We zijn eigenlijk niet zo’n bordspellen-vereniging – zegt uw lokale Amsterdamse miniaturensnob, tevens webredacteur van uw eigenste wargameclub Amsterdam6shooters. Maar dat is niet helemaal waar, of eigenlijk: helemaal niet waar.
Neem om te beginnen Blood Bowl, gisteren een mooi toernooi van gehad, prachtige miniaturen: maar wel op een bord.
X-Wing, oude klassieker, nu niet op tafel, eigenlijk een vet wargame: een bordspel.
Rommel, ooit nog eens spelen, een echt wargame voor echte wargamers: maar toch eigenlijk wel op een schaakbord.
En vandaag hadden we dus (en trouwens niet voor de eerste keer) Europa Universalis, Risk grand scale, Diplomacy voor sluweriken, iets met kaarten en fiches en figuurtjes – de schaal is indrukwekkend.
Om je mouwen bij op te stropen.
En om je vingers bij af te likken, ik moet zeggen dat ik als miniaturensnob best geïnteresseerd ben in dit soort spellen, juist omdat ze hebben wat ik in wargames mis: multiplayer en grand strategy. Desondanks blijf ik nog even doorgaan met figuurtjes schilderen :-). Snobisme stopt niet op een zondagmiddagje.
Er was ook Team Yankee, Warhammer 40K en Mortem & Gloriam:
M&G ging mij en mijn tegenstander nog niet vloeiend af terwijl de ontwerper dat wel belooft. De beweging snap ik nou wel, de volgende hobbel is de combat die net wel maar toch weer net niet DBx is. Het is wel soort van wennen aan een systeem met kleurendobbelstenen en subfases die het spel dynamischer en tegelijkertijd ingewikkelder maken. Recensie volgt later dit jaar.
After a long hard struggle Paul Hodson, member or the Amsterdam6shooters, was crowned champion of the Unofficial Dutch DBA International Outdoor Wargaming Tournament in Amsterdam. He won with two Roman armies against three Caledonian commands.
The Dutch Unofficial DBA Outdoor Open is a wargame tournament that takes place every year when the 18th of June falls on a Saturday, for a select group of international elite players, in the garden of Eden backyard of one of our super rich sponsors who was on his yacht in Monaco this weekend.
We played one game which was also the final. We had a player from Portugal who was born in Angola (Henrique), a Dutch player (me) who has spent holidays in the USA and Japan, and Paul; born in the British Empire and now a soon-to-be-retired employee of the European Commission. So the whole world was present.
The all-important final was a replay of the Mons Graupius Battle, 83 AD. Again, civilization won and barbarians were chased back “deep down to Caledonia back to Aberdeen/ Way back up in the woods among the evergreens/ There stood a log cabin made of earth and wood/ Where lived a country boy named Calgalus B. Goode/ Who never ever learned to read or write so well/ But he could play bagpipes just like a-ringin’ a bell“
Henrique (left), Paul (right)
Roman soldiers cheered to their triumphant general.
Paul and this game will get ‘Legendary’ status from the International Association of Amateur Outdoor Wargame Players and get an automatic invitation for the second edition, in the backyard of a certain Calgalus near Aberdeen. Better be good, then!
At our very, very first club meeting in March 2014 I organized a big 15mm Romans vs Barbarians battle. Here’s Brabo visitor Koen on a shady picture. How young he looked, compared with those ancient Romans!
As always, I wanted a bigger army so I bought more. Other projects prevailed but last month I finally cleaned a Roman shelf and painted my legionaries. I also played a Roman battle, more to come. Here’s the thin red line.
Testudo
No Roman army is complete without a testudo. I found a 15mm testudo from Warrior Miniatures (link). Online examples of painted models looked fine.
Westerhope Wargames blog (l,m) & Eclipsing Binaries blog (r)
The grand strategy is to playtest several wargame rules (Age of Hannibal, AdlG, M&G, Hail Caesar, good old big battle DBA), compare and select ’the best’, and get really proficient in it so that I can easily referee and run big battle multiplayer games. Below a recent Age of Hannibal game against Maarten.
Wanna join? I need opponents, big bloody barbarians or rough red Romans. Ave Caesar! Morituri te salutant.
Yesterday Maarten, Paul, Huub, new players Carlos& Ruben and me played a game of Mortem & Gloriam. We replayed Chareoneia, 338 BC, an antique battle between Filippus and his son the young Alexander the Great vs Allied Greek city states.
Paul introduced the game to us and was an excellent host, with Huub as his steward. I think that we’re the first gamers in Holland who have played this game. Haven’t seen battle reports from fellow Dutch wargamers so far. So this was a first.
