suspected from playing FOG 5-6 times…..they are NOT the rules for me! My first morale roll was snake-eyes, and with FOG the lower the number the worse it gets! My next roll was slightly better…a 4! The new guys found out quickly why I AM the Diceman!

My leader, Hasn Bin Sober, commanded the left wing of  two infantry units and a unit of heavy lancer cavalry. The dice were my undoing as Jim’s Mongols rode down the archers and impacted my Lancers, who performed a little better than the cowardly foot <G>.

Here’s the dice throws for the record…I rolled snake-eyes for morale AND then a 1 to lose a stand! Jim naturally rolled box-cars for his morale. And he gets no casualty either.

After this miserable showing, I gave my FOG rules to Mike for an early Christmas present…my dice are too bad to play this game!

 

Fall-in 2008 After Action Report

Three days of DBA and 17 games later, Fall-in is in the history books. The weather was great for November…we walked around Thursday and Friday with short-sleeved shirts! Thursday nite began with Auxilirama in which 5 aux must be fielded. Since we only had 7 entrants, I was forced to play (force me!) to even the players. Two wins later, all I could hope that I wouldn’t win the tournament I was supposed to ref! Fortunately, John Demeter whacked my Early Macedonians 5-zip, so he could claim the victor’s spot!

John Demeter wins Auxilirama

Saturday morning was Big Battle DBA with Team Stooge (Larry Chaban and yours truly) fielding Southern Dynasty Chinese. Two wins and a loss to the tournament winners The Two Davids (Schlanger and Kuijt) was the story here.

Team Stooge... Diceman and Lobotomy

Two Davids...Kuijt and Schlanger

Chinese Ellys ready to attack the Davids

These battles all use a triple DBA army split into three commands. Usually Larry carries me, but his dice against Dave K.’s right wing attack were indeed worthy of a Diceman award!!

Dave S. delayed engagement while his partner cleaned up, and that was all she wrote…

Next up was a 100-Years War theme event, in which I used IV/3b Germans. No win for me as I split wins and losses. I next reffed Midnite Madness, but only 8 stalwarts competed. Jack Sheriff captured the honors and I got to bed early (2:15 am). Saturday morning , after sleeping in, saw some shopping as we hit the many vendor stands to see what’s new.

Next up was “Turkish Delight” with armies themed around the time of the Ottomans. I used the later Germans here, and basically had the same results…but Larry C, my bud, emerged victorious!

Last, but certainly not least, was the Peloponnesian War Campaign game, run by the Two Davids. Here if you attack someone and defeat them, they become your subject, or “biyatch” in “early neighborhood” speak. In 4 games I split, but no one conquered me and I had no subjects…eecchhh!

Campaign Map

All the columns represent the players, with tokens indicating any subjects.

Numbered chits were taken at the beginning of each round tto determine the order of attack. This was critical as you could only gain a subject if you attack him.

Thanks to all the event organizers and players who made Fall-in happen! See you all in the Spring!!

My photo collection for the con can be found at:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/2371103…7608823059741/

 

I AM the Diceman!

Last Friday night’s game at Jims illustrates my “ability” well. We are starting a new campaign based on the Punic War period. My empire of choice is the Ptolemaic kingdom. Battles are to be fought in DBM, FOG, or BBDBA. My first battle occurred when I invaded the neighboring Kyrenian Greek kingdom. Howard West was assigned as my opponent, and we set up a DBM battle. Jim recorded dice rolls for the game as a test.

I rolled 76 combat dice for the game.

20 were 1’s! I lost 16 elements in the game, which I surprizingly won.

Diceman rules!

Here is Jim’s campaign report for the playerr:

The Ptolemaic army under Ursinankten Ptolemny advanced into the land of the Kyrenean Greeks.  They were met by the Kyrenean field army in the dry badlands southeast of the Kyrenian capital.  Ptolemny brought 10,000 pikemen, 8,000 thureophoroi, 1,000 Thracians, 1,000 Galatians, 1,000 Nubians, 30 elephants, 500 light horse1,500 cleruchs.  The Kyrenean leaders emptied the city of hoplites, fielding some 15,000, supported by 3,000 thureophoroi, with Libyan chariots and light foot accompanying them.

the battle took place near Lake Nyad, with the Ptolemaic right and Kyrenean left resting on the lake.  Ptolemny had little surprise for the Kyreneans, having dragged some 40 galleys along partially assembled.  The galleys were quickly put together and launched on the lake, and seriously discomfitted the Libyans, who spent a great deal of time trying to stay out of bowshot of the lake.

