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!

 

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.