Wargaming Alexander’s Campaigns

One of the nicest things to have happened since starting this blog is that I’ve met some inspiring fellow wargamers in cyberspace, and I’ve been pointed in the direction of some excellent resources that I was previously unaware of.  Which brings me to the subject of this short post – a very nice implementation of the micro campaigning approach by Steven Thomas on his Balagan website. Steven has put together comprehensive notes for a micro campaign following Alexander’s progress from 335 BC to the end of his life, including ‘what if’ possibilities that culminate in a potential match-up against the Romans. I can’t recommend this highly enough – it’s well thought out and beautifully presented. Check it out here – http://www.balagan.org.uk/war/dbx/dba/alexanders-solo-campaign.htm.

I’m looking forward to exploring the rest of Steven’s site, which seems to be packed full of goodies – including a DBA camp mini-campaign and a HoTT London Commuters army list…scary!

A big thankyou to Paul O’Grady for effecting the introductions by the way, and for all his useful comments elsewhere on this site.

Micro Campaigning – Part II

Following on from my previous post, this is a description of the very simple ‘micro campaign’ that I’ve been running over the past few weeks. The aim, as stated earlier, was to find a way of stringing my solo games together and giving the battles some wider context without resorting to maps and complicated ‘virtual’ opponents. The emphasis was very much on simplicity and playability…so this won’t be to everyone’s taste!

The basic premise is that two generals set off to explore neighbouring but separate geographical regions, each taking his own army into uncharted territory – their brief is to return with as much plunder as possible. I set the first campaign in Mesopotamia, with the generals and their troops being drawn from the New Babylonian army list in DBA Version 1. Each general sets off with a force of 18 elements (the equivalent of 1.5 small field armies), and a coffer filled with 100 gold pieces. The generals don’t have adequate maps of the areas they’re about to explore, so they have little idea of who they’re likely to come up against. The campaign lasts for 20 turns.

At the start of each turn throw a D10 for each general, with the following result:

1: Desertion – one element lost (determine element at random).

2: Disease – two elements lost (determine elements at random).

3: Bad Terrain – miss next turn.

4: Barren Lands – no effect, no further action.

5: Reinforcements – one fresh element arrives (determine element type at random).

6: Easy Plunder #1 – 50 gold pieces handed over by locals.

7: Easy Plunder #2 – 100 gold pieces handed over by locals.

8: Hostile Force Encountered – battle will be joined with hostile force as defender.

9: Hostile Force Encountered – battle will be joined with hostile force as attacker.

10: Hostile Force Encountered – battle will be joined with defender/attacker roles determined at random.

Battles

Determine the opposing force at random from a list of possible enemies that you’ve drawn up in advance – then delete them from the list to ensure they’re only encountered once. If the list for the opposing army has selection options then pick the version of the army with the best chance of defeating your general. Choose 12 elements from your general’s pool of troops. Use De Bellis Solitarius or a variant thereof to fight out the battle (substitute your favoured ruleset if you don’t use DBA).

If your general wins the battle he receives 100 gold pieces as tribute from his defeated enemy. Dice for each of his lost units, with a 40% chance of recovering them.

If your general loses, he forfeits 100 gold pieces to the enemy – this is drawn from his reserve. If he is unable to pay then his troops will be taken into slavery, any gold he does possess will be seized, and he will be sent home in disgrace. If he is able to pay, dice for each of his lost units, with a 20% chance of recovering them;  he is then free to continue with his expedition (but see ‘Troop Levels’ below).

Troop Levels

Once either general’s troop level drops below 12 elements (i.e. enough elements to constitute one field army), he is no longer able to do battle. He may continue to advance until he encounters a hostile force in the hope of picking up some easy money along the way. However, if he does run into hostile troops then he must pay 100 gold crowns to placate the enemy and then immediately turn for home with his tail between his legs. Alternatively, once his troop level drops below the minimum he can opt instead to head straight back to his own country with his ill-gotten gains, in the hope that his opponent fails to acquire more gold pieces than he has already won.