The main battle saw the Kyrenean left and the Ptolemaic right march resolutely forward to engage.  Soon a pushing match developed, with the Kyreneans having the upperhand despite the theoretical advantages of the [ike.  The problem lay on the inner flank of the Ptolemaic phalanx, which was not supported by the thureophoroi of the Ptolemaic center.  Also, the Kyeneans sent their entire force of cavalry around the

Ptolemaic left, which was hanging in the air.  This move was slowed almost to a crawl by poor orders.

The Ptolemaic left proved to be the deicison point of the battle.   The local commander waited until the enemy hoplites were a hundred paces away, then launched his 1,000 Galatians and 1,000 Nubians in an assault at the junction betweemn two Kyrenean columns.  Protected by the Nubians, the Galatians hacked their way through the hoplites, slaying hundreds.  A group of 500 turned inside and cut deeper into the Kyrenean center formation while the Ptolemaic cavalry, which had been waiting on the hill that supported their center, charged into the other end of the Kyrenean center column.  In a twinkling of an eye the advance was turned into a rout, Kyrenean hoplites streaming away to the rear.  On the Kyrenean left, the space cleared by the Ptolemaic galleys proved decisive.  The Ptolemaic right wing thruephoroi turned the flank, and as the Kyrenean general and Libyan chariots moved to close the gap, caught the Kyrenean general and his bodyguard and slaughter them after trapping them against the Libyan chariots.

The Ptolemnies lost some 4,000 men.  The Kyreneans lost some 6,000, the Libyans, about 1,000.  The Kyrenean army retreated into its capital.

 

Celebrity Collage by MyHeritage

MyHeritage: Celebrity Collage – Roots

Celebrity lookalike?? Somehow I don’t think I look as good as Gillian! (And those who know my lovely wife will understand the SPECIAL relationship she has with the X-Files!) Why didn’t Alec Guinness come up—especially when he played Hitler in Hitler: The Last Ten Days (1973)? At least Rabi won a Nobel in literature…. And what’s up with Jesse????

 

Advance the Colors, Springfield OH

I returned Sunday from ATC slightly ahead of Hurricane Ike. Four Pittsburghers made the trip (Howard West, Tim Hladon, Larry Chaban , and the Diceman) and we all agreed we had a great time. Pics can be found here.

Friday nite was a Double-size DBA event with 24 elements on a 24″ x 48″ board i three rounds. I christened my new DBA mats purchased from theterrainguy.com, and they are real nice and well worth the investment. I decided to use my Cheater Slimy Anglo-Normans with two war-wagons. Unfortunately for me,  pip dice were horrible and I finished third out of a large field.  Howard West finished second..not bad for a DBM player <G>.The events at ATC are in a DBA hotbed, so 20 people would seem a small event! The “Wing Joint” down the street was a good site for “drowning our sorrows” though, so the nite wasn’t a total loss!

War wagons advance

Saturday featured the 4-round Open Tournament and I used Italian Condotta. I did better here, but didn’t win the title. The most fun was putting a bounty on Larry C’s head to young shark Jason Stelzer, who ended up collecting! Hah! This nite was beer at the hotel across the street while we watched OSU get demolished. Tim (just turned 21— bought the first round legally!)

Sunday was the ” fun” event–Emperor of the Great Lakes. In a campaign-type system, players conquer other players to make them “subjects” (or b….) who they can use to conquer other players or defend aginst attackers. THIRTY players showed! The best dig was when Mike Demana (noted OSU fan), asked me what army I was playing and I replied “Trojans, USC variety”. Ooooooo, sorry, Mike. Mike used a “rolling thunder” play rate where ypu matched up with an opponent as soon as you finished a battle. I got 5 battles in before we had to leave as the wind was getting real bad from Hurricane Ike. At the point we left, I had only lost 1 battle and was a loyal subject of Mike Stelzer.

I’ll update the post with the winners when they are announced by our GLADBAG (Great Lakes Area DBA Gamers) host. I also made the plunge and actually joined GLADBAG, so now I have to try to earn the coveted Drinking Society button!

This is a great DBA con and I recommend it to all. See you there next year! And thanks to all the players and GMs from GL for making it all possible.

Winner of Emperor of the Great Lakes: Paul Potter, Late Imperial Eastern Roman (8 vassals)

Winner of Early Bracket, DBA Open: Keith Finn, Gauls (3-1 record)

Winner of Late Bracket DBA open: Greg Crane, Late Tang Chinese (4-0 record)

Congrats, all!

 

Field of Glory

August 1st featured a Field of Glory game with my Seleucids versus Jim Naughton’s Early Imperial Romans. My army was pointed by Tim Hladon, and we were surprized to see no ellys or chariots! That’s not the Tim we know! It seemed a good build, though, so I went with it. This was about my third game with the rules, but we have played a few more in Pittsburgh so the basic concepts are known. Terrain placement took about 15 minutes, and generally seems to leave the center of the battlefield open for combat–a good thing for the most part.

