Apparently it's a bad idea to march your general on horseback into rough terrain. They.. die if they have to retreat at all and that's a sudden death victory right there.
In the second game we got some proper fighting going on. Movement feels a bit fiddly compared to modern games. Melee involves a lot of to-and-fro pushing of stands whilst there are a bare minimum of modifiers to consider. The game proceeds quickly and I bet you can easily play a game to its conclusion in 30-45 minutes.
Based on this experience I'd rate DBA a light "filler" wargame but I'm sure the DBx vets will disagree.
Play the earlier DBA rules with different armies, Roman vs Gauls or along those lines. Superb game. Non historical is good as well. You had a lot of similar troop types above.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the tip! Early hoplite greeks are pretty much just.. hoplites. I'll get more variety once I pit them against the Persians I bough recently.
DeleteThat would make a much better game with Persians. I have both these DBA armies in 6mm. My main scale for the rules is 15mm though. Great game when time and space are lacking. One Hour Wargames by Neil Thomas is also good for this. We play a lot of Rifle and Sabre with these. The rules cover ancients to WW2.
DeleteI'm taking careful steps towards ancients wargaming and have read a bundle of madaxemans battle reports. I've heard recommendations to use hail caesar and impetus. What I've heard about both dba and field of glory is that they require a lot of rolling of single die vs die with very little happening over the turns (or that things happen gradually), which supposedly make them "less fun" and "less cinematic." What's your take on these claims?
ReplyDeleteWell, how fun rolling dice is is of course a matter of preference. A simple flip of a card can be a nail-biting, cinematic moment if you're immersed in the situation so why not a single die roll. Similarly someone might be distracted and annoyed by having to constantly count how many dice he has to roll in a "bucket of dice" -game like Kings of War. You roll few dice in DBA, that's for sure. Luckily DBA uses a 2D6 system in combat when both you and your opponent roll 1D6 and compare results. That way you get a pretty robust standard deviation into play as you are most likely to get a result where you beat or lose your opponent's score by one or two and getting a difference of five is rare. That makes the result less dicey than say.. actions in Blood Bowl. For a bottom line I've heard a lot of talk that DBx is a bit dry and academic, and I don't argue. I don't think it's the amount of dice you roll but rather because of the way movement is handled and the lack of colour in the army lists instead..
DeleteI disliked FOG although it's all personal preferences. Imetous requires big basing which does not fit with other rules systems. Hail Caesar is not perfect. I have to say I like ADLG and the rules have all the army lists in the same book. Still looking for the 'great' set of ancients rules.
ReplyDeleteI'll be trying Warmaster Ancients next myself as I have the books and my basing is compatible. Also, there's a new edition of Basic Impetus coming out so I'll be giving it a go.
DeleteI never got on with FoG either and I am not mad on DBA, it always seemed a bit 'small' scale. I really liked DBM though - there can be a lot of combats with opposed D6 rolls and I have heard people feel is it both slow and a bit rules lawyery. I liked trying to engineer a break through or defending against the odds. There were many player decision points and it always asked difficult questions. Recently I have tried MeG, the new system from Simon Hall. It's got some interesting ideas but after 10 or 11 games I have decided it's not for me. I find it too arbitrary and a bit bewildering and too quick! I haven't tried ADLG yet but it does look interesting.
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