Victory

The victorious general is the one who holds the most gold at the end of the campaign. The two generals are effectively competing against each other…at a distance! The solo player controls both, and the interest is in their contrasting fortunes as the campaign unfolds.

My two generals – Nabonassar and Nabonidas – had a good success rate in their battles, taking on Midianites, Assyrians, Later Hebrews, Libyan Egyptians, Neo-Elamites and Medes. They both picked up some easy tribute from quaking locals, and they both had their share of misfortune – disease, desertion, the odd battlefield defeat, and hostile terrain. Nabonassar and Nabonidas however both survived to make it back to Babylon in reasonably good shape – with Nabonassar returning from his adventures with the heavier war chest and therefore receiving the acclaim of his king and his people.

This simple campaign played out pretty well in practice, and was a lot of fun. I’m thinking of tweaking various aspects of the rules for future campaigns, for example by varying the outcome after a battlefield defeat. A couple of the lessons I learnt during the campaign were (a) make sure there is a good variety of opponents for your generals to face and (b) avoid picking a ‘killer’ army for your own side to add more spice by ensuring that the battles will be really tough! I’m looking forward to adapting this approach to other periods and rulesets – a Hordes of the Things variant will likely be my next project.

While this kind of micro campaign will be much too simple for a lot of the solo wargamers out there, I hope it will provide a starting point for players lacking the confidence, the experience, the time or the inclination to run a fully fledged solo campaign. Happy gaming, and may the Dice Gods be with you!

Micro Campaigning – Part I

In his classic Setting Up A Wargames Campaign Tony Bath devoted a short section to Mini Campaigns. While the rest of the book focused on the minutiae of setting up a wargames campaign – map movement, weather, supply and replacement, and so on – Mini Campaigns described the various ways that Tony found for constructing much simpler affairs that served to introduce new players to the hobby or to fill the fallow periods of his famous Hyborean adventure. This is how Tony put it:

“In all the preceding chapters we have discussed ways and means of running relatively complicated campaigns which involve a good deal of paperwork and much calculation of movement rates, all of which tends to take up time. There are, however, other ways in which battles can be linked together so that their results will influence future actions; these are suitable both for those who wish to start off campaigning in a simple fashion and for those who do not wish to devote excess time to map movement and prefer getting on with the actual battles.”

Many solo wargamers take advantage of the freedom their version of the hobby gives them by devoting much time and effort to the development of complex campaigns. For some this is actually one of the prime motivations for going solo – it’s possible to drill down into the finer details of a period and a related campaign without having to worry what your fellow wargamers think. I can certainly see the appeal of that approach, and one day I’ll probably give it a try. But in recent months I’ve felt the itch to put together a ‘quick and dirty’ way of linking my battles together that I can run as a solo affair. Initially I thought about using the DBA campaign system, and did some preliminary planning with that in mind. But work and other commitments became so obtrusive that I wanted something simple enough to scrawl on the back of a piece of scrap paper, without having to worry about moving pins on a map or keeping track of what each ‘virtual’ opponent was doing; yet something that was nonetheless able to give some broader context to the solo battles that I was still (just about!) managing to fit in.

Tony Bath described his simpler efforts as mini campaigns, in which case I would probably have to describe mine as a micro campaign. The requirements were simple: find a way to string battles together that avoided complex book-keeping, maps and map movement, issues of supply and communication, and so on. Something  simple enough to pick up and continue at the end of a long and frustrating day…

There is a plethora of workable solutions to the question of how to set up something resembling a campaign whilst avoiding all the attendant complexity, and my recent effort is just one possible response. It’s a very simple framework that I plan to develop over the coming months, as trial and error help me to determine what works and what doesn’t. The basic mechanism however seems pretty sound, and – most important of all – playing it out has been a lot of fun so far. I’ll write up the details in my next post in case anyone feels like trying something similar.

Note: The photo of Tony Bath at the top of this post is taken from this tribute web page.

Solo DBA – New Frontiers!