The game was introduced in 2016. Recently writer Simon Hall struck a deal with the Plastic Soldier Company and a polished 2nd edition was published this year. As a ruleset it’s slowly gaining ground. The combination with PSC Ultracast 15mm cheap plastic miniatures from excellent Xyston and Corvus Belli white metal molds might make Ancients cheap and fashionable again.
I like ancients and play mostly De Bellis Antiquitatis so I’m interested in the more advanced variants. I have ambitious plans to compare M&G, DBA, FoG and AdlG some time. So I will probably write a full review. Not now. A first tryout is not enough for a serious review. I will share my first impressions.
The battle we played: Chareoneia
In our club archives we found a 2300 year old documentary, made by the great Macedonian kínematoon Quentintarantinotos, about this great battle. He enscribed stone tablets with pictures of the battle, 24 per minute, and by moving them quickly near a candle we were able to watch an incredible théatron. Check the live pictures!
Meeples & Miniatures reviewed the game. Writer Simon Hall was previously a co-author of the Field of Glory rules, which were published by Osprey Publishing. I regard Field of Glory as a descendant of Phil Barkers DBA. Hall writes in his preface that he is standing ‘on the shoulders of giants’, that he played every version of DBA and DBMM and he thanks Phil Barker. Of course – what would he Ancients hobby be without him?
Hall wants to bring to hobby to new generations – modernize it. In my opinion, M&G is a nicer, more modern version of DBx.
For those who don’t know DBA: DBA is an ancients wargame with 12 units per side. All units have a standard simple movement rate, measured in basewidths, and combat modifier. Units are (often) strong vs unit A (horse vs skirmish troops) but weak vs unit B, C or D (horse vs pike): very rock, paper, scissors. Combat is simple, a D6 + modifier + side or back supporting unit. A player moves 1-6 ‘groups’ each turn, depending on a dice roll. Games can be played in one hour on a small table and the game is very well suited for a competion or a tournament. Athough out of fashion I consider it a superior game, a kind of wargame chess, simple rules, fast, but subtle and complex.
Because players wanted larger, longer and more complex battles Barker designed DBM and DBMM as more ‘advanced’ variants. These games lost followers and fail to attract new gamers. In the past 15 years, Bodley-Scott, Hall and others developed FoG and French designer Caille wrote Art de la Guerre.
I regard all these new rules as Next Generation DBA. Old giant Barker and his wife Sue, both in their eighties, will not reach teenagers or twentysomethings with their rules. The twentyfirst century wargamer wants a hardcover bling-bling book and a phone app. Barker’s English is formal, not casual like many modern rule designers.
The basic Dbx system, a combat results table, a limited number of groups that can be moved per turn and a modifier for side/back support is still the core of the M&G-system. However Hall made some important changes:
he designed a pre-battle-game (that we didn’t use in our introductory game)
instead of a combat results table with higher/ lower modifiers, M&G has a system with coloured dice. Black dice are the worst and have many blank sides. Red dice are the best and have many instant kills. In combat, the unit with an advantage will use higher graded dice than the opponent.
instead of a fixed number of groups that a player can move, decided by a dice roll, a player draws command cards and can discard them, like poker. If he has bad cards he can only order a few or simple movements or less groups.
How we played the game
The game was phalanx like phalanx games should be. With a large phalanx. The Macedonians allowed themselves to be overlapped so their flanks were vulnerable. The Allied Greeks (my Allied Greeks) fought courageously. However, when we stopped (after 5 hours) the game was still a draw, but it was close and if we had played another 30 minutes one of the phalanxes had collapsed.
What I thought of this game
I liked it. Still I love the simplicity of DBA. Big Battle DBA (36 units, 3 players per side) will often meet my needs.
Rulebook looks good. Glamrock, the ancient way.
The coloured dice and cards might be ‘better’ than DBA. No need to check tables.
Instead, however, we often needed to check movement tables. Can my drilled pikes with these green cards wheel twice or just once?
Instead of a DBA combat modifier and quick calculations based on a combat results table we calculated the ‘better’ or the ‘worse’-graded dice. Not less simple or less complex than Barkers DBx-system, only different and more tangible.
The result was ‘historical’ and ‘believable’. I regard battles between a phalanx of riot police and hooligans as modern variants of these old Greek phalanx battles. Storm the line until one of the groups is exhausted.
The scenario was probably too slow and the rules too complex for Ancient-starters Carlos and Ruben. If you introduce new players, give them the quick and the dead, not the slow and the persistent.
