An Asian DBA battle

While I spun up (or just spin my wheels) to publish about my own projects, here's a link to a photo journal, the first of a series, but David Schlanger of WADBAG on local DBA battles. This report features a battle between Burmese and Ming Chinese armies--colourful and unusual!

So, clearly I need an update!

I did finish my Medieval Germans, and they helped me win my first (and probably last) HMGS tournament title. I'll post photos of the finished army and its prize in my next entry.

I'll also post the Campanian army that I took to the Two David's Pyrrhic Wars campaign/tournament. Truer to my usual pattern, that crashed out near the bottom of the group.

Since March I've been involved mostly in boardgaming, and that either Eurogames or online ASL games via VASL. I'm currently in three playtest matches and fighting three published scenarios with one playtest and one published scenario recently completed. Hopefully I and a couple of friends will be starting one of the historical campaigns soon...

I did have the pleasure of helping Bruce Weigle playtest another convention scenario for his upcoming 1871 fast-play grand tactical rules for 19th century European battles. They speed up the game considerably, but they take a bit of getting used to, as they change the nature of the game more than a little.

Melissa and I have started sweeping the dust and cobwebs out of our collective chess memories. In our first game I mistook one of her rooks for a bishop and she forgot that pawns take diagonally. I think next time through we'll do better with the rules and be able to start working on strategy. In the meantime we keep our brains fit with Lost Cities and Fjords.

Army painting: DBA IV/13 continued

So, with colours picked out, it was time to start slapping them on. I like to put down the main body colours (usually uniforms or other clothing) first, secondary body colours next, weapons after that, then faces/hands, with details and touch-up coming last.

Here's everyone with the first colour on:

And then everyone with two:

And a photo of my lovely (handsome) assistant:

Then weapons and shields got painted, and work on hands and faces began.

Army painting: DBA IV/13a

I don't seem to be finding much time to post, but I've been busy nonetheless. I've had a few chances to get together with friends for table games, but my wargame hobby time has mostly been of the painting variety.

Painting is a task I don't much enjoy. I do get a sense of accomplishment, and a bit of pleasure, when the lads are all done and dusted, but I don't have the talent or pleasure in the process that some of my friends do, so it's often a rushed process, trying to get a small portion of my huge lead mountain ready to play. This especially happens in the spring and autumn, when the big East Coast HMGS cons come around (I rarely go to the summer one), and I sprint to try to finish a couple of DBA armies in time for tournaments.

This year I had two on the table, and one appears to be almost done, nearly a week before the event, with the second well underway. Most unusual.

In this case, I'm painting a Medieval German army (IV/13) for Alan Ferrency's Holy Roman Empire pyramid tourney. Here's the list:

1x 3Kn//4Bd(Gen), 2x 4Cb, 2x 4Sp, 2x 4Bd, 2x 2Ps, 3x 7Hd or 4Bd or 3Cb

It's an unusual variant; most IV/13 armies have a healthy dose of Knights, but this one has only one Knight, and that optional. It's nominally a IV/13a list, but one of the mandatory four Kn in that list has become a Cb and three others have permanently dismounted as Bd. (Interestingly, the General is also allowed to dismount, which he is not in the original army list.) The final Kn has joined the original 2 Ax or Sp or Pk in becoming 3 Hd or Bd or Cb. It's a list that was going to be heavy foot for the most part in any case, but now it can filed six Bd or five Cb where before it could have fielded no more than one Cb and at most four Bd. Curious.

That curious composition meant I had to raid other armies in the painting box. Fortunately, I had two Medieval Scandinavian armies on hand (both from the same "I sell ugly armies cheap" packager on Fanaticus), so I had pillaging material. Goodness knows I'll have to do some sorting later to make sure I have a "proper" IV/13 army and the ability to paint up a Kalmar Union or Swedish army for my GF, affectionately known as Fröken Sverige. :-)

I took far too many snaps as I was going along, so I won't bore you with them all here, but you can go to my Fotki account and see them. For now, let's just have a shot of them at start, assembled (crossbows in hands) and basecoated with black gesso.

It's an odd mixture of manufacturers. I have no idea where the knights are from (they were partly painted already); I don't like them much, but there are only three of them, one element. The spear and crossbow are definitely Essex, with the pluses and minuses that come with Essex (portly and with crappy bases, but nicely sculpted and good detail). The handgunners look like they could be Minifig. The blade are nice figures with good detail and lovely animation; I think the fellows who will be appearing later in white and red are different to the fellows who will be in yellow and blue, but I'm not sure.