I was really chuffed to discover recently that there’s a new Yahoo Group dedicated to revising and expanding the rules for solo DBA. Richard and Dale, who started the group up, are putting some serious thought and work into producing a powerful successor to the rather rudimentary solo options for DBA that have been available to date. In fact their two contrasting approaches are likely to produce two rather different end products, which can only be a good thing! If DBA or ancient solo play in general is your bag then check out the group and take part in the project: http://uk.groups.yahoo.com/group/soloDBAdevelopment/

The Art Of War In Italy

First of all let me apologise for the long gap between posts. Life sometimes has an unfortunate habit of interfering with our wargaming activities, but I’m happy to say that I now have plenty of time once again for the hobby and will be posting here on a regular basis.

And so to The Art Of War In Italy. Although Renaissance warfare is one of my main areas of wargaming interest, I hesitated about buying a copy of this book…even when Caliver Books republished it at a more reasonable cost than the mega-bucks being asked for by Amazon resellers and their ilk. After all, we’re talking about an academic thesis published in 1920, and I hesitated to shell out twenty quid for what I thought might turn out to be a very dry read. On the other hand, I’d often seen it cited as the only English language study devoted entirely to the Italian Wars, and generally lionised by devotees of the period. So I took the plunge and ordered it just before Christmas.

It turns out that Taylor is a very engaging writer. The book is clear and well-written, and easily stands comparison stylistically with modern writing. There is none of the stodginess that Charles Oman’s writing occasionally slips into. The Art Of War In Italy is an overview rather than a blow by blow account, with chapters on Strategy, Infantry, Cavalry, Artillery, Tactics, Fortification and Siegecraft, and Military Writers. There is an appendix giving a detailed account of the battle of Ravenna, and short pieces on some of the other major battles in the section on Tactics.

I’m strictly an amateur enthusiast of the period, and I wouldn’t presume to take a view of the finer points of Taylor’s thesis. But there is a great deal of useful material here for the wargamer, as well as fascinating analyses of some of the more contentious aspects of the wars. For instance Taylor takes a more balanced view of Machiavelli than Oman, arguing that although his prognostications on the auxiliary role of gunpowder weapons turned out to be way off target, some of his other observations have stood the test of time. Machiavelli correctly predicted that the infantry arm would come to take an increasingly important position in the warfare of his day; and he developed an innovative view of warfare as a continuation of politics and statecraft.

Taylor also comments on some of the minor controversies of the wars. In his analysis of Ravenna, for example, he devotes a couple of pages to the controversial subject of ‘Navarro’s carts’ – two wheeled vehicles mounted with heavy arquebuses and protected at their front by spears and scythes. His conclusion is thought-provoking:

“They represent an early attempt to solve the problem of manoeuvring heavy arquebuses in battle. This was…one of the most pressing military problems of the day… Navarro’s carts were a stage in the arrival of an effective combination of missile with shock action in infantry tactics. The carts themselves represent the part played later by the fork-shaped rest: the spears and scythes represent the pikemen and men-at-arms who protected and co-operated with Pescara’s musketeers at the Sesia and at Pavia.”

Whether modern historians would agree with this generous interpretation of Navarro’s experiment is another matter, but it is indicative of Taylor’s methodical and thoughtful approach that he refuses to dismiss out of hand the possibility that Navarro may have been applying his inventive mind to a real tactical problem of the day.

I’d recommend this book without hesitation to anyone who wishes to develop their background knowledge of the Italian Wars. Apart from anything else, and somewhat against my own expectations, it’s a very good read!

Additional Note

Thanks to Nik over at the Yahoo RenWars Group for pointing out that there is an online/PDF version of the text available here. It would probably have saved me a few bob if I’d known that a couple of months ago! On the other hand it’s a nice book to have in my collection, so I don’t regret paying for a printed hardback copy. Well, not much anyway ;o)

Some thoughts on De Bellis Solitarius

I’m currently doing the groundwork for a solo DBA campaign set in the Dark Ages and provisionally titled ‘Mighty Albion’. As part of the preparation I’ve played a few solo DBA games using the De Bellis Solitarius rules variant written by Chad La Mons. Although this is a generally excellent variant, some aspects have proved a little problematic in the games I’ve played. This has led me to think about making some changes for the purposes of the campaign:

1. Deployment

As written, this is quite rigid. For example, all of the NPG’s (Non-Player General’s) elements are grouped according to their type (e.g. all Spears will be grouped together). This fails to allow for mixing missile troops and other foot, or for mixing horse and foot. The deployment table also throws up, occasionally, some quite bizarre set-ups. So as an alternative, for each of the NPG armies in the campaign I intend to map out four ‘typical’ formations; then, prior to deployment, throw a D6. If the result is a one or two, I will consult the DBS rulesheet, throw again, and proceed as per the original rules. However if the throw is a three, four, five or six, I will set out the NPG army as per the equivalently numbered ‘typical’ formation.

2.  The Tactical Engine

While this is quite powerful as written, it does throw up some odd results from time to time. The NPG may fail to make an ‘obvious’ move, because of the constraints placed on him by the battleplan generator; or he may become excessively (and unrealistically) static and defensive after sustaining a couple of losses. These criticisms are partly dealt with by Chad’s caveat towards the end of his document, where he writes: ‘Exercise your best tactical judgement while at the same time remaining within the parameters of the NPG’s mood… It might be helpful at this point to view the NPG as your Commander, issuing out orders that you must manifest as best as you see fit.’

Despite this caveat, using the rules as written I’ve found that there will still be points where you think to yourself: ‘Hmmm, the NPG is committed to a defensive strategy, but in fact if he chose this moment to move his whole line into contact with my disordered one he would most likely win the game.’ It seems to me that in these circumstances – and equally for example where it would be madness to attack, or alternatively to not move that single element into a potentially game-winning flanking support position against my general – there needs to be a mechanism for varying the strictures of the DBS tactical engine.

To reflect this, I intend to try the following rules variant. Faced with the sort of quandary described above, rather than automatically implement the course of action prescribed by the DBS tactical engine, instead use percentage dice to determine the NPG’s actions based on the probability of how a competent player/general would act in the circumstances. For example, if a general assault rather than a defensive realignment might win the game for the NPG at a pivotal point in the battle, you might allocate a 75% probability to this assault occuring and a 25% probability to the NPG sticking to his defensive approach. Use this mechanism no more than three times per game. I’m hoping that this option, used sparingly, won’t break the tactical engine but will instead add to the enjoyment and realism of the game, and provide me with a greater challenge!

The Moyry Pass

In the year 1600, as Lord Mountjoy succeeded the Earl of Essex as viceroy of Ireland, Hugh O’Neill was at the height of his power. He had given the English a bloody nose at Clontibret (1595) and The Yellow Ford (1598), and had successfully prevented the enemy from encroaching into his earlship of Tyrone. His first confrontation with Mountjoy, the man who was eventually to prove his match, occurred in the autumn of that year when the English leader attempted to force the Moyry Pass, the difficult and well-defended gateway to Ulster. The succeeding battle – ‘one of the greatest fights that hath been seen in Ireland’ – provides excellent material for a solo scenario. For a full account of the battle see G.A. Hayes-McCoy’s comprehensive ‘Irish Battles – A Military History Of Ireland’. You can also read a brief account of the battle on Wikipedia.

The battlefield should be set out along roughly the following lines (click on image for a full size version):

As you can see, the battlefield is effectively divided into three distinct zones. In the centre, the pass is blocked by three barriers, “long traverses with huge and high flankers of great stones, mingled with turf and staked on both sides with palisadoes wattled” (Fynes Moryson, Mountjoy’s secretary). Plashed barriers separated the central highway from the rough rising ground on either side.

As a solo scenario, you take the side of the English commander, who must force the Irish from two of the three zones in order to win the day. The English forces consisted of 3,000 foot – a mix of pike and shot, some of largely untried quality – and 300 horse. The number of Irish troops is unknown, but for the purposes of this scenario we should assume that they significantly outnumber the English; as a rough guideline allow them at least 50% greater strength. The Irish appear to have fought well and to have had both high morale and a high degree of mobility, and it is likely that they would have been armed similarly to the English (though perhaps with a greater preponderance of calivers over pikes). The actual number of figures or elements used should be tailored to your preferred ruleset in order to give both sides a chance of winning the battle.