Jim deploys his Romans

My phalangites are in the center with Roman-style Argyraspids and archers on the flanks. Cavalry is deployed on each wing. My plan was simple…crush the middle with the pikes while the cav held off Jim’s flanking attempts.

He had bad going on his flanks with “ambush” counters showing, so I knew he would hold back, pin my pikes, and then try to work the flanks.

One good thing about FOG is that the combat starts pretty quickly. In a few moves we were in combat. Jim’s artillery and slingers hit first on my left, rocking back some Argyraspids and even managing to kill a stand. His dice rolls were magificent, while I was the Diceman <G>

Impact round

I took 6 hits while gave Jim only 2!

Nice dice..6 hits out of 7 dice!

Jim’s better quality troops allowed him re-rolls on dice showing 1 or 2. My morale /death roll was equally magnificent..one stand dead and a 3 for morale. Needless to say this was bad! Short news is the game continued in the same vein. Jim’s next rolls were just as good and mine were just as bad. End result is a broken Seleucid army. We didn’t finish the game due to time, but the result was ordained. I would have killed only one of his aux units that I caught with cataphracts in the open, but my pikes were toast.

Diceman’s verdict on FOG?? Thumbs down so far. It’s too sensitive to morale for my bad dice to handle. Combat and movement seem OK, although the combat takes several phases with different factors in each phase. I like terrain generation and ambush possibilities. Markers are needed to remember hits and moral level loss. It seems more in line with the old WRG 6th edition rules but less tedious to figure combat results. The game lenth seems a bit shorter than DBM. On the whole, I think I prefer DBA Big Battles or DBM for my choice for ancients. YMMV as always.

 

Historicon 2008 (part 2)

One of the highlights of the Hannibal at the Gates tourney was my game with my good buddy Ron Giampapa. Ron was playing a Sucessor pike army. It was the third game in the event, and when I asked him how he was doing, he complained about these pike armies which are too compact to protect their flanks. He was the defender, so deployed first against my Polybians.

Count them...only TEN!

When he was finished, I just said “where are the rest of your guys?”. He only had been using 10 elements the whole tournament! The whole room broke up laughing (including Ron!) when I loudly proclaimed it to all.

I had a great time in Roland Fricke’s Spartacus big battle game. Here players fielded a normal army for either the slaves (I’m Spartacus!) or the evil Romans. Assigned the left flank near my fellow slave general Larry Chaban, I faced the wiley Spencer Ginder’s Romans. Through the whole game, it seemed I was always a pip short, whether for movement or combat. The new die I bought with a ‘bear” instead of the “1″ didn’t seem to be working too well <G>. I kept seeing the bear! One attack was to send in the legendary stand of slaves led by “Granny” into the fray. See my DBA website for the history behind this special figure, (http://dba.spearhead1944.com/Spartacus/webpage/index.html)

Granny charges home

Unfortunately our totals were the same, so the element was now stuck. On the next bound, the inevitable happened when Spencer “closed the door”…Granny was no more….but it was whispered that her body was not recovered by the evil Romans. The legend continues for another day.

Roland issed random event cards to both sides, and I used “hidden pits” (gave -2 to the enemy die score) to trap and kill a cavalry element trying to flank my line.

At that point, Spencer pulled his General back to regain command control. Things went badly for my forces as I kept coming up just short. Eventually my troops were demoralized (they did not break at 4 elements, but became -1 to movement pip and combat factor). My noble brother Larrius (Chaban) saved my troops by attacking the Roman left flank after he destroyed 11 out of 12 elements belonging to General Ronus in front of him! Larry was proclaimed winner of the event for this feat.

Slave forces: Mark Pozniak, Kirk Douglas, Larry Chaban, David Kuijt, Yours truly, and Don Ray

Here is a group shot of the victorious slaves (with our mean faces). The name tags all say “I am Spartacus!”

A fun event for all, as there was a lot of good-natured trash talk back and forth.

Sunday morning brought the Theme games. I used my Achaian Mycenean Greeks in a four player bracket. Like the NICT we would play each of our opponents. Joe Schmidt, a new DBA victim (player) was to face me, Ron Giampapa, and Roland Fricke…all of whom were in the NICT.

One guess who won…and it wasn’t a NICT player! My congrats to Joe, and hope to see him again.

Over all, this Historicon was one of the best. It was great to see all my “buds” and make some new friends. The food and beer were good and the company was good…you can’t beat that! Hope to see you all again at the next con.

Everybody please check out the video on Tony Aguilar’s blog!