"Historic" battles at Breakthrough 2004 (long)

[APHooper]

Report on the DBA Historical Battles Tournament, Breakthrough 2004

After ten days or so of furious organization, the DBA tournament at Breakthrough 2004 proved to be a bit of an anti-climax, although I think the players who participated still had a good time. Breakthrough is a small convention, with about 50 – 60 participants present at peak hours, and with a dozen games scheduled for each Saturday period, it is a mistake to anticipate more than 5 or 6 players for any single game. So, my plan to provide figures, terrain and scenarios for up to ten players was just excessive, something better reserved for a big convention like Enfilade. But I still have all the scenario data in hand, and it would be easy to try them again at a future convention.

My plan was to hold three rounds of play, each featuring five scenarios based on historic battles that occurred between 1480 BC and 1367 AD. I based a number of my games on scenarios published by Chris Brantley at Fanaticus.org, but also devised a series of victory conditions for each game, each scoring between 1 and 5 victory points. Each “side” in each scenario could score up to 15 points, although the practical limitations of DBA – i.e., the game ends after one side loses 4 elements – meant that it would be difficult to score more than 11 or 12. The losing players from round one were supposed to play the more nominally powerful armies in the second round games. I had Essex army packs as prizes for the top three scoring players over three rounds.

I managed to test a whopping 4 of the scenarios before the event, with the help of several Northgate Ancients Gaming Society members; as it turned out, we didn’t end up playing any of those at Breakthrough. We got in six completely different battles there; I can therefore argue that we’ve actually played ten of them, now, and can report the following results:

First, on Sunday the 10th, Denny Hartung and Craig Steed were kind enough to test two scenarios for me. The first was the battle of Chalons, fought in 451 AD between the Romans and their allies, and the Huns, Goths and Gepids under the command of Attila. The army lists for each side featured 15 elements, including contingents of Alans, Visigoths and Ostrogoths, to represent the very large, very diverse forces present. In the game, the Hunnic light horse flew through a gap in the Roman line and took the Roman Camp, but a furious charge by the Visigothic cavalry drove straight at the Hunnic command, and succeeded in killing Attila himself! The Romans won 4G to 3C, and scored 8 victory points to the Huns 3.

We then took up Lechfeld, a battle fought between the Eastern Franks of Emperor Otto I and the Magyars in 955 AD. I used Chris Brantley’s scenario set-up for this one, in which the Franks are deployed in a long march column between two rivers, with a Magyar blocking force to their front and a flanking force on their right. In two plays, the results were split, with a 5 to 2 victory for the Franks (7 VP to 1 VP), and a 4 to 2 win for the Magyars (7 VP to 2 VP).

Then on October 13th at Fire & Sword Hobbies, I presented two “Civil War” scenarios, in keeping with the theme for that week’s NAGS DBA night. First was Cunaxa, fought in 401 BC, between the Imperial Persian army under Ataxerxes II and a mixed force of rebels and mercenaries commanded by his brother, Cyrus the Younger. This one I devised largely myself, using armies permitted under list II/7, Later Achaemenid Persian. Of course, Cyrus’ army included 4 stands of Greek Hoplite spear and an element of Greek cavalry, as this is the battle where the famous “Ten Thousand” began their long march back to Greece as detailed by Xenophon in the Anabasis. I included a special rule to deal with the death of Cyrus; rather than possibly causing instant defeat, this activated Clearchus the Spartan, who took over command as a Sp (Gen) element. In play, the rebels quickly eliminated 4 Persian units, including the “Immortals,” and finished with just 5 victory points to 2.

Then Chris Hansen and I set up another scenario I made up myself, the battle of Navarette or Najera, fought in 1367 between a Castillan/French army (IV/68) commanded by Enrique de Trastamera and a Castillan/English force (IV/62) lead by Black Prince Edward of England on behalf of the deposed King Pedro the Cruel. This is a fascinating battle that featured many of the most famous knights and captains of the 14th Century, and historically a triumph for Edward’s English longbowmen. I allocated 15 elements per side for this battle too, because I needed to include several extra blade elements to model the commands of the major English captains, and gave the Castillan/French 2 extra light horse and an extra blade to represent their order of battle.