The following scenario notes apply:

A. Initial disposition of Irish troops unknown. As the English commander you can see that some troops are manning the first barricade, and there appear to be some troops on both sides of the pass along the rising ground. Lay your plans and deploy your troops.

B. Dice for Irish dispositions once your troops have begun their advance into the pass. Note that you cannot re-allocate or shuffle your infantry once you have seen the Irish dispositions, but must continue with your initial plan of attack. You can however freely move your cavalry to whichever side of the battlefield you wish at any time. Throw a D6 to determine the Irish dispositions:

1,2: One third of all troops placed in each of the 3 combat zones (left, right and centre)

3,4: Half of all troops placed in the pass itself, remainder divided equally between flanks

5: Irish centre and Irish left strongly manned, Irish right screened only

6: Irish centre and Irish right strongly manned, Irish left screened only

C. The English will fight at a combat disadvantage of minus one on the flanks of rough, rising ground, and will suffer a movement penalty on that terrain of minus 25%.

D. The Irish behind the barricades count as being in soft cover.

E. Irish casualties: eliminated or routing elements have a chance of rallying and reappearing along the Irish baseline, in the sector of the battlefield from which they fled. Throw a D6 at the start of the Irish turn to determine this for each such element, a throw of 5 or 6 meaning that they have successfully rallied.

F. Irish at the barriers: any elements pushed back from the barriers will automatically retreat to the next barrier to their rear. They will do this successfully unless their retreat is physically blocked by an English unit.

G. Any Irish shot along the rough ground will attempt to enfilade the advancing English in the pass unless they are attacked to their own front.

H. Irish troops on the rough ground attacked to their front will attempt to close with the English if they outnumber them by a factor of 3:2 or better. Otherwise they will engage the English in a fire-fight whilst slowly falling back to avoid contact. They will however hold their ground at all costs if they have fallen back to the line of the last barricade in the pass.

I. As the English commander you must attack the barriers in the pass with a minimum of one quarter of your force, though these troops may be used to hold or pin the Irish at their barrier(s) rather than attempt to actually storm them.

J. To reiterate, you win if you succeed in pushing the Irish off the field in any two sectors of the terrain; should this happen the Irish will have lost their overall advantage and will melt into the hills. Any other result means that the Irish have won.

Good luck and happy gaming!

Mercenaries And Their Masters

Pen And Sword have recently republished Michael Mallett’s ground-breaking 1974 study of warfare in early Renaissance Italy, ‘Mercenaries and their Masters’. Mallett’s study is a detailed refutation of the thesis advanced by Oman and others that the early Italian Renaissance military scene was a backwater blighted by the anachronistic heavy cavalry tactics of the condottieri.

I can heartily recommend this book, which is full of detail but also immensely readable. Mallett surveys Italian warfare and its social context from the 13th century through to the Italian Wars of the 16th century, focusing in particular on the development of the complex relationship between city states and condottiere captains, and their contribution to the refinement of the art of war. He explodes a number of myths, including that of the ‘bloodless battle’ derided by Machiavelli and his successors, as well as the notion that mercenaries were inevitably venal and treacherous. The reality was far less straightforward, and Mallett cites much original source material to back up what is now widely regarded as essential reading.

This is an excellent, detailed introduction to the subject which has inspired me to investigate early Renaissance Italy further as a fruitful arena for wargaming. If you have any interest in the period it’s well worth the cover price.

Pictured above: Bartolomeo Colleoni, prominent condottiere and commander of the Venetian army from 1455 to 1475.

The Last Apostle

“It was a pleasant sight, if a man’s skin had not been in hazard.”

John Taylor, Chaplain and Chronicler to Henry VIII, 1513.

The Background

This scenario is loosely based on an incident that occurred during Henry VIII’s 1513 invasion of France, though it may readily be adapted for any period between the Renaissance and the late nineteenth century.