Besides prepping the figures, I had to prep my palette. I fiddled around a little on the Internet, using the information that my fellows were supposed to represent Hannover. In the end, since Hannover existed int he period in question only as a city (the Electorate, and later Kingdom, of Hanover didn't exist until the 18th century), I assumed that they were troops of the Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg and chose for all the knights and blades colours that would match that realm: red and white for Brunswick (Braunschweig) and yellow and blue for Lüneburg. The crossbows and spears would have colours from some of the cities of the region, perhaps representing burgher militias or professionals hired by those towns, and got assigned blue and grey. The two stands of handgunners, I figured, would be top-quality professionals hired by the general, so they too got red and white liveries.

Next: Paint goes on!

end of year wrap-up and recent gaming

Crusaders fighting Muslims (Bibliothèque Boulogne-s-Mer)

So, I didn't ever get a chance to write up either the PBP of the Charlemagne scenario or the subsequent playing of most of the Crusade scenario of EOMA. The end of 2013 came very quickly and a rush of (non-gaming) endeavours washed away my time for blogging before the year departed.

We did have a grand time with the Crusades scenario; we had all but one of the positions filled (no Poland for us). Well, most of us had a grand time. My friend Amir, who was playing France was hit by two "Leader Dies Heirless" events in quick succession, with an "Epidemic" thrown in for good measure. Germany (Eric) confronted some serious unrest throughout his empire but managed not only to hold most of it together but to begin growing slightly eastward (the joys of not having a Polish threat from the east). The Norman Sicilians were not able to expand into Byzantine territory very far, but they did start chipping away at the HRE a bit. As King of England, I was able to settle the British Isles down a bit and started a reverse conquest of Scandinavia. I also picked up Flanders when it rebelled in one of the LDE events. We recorded the game so we could play the final third of it (maybe), but even with the handicaps, Germany was well ahead at the point we stopped.

Mr Invisible and I finally managed to get our first game of Labyrinth in. Well, almost. We played through about two-thirds or three-quarters of a one deck game when I had to admit that the illness that had been twingeing all day (what turned out to be a stomach flu) was going to make it impossible for me to finish. :-\ It was unfortunate, as I had managed to bring at least one additional country to the Caliphate, but the West had managed to counteract this by conquering Afghanistan and bringing it into good governance.

In recent Euro gaming, I've traded a couple of games of (original) Carcassonne with my long-distance friend Kirstin. I played a new acquisition, Carcassonne: New World with three friends. I've also played Ticket to Ride (Marklin edition) with my chums the Grrlz. Both were fun. TTR:M I've played a number of times. the new version of Carc is funky; it is set on the eastern seaboard of the British colonies in the Americas, and as players build westward, pieces that are left on uncompleted roads or towns are recycled and returned to the players' hands. So you have to complete items fairly quickly or they will be overcome by events.

In miniatures, I got to play a quick game of DBA with my new DBA chum Jeff. He took my Sassanid Persians and tried to fight my Tamils with them. The Persians, despite that I love them, are a bit of a handicap to start with, having as they do an elephant and two hordes (a pip sump, as it were). And he had awful dice to go with them. And I got to defend, so I laid out a good deal of bad going that my raiders and psiloi were able to maneuver through. And I got good pips to maneuver my big block of elephants with. The combination meant that I hammered him unmercifully, 5-0 I think. We then joined a Cover Your 6 game of USN F-8s versus PAVN MIGs where both sides lost one aircraft down and one or two more damaged.

I have a wealth of boardgames that I've acquired recently that I'd love to get on the table but haven't had time to play yet. Still waiting to get The Hunters on the table, and some other GMT titles (1914 Offense a l'Outrance, Next War: Korea), MMP titles (Karelia 44, Baltic Gap, Rock of the Marne), and second-hand acquisitions (Republic of Rome, Blue & Gray Quad, Tokyo Express). Not sure how this will all happen, but I'll manage it somehow. Oh, and a new (to me) Euro: Brass, designed by the excellent Martin Wallace. It will give me a chance to polish up my Lancashire accent. :-)

And, to finish off, I've started up playing ASL again. I've been introducing some of my droogs to Starter Kit (we played ), and I've found a PBEM match (ASL28 Ambush!) to play via VASL.

Back to the past

I was fortunate enough to find a solid, enjoyable group of historical game aficionados where I went to college. We played probably at least once a week, on average, frequently running semester-long campaigns, first at a local alum's house, later at the room we were able to swing in one of the student society buildings by the simple expedient of registering as an organized student special interest group.