Playing Henry (Enrique) and the Spanish, I had unusually good PIP rolls, and won 5 elements to 0. My knights were able to charge home with fatal results to two blade stands commanded by John of Gaunt and the Captal de Buch, and my own handful of archers had remarkable luck in doubling up on a pair of English bow elements. When Chris sent another bow element in to cover the flank of an attack on Bertrand du Guesclin’s dismounted knights, it ended up doubled by a six to-one result. The victory point total was 6 to 1, as both Pedro the Cruel and the Black Prince escaped the field, and I was ¼ inch short of being able to claim I was “threatening” the English camp.

All four of these scenarios were intended for the later rounds of the tournament, since they all represented unusual orders of battle or deployment conditions. I had five battles using standard 12-element lists for the first round in mind, in case there were any novice players involved. So, I set up the boards for those first five battles when I arrived at Breakthrough, and those were naturally the games that the players chose to set-up when they sat down to play.

Randy Colver and Chuck Monson started us out by fighting the battle of Al Qadisiyah, 636 AD. This was the final battle between the Arab Conquest (III/25B) and the Sassanid Persians (II/69) for control of Mesopotamia, in which the Persian’s great quasi-historical hero Rustam is said to have been killed. In the absence of any other historical figure on the Persian side, I declared Rustam the general and based victory points for both sides on his survival or death. I rather jimmied the game balance by allowing the Arabs to use the “B” list, which has more cavalry and fewer warbands; even so, the Sassanid cavalry and their knights did impressive work, and won the battle 4 to 3. Victory points were 7 for the Sassanids and 3 for the Arabs.

After finishing that battle, Chuck and I set up Polybian Roman (II/33) and Later Carthaginian (II/32) armies for a refight of the Battle of the Metaurus River in 208 BC. Chuck, in the role of Hasdrubal, got excellent service from his elephants, and overwhelmed my legions by a score of 4 elements to 0. He scored 8 victory points and I got only 1, for maintaining the Triarii in reserve throughout the disaster.

Randy Colver shifted over one table to face Scott Schwager, and the two refought the battle of Taginae, featuring Italian Ostrogoths (III/3) and Early Byzantines (III/4) under Narses in 552 AD. Randy’s Byzantines were fearless, but Narses was killed by the Gothic knights, and the battle ended 4G-3 in favor of the Goths. Randy’s 5 victory points were impressive in a defeat, but Scott’s merciless pursuit of the Byzantine cavalry gave him 11 victory points, the best total on the day.

For their rematch, Scott and Randy set up the battle of Ipsus, 301 BC. Historically, Seleucus Nicator and Lysimachus used their combined armies to completely overwhelm Antigonos and his son Demetrios on a field in Phrygia, putting a final end to Alexander’s unified empire. In the refight, it was the Antigonids that won in a 4-0 walkover, and Randy ended up with 8 victory points to 0 for Scott. One of his points was gained when his auxilia, lead by the 18-year-old Pyrrhus of Epiros, made an attack on a Seleucid elephant.

Meanwhile, two brand new players appeared and expressed an interest in learning the game. The young man and woman in question (unfortunately, I didn’t record their names anywhere) are both employees of The Game Matrix in Tacoma, and were anticipating the plan to host DBA games on the first Saturday of every month at the store. Per a request for truly ancient armies, I set them up with the New Kingdom Egyptians (I/22A) and the Syro-Canaanites (I/20), and deployed terrain for the battle of Megiddo, 1480 BC. Despite receiving far too much advice, the two played a riveting game that see-sawed back and forth until the Egyptians won 4-3. The victory points were not as close, with 9 for the Egyptians and 2 for the Canaanites.

While we worked through about 30 bounds in the desert, Chuck and Randy decided to fight one more battle before we had to make way for a micro-armor game at 2 pm. They chose to play the most quasi-historical of my scenarios, the Siege of Zhao, circa 261 BC. The Chin (II/4A) severely outnumbered the Zhao or Chao (II/4C), and brought them to open field battle by leading a fifth column campaign against their commanding general. His more impetuous subordinate left the imposing Chao works and was overwhelmed. That turned out to be the result here, as Chuck’s 15 elements of Chin made swift work of Randy’s 12 elements of Chao. The 4-0 victory translated to 8-0 in victory points. The game also proved that we could have completed three rounds of play if we’d had the players to fill them.

For having the best single game victory point total, Scott Schwager took home an unpainted Essex army pack, list I/40, Medes, Zirkirtu, Andia or Parsua. For amassing 23 total victory points in 3 games, Chuck Monson won an unpainted Essex Arab Conquest (III/25B) army. And Randy Colver got to take home a Tribal Mongolian (III/44) pack as a reward for his unfailing sportsmanship and good attitude in the face of generally poor die rolls.