When Henry’s army assembled at Calais in the summer of 1513, it had with it ‘twelve guns of unusual magnitude each cast in the image of an apostle’ (Charles Cruickshank, ‘Henry VIII and the Invasion of France’, Alan Sutton 1990). The king was inordinately proud of the large artillery train he took with him on the expedition, and the apostles were his particular favourites. But when the English were surprised by a French force in the neighbourhood of Tournehem in late August, one of the apostles – St John the Evangelist – became separated from the main body of the army in the aftermath of the fighting, and slipped into a deep stream in the ensuing confusion. An English detachment assigned to fish out the gun – which weighed over three tons – was overwhelmed by a body of French troops, and the apostle was lost.

Henry was furious. The Earl of Essex and Sir Rees ap Thomas set out to see whether they could retrieve the gun, as well as a bombard that the French had seized at the same time. When they arrived on the scene they realised that whilst the bombard had already been removed to safety by the enemy, they had a good chance of saving St John, which was still mired in the stream. The great gun was dragged from the water, but while they were preparing to move off with it a large French force appeared. Essex wanted to attack at once, but Thomas pointed out that they were outnumbered, and moreover that their orders were to retrieve the apostle – not to fight a general engagement. The Welshman’s counsel prevailed, and the English – with the apostle harnessed to a team of Flanders mares – headed back to camp. At this point the French cavalry launched an attack on the rear of the English column, but they were beaten off with great spirit. Essex and Thomas arrived back at Henry’s camp in triumph.

The Scenario

This small action provides a number of possibilities for solo scenarios, with either or both of the discrete phases of action providing enough material for an interesting game. I have chosen to concentrate on the second phase, i.e. Essex and Thomas’s rescue of the gun, and to assign the NPG (non-player general) role to the French, and the human general to the English side. This however could be reversed with little difficulty should you wish to do so.

The balance of forces engaged in this fight clearly favoured the French, but other than that details are sketchy. I would suggest the following order of battle, which you will need to adjust to fit your chosen rule set (I tend to use the movement and combat values in DBA, with some house amendments):

The English:

1 x Knight General (the Earl of Essex and Sir Rees ap Thomas)

3 x Demi-Lances (medium cavalry)

4 x Border Horse (light cavalry)

2 x Bowmen

1 x Limber Team (plus out-riders)

The French:

3 x Gendarmes (knights) inc. General

4 x Stradiots (light horse)

2 x Mounted Crossbowmen

2 x Mounted Arquebusiers

2 x Skirmishers

The Battlefield

The engagement is fought out on a battlefield consisting of good going dotted with four small copses. A stream crosses one edge of the battlefield diagonally; it should be treated as impassable terrain for the purposes of this game, except for the French skirmishers and English bowmen. At the start of the scenario the apostle is in the stream. See the map for further information including the starting positions of the two main forces. Note that this is my own interpretation and is necessarily a highly impressionistic one! Click on the image below for a larger version:

Winning The Battle

You will achieve victory if you meet all of the following game objectives:

1. The limber team and attached apostle exit the battlefield safely.

2. Your general exits the battlefield safely.

3. At least 50% of your units manage to leave the battlefield in good order (i.e. not pushed back across the baseline or routing).

Note that the English can only exit from the corner of the board where they were initially deployed. If you meet the first and second objectives but lose more than half your troops, you have achieved an honourable draw. Any other result and the French win!

Playing The Game

As commander of the English side, you will have to deal with a number of unknowns:

1. How long will it take to drag the apostle out of the stream?

2. When will the main French force attack, and what form will their attack take?

3. Where have the French deployed their skirmishers?

Once the battlefield has been set up and the two forces have been deployed, the English are free to move towards the stream to retrieve the gun, and take the first game turn. You may choose to throw out a defensive screen to cover any French advance, or you may prefer to concentrate on getting your troops to the stream as a single body. Note however that you may not attack the French at this stage. When the English move is completed, throw a D6. Results as follows:

1 – 4 : the French hold back, no action this turn.