One of my all-time favourites was the SPI boardgame Empires of the Middle Ages (EOMA). I was introduced to it, as I recall, by the aforementioned alum, one of the eternal corps of Ephs who can't quite bear to leave the Purple Valley and find work as graduate assistants, or researchers, or small-business entrepreneurs, or NGO start-up organizers. He lived in a tiny (but cozy) house off campus, and he and I and several others would meet there to play boardgames or roleplaying games (his long-running D&D campaign is still a thing of legend for those of us who played in it).

But equal in enjoyment were the many games of EOMA we played. Only several years later was I able to acquire a copy of my own (originally published in 1980 by the now-defunct SPI game company of New York, it became a cult collectors' item).

And, to my delight, it looks as if I have persuaded some of my local gaming friends to give it a try! I'm hoping that they enjoy it as much as I do, so that this becomes a regular part of our game stable, as it did for me and Jeff, and Bryan, and Dean, and Phil, and Scott, lo those many years ago. (Bryan may remember if I've got all the right names.)

I played through the "Charlemagne" starter solitaire scenario this evening, to be sure that I still remembered the rules (I do, but there are nuances I need to be sure to point out to new players tomorrow). I took notes, so I'll post up a turn by turn replay later. For now, I will just confess that I ended up with a sad "Mediocre" score, as Charles held everything together right until the end, then dropped the basket of eggs going down the stairs (as it were...)

boardgaming recents

While I prep more sets of photos, just a brief mention of a few boardgames I've enjoyed in the past couple of weeks.

I was on (an all too short) vacation last week with friends. We brought plenty of games to entertain us, but we ended up playing only two: MacRobber (now known as Highland Clans) and Alhambra. My friends enjoy Alhambra particularly as they have been to the real one; I just enjoy it for the geometry.

Alhambra consists of accumulating money of different colours (good for all you DOD budget geeks!) and using it to "buy" garden tiles (of yet different colours), hoping to have the most of as many kinds as possible at the end of three scoring rounds (the last being the end of the game). You also get points for linking up the walls that surround these tiles, but the walls constrain how you can place the tiles. You have a reserve space (the planning board, as it were) for tiles that don't fit in your planned garden yet, but you only score the tiles that are fully played. I pulled off several swaps to and from my reserve space during the game. This was neat, as I had never done it before, and it allowed me to fine-tune my garden-building. But it also took up valuable time I could have been building new gardens, so I think it hurt me in the end. Mel, of course, ended up winning.

We also had a go at MacRobber, which has been reissued as Highland Clans, a game I bought sheerly on the strength of its notional theme (building up Highland clan estates and raiding other clans) and have played several times but not regularly. I had misplaced the English translation of the rules, so we had the English cheat sheet and the (original) German rules only. Luckily, Melissa is fluent in German (mostly), so we had no troubles playing. Each turn, each clan gets some resources, which it has to allocate to building (herds, monasteries, castles), recruiting (warriors, pipers, monks), or what the modern military would call information operations (having a bard weaken your opponent's clan). Then you can raid, trying to steal or destroy other clan's cattle or buildings. Each player gets a go, then you score (# of cattle and bonus for most, most monks, total castles and pipers minus how rich in kine someone else is). Then you go again, until you run out of resources or one player wins a sudden-death victory. In a surprising twist, Mel won this handily.

I played this again with the guys this Wednesday. Mel not being present, and me having played the game recently, I managed to thrash my friends mercilessly. (The spirituous liquors I had plied them with helped.) We wondered, as I have before, why one would build castles, as they are both the most complicated to score and seem to give almost no return on investment. I've checked the BGG forums, but no discussion of this. Not much discussion at all, as this seems to be not a popular game; odd, as I quite enjoy it.

Another game I enjoy, though I have a little trouble keeping some of the rules straight, is Jungle Speed. The guys and I had several rounds of this, which I seem to recall Bryan and I won. Again, Hendrick's Gin was my friend in this, as it's a game of speed in pattern recognition. Players flip over cards, looking for a match between their card and another that is already face up. A couple of odd cards upset the applecart by both looking similar to other special cards and having very specific and different rules. Once you spark a match, if you grab the "totem" (a small dumbbell, originally made of wood but now of rubber for decreasing injuries :-), the opponent whose card matches yours takes all your discards and adds them to his unplayed pile (disposing of which is the objective of the game. But if you knock over the totem or grab it when you're not supposed to, you get *everyone* else's discards to add into your stack.

Well, enough boardgaming for now. I have a couple of DBA games slated with Jeff this Sunday, and my friend Mr Invisible is talking about getting together for a boardgame (perhaps Labyrinth, finally, or perhaps PQ-17. Maybe sometime this month I will be able to get some painting in, but between making up shutdown hours, holiday stuff, and a pleasant distraction that's entered my life, I think painting may have to wait until the new year.