Everyone seemed to enjoy having the additional victory conditions to keep track of. Randy commented that it seemed to give a kind of “campaign” feel to the games, and it was indeed one of my objectives to create some context for the game beyond the random aggression roll and the race to knock off four elements. It was also fun finding historical match-ups for a number of the armies in my collection – a few, like the Chin and Asiatic Early Successors, had barely ever been on the table before. On the whole, I was pleased to have set up the games, and look forward to playing the remaining scenarios at some future date.

Andy Hooper
Seattle, WA 10-30-2004

[John Meunier]

Sounds like a great set up. Interesting battles.

I'd like to hear more about the extra victory conditions. Could you provide a few more examples of what they were and how many points were at stake?

Would it be possible to lose the battle but get more victory points than your opponent?

John

[APHooper]

Boy, I'm sorry to fail to respond to this very reasonable request for six weeks. I guess I really have been unusually busy.

I've got all the scenario sheets on disc, of course, and I've thought about trying to post some of them. Some are based on scenarios by Chris Brantley and others that are already on the site, so I'm not really sure how to organize them. But here are some examples of the victory conditions from two of the battles we fought at Breakthrough:

First, Ipsus, 301 BC:
Synopsis: Seleucus I Nicator and Lysimachos joined forces to battle Antigonos One-eye and his son Demetrios, and thereby completed the break-up of the Alexandrian Empire. Also present at this battle in ancient Phrygia is the 18-year-old Pyrrhus of Epiros, leading peltasts and psiloi for the Antigonids.

Seleucid Victory Conditions:
Winning the Battle: 4 points
Destroying the Antigonid General’s Element: 3 points
Destroying the Antigonid Knight Element: 1 point
Destroying the Antigonid Auxilia: 1 point
Taking the Antigonid Camp at any time: 3 points
Destroying up to 3 non-General Antigonid Pike elements: 1 point Each

Antigonid Victory Conditions:
Winning the Battle: 4 points
Destroying the Seleucid General’s Element: 3 points
Destroying the non-commanding Seleucid Knight Element: 2 points
Conduct at least one attack on an Elephant with an Auxilia or Psiloi Element: 1 point
Taking the Seleucid Camp at any time: 2 points
Destroying up to 2 non-General Seleucid Pike elements: 1 point Each
Preserve at least 3 Antigonid Pike elements to the game’s end: 1 point

(Lysimachos was assumed to be in command of the Seleucid Knight element that is not the general’s element; Demetrios, the son of Antigonos, was similarly presumed to command the Antigonid knight element.)

And,
Navarette, 1367 AD:
Synopsis: Edward the Black Prince and his brother John of Gaunt support the deposed King Pedro the Cruel of Castille in his struggle to recover the throne from his half brother Henry, whose army is lead by the famous French knight Bertrand du Guesclin.

English/Rebel Victory Conditions:
Winning the Battle: 4 points
Destroying the Spanish General’s Element: 4 points
Destroying Bertrand du Guesclin’s element of Blades: 2 points
Destroying up to three Spanish non-general mounted elements: 1 point each
If a friendly element is within 4” of the river at the game’s end: 1 point
Preserving the Black Prince, Pedro and John of Gaunt at the game’s end: 1 point

Medieval Spanish Victory Conditions:
Winning the Battle: 4 points
Destroying the English General’s Element: 2 points
Destroying Pedro the Cruel’e element of Blades: 3 points
Destroying up to three English non-general blade elements: 1 point each
Taking the English camp at any time; or, “threatening” the English camp by the presence of a friendly element within 4 inches of the camp at game’s end: 1 point
If no English unit is within 4 inches of the river at the game’s end: 1 point
Preserving both King Enrique and Bertrand du Guesclin at the game’s end: 1 point

Notes: There were 15 units per army in this battle; 5 units or unit equivalents eliminated were required for victory for either side. The specific identity of each of the named blade and knight units was identified on a piece of paper, as they had specific effects on victory conditions. Although Pedro and his champions were victorious on the day, Enrique had his revenge and killed Pedro in single combat less than two years later.

As you can see, it was possible for a player to amass more points than their opponent and still lose the game, but that was an unlikely outcome. The condition for Navarette had particular effect on the play of the game, as the Spanish really did tend to ignore the English bow elements, in an effort to destroy the English blades for victory points.

Andy Hooper,
Seattle