5 : the French are indecisive, throw again.

6 : the French will attack this turn.

Repeat this procedure at the end of each English turn until the French force attacks.

Following the completion of the first English game turn, throw a D6 to determine the position of the French skirmishers, with the following result:

1 – 3 : the skirmishers are positioned across the stream.

4 : the skirmishers are hidden in the copse nearest the English entry point.

5 – 6 : the skirmishers are deployed in the copse nearest the stream.

Note that the French skirmishers will attempt to disable the limber team. Failing that, they will harrass the nearest English unit(s). If positioned across the stream, they are able to cross it without suffering a movement penalty, but fight at a minus one combat penalty if caught in the stream itself by any of the English horse or foot.

Once the English limber team has reached the apostle, throw a D6 – this determines the number of turns it will take to pull the apostle out of the water and limber it up.

Once a French attack has been triggered, you must determine the tactics that the French general will employ. You may well choose to use your own solo ‘house rules’ to this end, but here are a few suggestions based on simple dice throws. Throw two D6 and proceed as follows:

2 – 3 : Gendarmes and Stradiots move to block the English exit point. Other troops deploy to harrass the English at the stream and at any weak points along their line.

4 : Mounted Crossbowmen and Mounted Arquebusiers move to screen off the English exit point while other troops concentrate on destroying the limber team.

5 : Mounted Crossbowmen and Mounted Arquebusiers move to screen off the English exit point while other troops concentrate on killing the English general.

6 – 7 : All French units move to block the English exit point.

8 : The whole French force launches a general attack along the English line.

9 – 10 : All French troops focus on killing the English general.

11 – 12 : The whole French force focuses on destroying the limber team.

Final Thoughts

I hope that this simple scenario, based on a small-scale engagement in Henry VIII’s 1513 French campaign, will provide plenty of scope for adaptation and variation. Most of the suggestions I’ve made here – for example as to the composition of the two sides, the French tactics, and the victory conditions – are tentative proposals which would undoubtedly benefit from further development. Scales and distances will have to be tweaked to fit in with your favoured ruleset – the English need to have a reasonable chance of accomplishing their mission, and the French of engaging them en masse!

It should be fairly straightforward to transpose this game into other periods. It will neatly fit into most historical periods from the late medieval age to the beginning of the modern era. And of course by replacing the stranded gun with, for example, a supply wagon or siege engine it would also be possible to morph it backwards into earlier times.

Top Tip!

I’m currently play-testing a scenario based on an incident from Henry VIII’s invasion of France in 1513. It should be ready to post in a week or two, but in the meantime here’s a ‘top tip’ for anyone out there who fancies a quick game of solo DBA without shelling out the money for armies…

I used to be a fairly regular player of DBA online (DBAOL), which (as the name suggests) is an internet implementation of the DBA ancients/medieval ruleset. In recent years the number of players has been on the decline, and there have been a series of reported issues that have made it a less attractive option (flaws in the program that unscrupulous players can exploit, and other alleged problems which I won’t go into here). However, it’s still a cracking game, and it’s still possible to freely download it onto your computer to play solo ‘hotseat’ games.

Why bother, you might ask… Well, for one thing DBAOL can be played solo as it stands, or it can be made a little more challenging by using the De Bellis Solitarius rules variant (print out the rules and equip yourself with a couple of dice). For another thing, the DBAOL program gives you access to 180 painted virtual armies, and allows you to play any match-up you like with a minimum of fuss and zero expense. I fancied a couple of quickies this morning, so I’ve just pitted the Later Imperialists against Burgundian Ordnance, and Italian Condotta versus the Later Hungarians. And I haven’t even had breakfast yet ;o)

So what’s not to like? Hopefully the guys behind DBAOL will resolve the outstanding issues sometime soon and I can go back to playing my favourite online game against real live opponents…in cyberspace. In the meantime, I’ve got the perfect computer based simulation for ancient/medieval solo play. You can download the game for free here: http://www.dbaol.com/

Happy gaming, companeros!