Why I think hills are horrible in wargames rules

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Sometimes I get obsessed by tiny little aspects of the hobby and just have to write about it. In detail. A lot of detail, after endless hours of research. This time I’m picking on hills. You see hills were a thing in the South American Wars of Liberation – my current favourite period. A lot the battles featured at least one big hill e.g. Battle of Maipo. This hilly tendency could be extreme e.g. the Battle of Vargas Swamp was fought predominately on the slopes of a single giant hill and half the table top is covered in hills. Bolivar’s Very Bad Day, my Liberators variant of Tilly’s Very Bad Day, is going to have to cope with a lot of hills.

Unfortunately, hills are horrible in wargames rules. I’ve not seen any set of wargaming rules that cope with them really well, sadly, not even my own Tilly’s Very Bad Day. Certainly not my beloved Crossfire where hills are tiny mesas. I could have left it there, but I felt an obsessive urge to prove my claim of “horrible” so I got out a bunch of my wargaming rules, read the section on hills, and used a standard set of questions to test how well the rules handled hills. Here is what I found. It is horrible but there glimmers of genius.

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Solo DBA Arthurian Campaigns

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I’ve shared some DBA Arthurian Campaigns based on Martin Smith’s “Arthurian campaign” article in Slingshot (Smith, 2021), itself based on Kaptain Kobold’s solo HoTT campaign (Dux Bellorum). Both Martin and the Kaptain give solo opportunities so I thought I’d share how to use my campaigns in solo mode. You can play a solo variant of the campaign, like Kaptain Kobold. Or you can play a multi-player campaign with the table top battles fought solo, like Martin Smith (2021). Both options are presented here.

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El Cid crushes the Caliph – A Big Base DBA Battle Report

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Adam and Chris came over for a Big Base DBA set in the Reconquista. El Cid (Chris) leading a Castilian/Spanish army against the fanatic, Moroccan, Caliph of the Murabitun (Adam). Feudal Spanish versus Fanatic Berber according to DBA. Any one who has seen the Charlton Heston “El Cid” movie will know what this is all about.

Summary: Fun game. The action was all cavalry with the infantry hardly involved. Ed Cid and his Hidalgos (Knights) triumphed after a long and fierce struggle. The Caliph died at the head of his army.

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Simple knock-out Arthurian DBA campaign (518-537 AD)

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IanH’s Simple knock-out DBA campaign (Skodbac) offers a really simple way to run a DBA campaign that will reach a conclusion really, really quickly.

So I have written yet another DBA Arthurian Campaign, but this time using the Skodbac concept. Like The Bear Exalted, this campaign is set in 518-537 AD, the most likely time period for a historical Arthur.

Being 518 AD, the Roman legions are long gone and the barbarians – Angles, Saxons, and Scots-Irish – are established on the soil of Britannia. The Picts remain troublesome neighbours, and the Gewissei are the enemy within. But the Romano-British kingdoms (Dumnonia, Powys, Hen Ogledd) and their Celtic people (Kymry), continue to fight back.

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The Bear Exalted (518-537 AD) – DBA Arthurian Campaign

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It is 518 AD. The Roman legions are long gone and the barbarians – Angles, Saxons, and Scots-Irish – are established on the soil of Britannia. The Picts remain troublesome neighbours, and the Gewissei are the enemy within. But the Celtic people (Kymry) of the Romano-British kingdoms continue to fight back.

I have written two DBA Arthurian Campaigns based on Martin Smith’s “Arthurian campaign” article in Slingshot (Smith, 2021), itself based on Kaptain Kobold’s solo HoTT campaign (Dux Bellorum). The first was The Legions Have Gone (420-439). This is the second campaign. It is called “The Bear Exalted” and is set in 518-537 AD, the most likely time period for a historical Arthur. The campaign name, “The Bear Exalted”, is based on the title Arthwyr, a possible, if dubious, old Welsh origin of the name Arthur.

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The Legions have Gone (420-439 AD) – A DBA Arthurian Campaign

The Legions Have Gone (420-439 AD) - DBA Arthurian Campaign - Banner

It is 420 AD. The Roman legions left 10 years ago and the barbarians are pounding at the doors. The Angles, Saxons, and Scots-Irish all want a piece of Britannia. The Picts and un-Romanised Welsh are also troublesome neighbours. But the Romano-British kingdoms are fighting back with a combination of ex-Roman troops and men fighting in native styles.

I have written two DBA Arthurian Campaigns based on Martin Smith’s “Arthurian campaign” article in Slingshot (Smith, 2021), itself based on Kaptain Kobold’s solo HoTT campaign (Dux Bellorum). This campaign is “The Legions have Gone” and is set in 420-439 AD. The campaign assumes Arthur existed, was early 5th century, and led Roman troops.

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DBA Arthurian Campaign – What are my options?

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I like the Arthurian setting. I like Campaigns. I like DBA and HoTT Campaigns because they are relatively simple and quick. I’ve played a few games of Arthurian HoTT. I’ve run Britannia 600 AD as a HoTT campaign for six players, although it can be used for DBA. I like the idea of gritty dark age DBA games. A recent article by Martin Smith on his “Arthurian Campaign” for DBA got me thinking about campaigns in this period again. The question is, what to do? How can I improve on previous efforts? What does an even better Arthurian campaign look like? And what army lists to use?

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Sinhalese and Tamil New World DBA Army List

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Sinhalese and Tamil (1494-1700) army list for New World DBA, my New World variant of DBA. The list covers the Sinhalese and Tamil kingdoms of Ceylon (modern Sri Lanka). Admittedly most of my information is about the Sinhalese and I assume the Tamil were similar. The New World DBA list is my equivalent to DBA II/42d, DBR III/21 and FoGR Hindu Indian, but differs from these in significant ways.

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DBA 3 – Improving the Simulation – Some Comments

Joe Collins has highlighted a number of problems with DBA 3.0 and suggested ways to address these problems. Collin’s was part of the group that developed DBA 3.0 so he is both a fan and on the inside team. I really like Collin’s attempt to tackle some big problems with DBA. It would be great if more people did this, starting with Phil Barker. Unfortunately, Collin’s particular suggestions mostly leave the problems unsolved. I do like his solution for Bow but even that needs more.

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1529 French v Spanish – A 24 Element DBA-RRR Battle Report

Chris, Adam, Jamie and I had another DBA RRR game, with 24 Elements, set in the Italian Wars. I think everybody enjoyed it. Chris and I won as the French. I found it a bit odd that pikes avoid fighting shot, in fact everybody avoids fighting shot, and shot don’t really need support by pikes against anything. My conclusion is that shot is a DBA-RRR super troop.

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Constructing 24 element armies for DBA and DBA-RRR

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Our recent game of DBA-RRR with 24 elements a side, shared between two players was great fun. But it did exhaust my supply of figures, as I’d collected enough for 12 point armies using all options. It also resulted in both army looked pretty much identical. Lots of shot, men-at-arms, and light horse. With as few pike as possible. I think more games with 24 point armies are quite likely in the future, but I’d like the army lists some real choices in what troops appear on table. So how should I arrange my 24 point army lists?

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Making a ditch and bank for the Italian Wars

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The Spanish surprised their French and Swiss opponents in the Italian Wars by putting arquebusiers behind a ditch and bank. So I thought I should make one. Or, more accurately, make some modular sections of ditch and bank so I can make any shape of fortifications. The modular features are using my Big Bases for use with Big Base DBA and DBA-RRR.

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Choosing a date for a DBA-RRR game in the Italian Wars

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DBA-RRR has lots of army lists for the Italian Wars. I can field all the variations so the question is, which army lists will we use for each game. In our recent games we have arbitrarily chosen a date and that has given us the army lists. One night I went for 1512 (Battle of Ravenna) and another night Adam chose 1525 (Battle of Pavia).

I’d like to systematise the choice, preferably using a die roll or cards. So in this post I do a bit of analysis on the battles in the Italian Wars and line them up with the army lists. I have a particular focus on Spanish and French because those are the armies I have, but Swiss and Italians of various flavours do appear. My focus is also within the boundary of modern day Italy because that is the theatre that interests me most.

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