Historical Match-Ups

[Chris Brantley]

What's your attitude toward fighting historically matched armies in DBA?

the opens are fun enough.. as long as their are enough players for 2 brackets.. books 1 & 2 in the first and 3 & 4 for the second. If less.. its all for fun.. I dont get upset either way. but i do prefer that.. to do 2 brackets.. you really need like 12 people playing.. Then sometimes you end up with dark age armies in book 1 and 2 bracket or a classical army in a book 3 & 4 bracket.. But what can you do?

Not really fussed, most of the competitions in Australia are completely open and we still manage to have a very wide variety of armies fielded.

Personally I've never been too worried about non-historical match ups (whether I'm playing DBA, BBDBA, DBM or DBMM) and have always thought it adds a bit of spice to the game.

I've played (and still play) in opens, but really appreciate theme/historical opponents. And one of the beautiful parts about DBA, is that it doesn't cost and arm and a leg to make an army for the most part.

But then I like BBDBA so there goes that argument!!

Chris,

You forgot the poll options for: "Those who play even one non-historical match-up, just to try it, are thoroughly evil and in the pay of Satan. They should have their figures melted down for fishing weights."

And: "Those who play only historically matched pairs are sad cases who need to unbend their stiff necks and really should get out of their parents' basements once in a while."


Let's give the Fanatici a chance to say how they really feel.

I collect armies in campaign groups so all my non-tournament play is with historically matched or plausible enemies. But I don't mind my Nubians fighting early northern european barbarians or Burgundian Ordonnance in tournament play. I doubt other ancients rule sets in tournament play have more historical matchups than DBA, unless the game rewards similar power armies (like bunches of later medieval armies).

Historical match-ups if in any way possible, non-historical if everything else fails

The only time I will play non-historical match ups is in comps.
At any other time I only play historical match ups.

As is probably obvious (and I believe I've mentioned it a number of times)
I really really don't like non-historical match ups.

I like any match. I pick an army based on how I think it will fight..
I will grant that historical match ups can make a weak army competitive.
Matched pairs has allowed me to bring armies to tournies that I would never bring to an open.

John

Like James I make up campaign sets (of 13 armies generally) so I have a wide range of historical opponents.

Most of my non tournament games are in campaign form.

However I have no problem with (and regularly organise) open tournaments. I have done well with the Sung Chinese (so NOT a power army).

There are three (albeit minor) problems with matched pairs in a tournament setting that need careful consideration
1) Some people are a little touchy about having their nicely painted figures handled by less careful gamers - this may stop them from entering, or at least from bringing their favourites.
2) If both sides bring a matched pair to the competition then there will possibly be some inequity about whose figures are used - I played an 8 round comp once and used my armies only twice. (Stephen Webb worked very hard to address this in later comps). At the other extreme I saw a comp that tried to be fair by having each match consist of 4 battles - one each with each side of the matched pairs.
3) Some players have a style of play suited to a specific mix of troops (see the earlier poll). In a matched pairs battle one player will possibly be disadvantaged simply because the army they have drawn is not from their style. (What is this you say - a really good wargamer should be equally comfortable with all troop mixes, a fair point but why - are you only a good cricket or baseball player if you can play in all the positions on the team?)

Given that the armies are defined by a mix of 16 element types then sometimes we are talking about only a cosmetic difference - what is the difference between EHG Argives and Melanesians ? The latter's Sp are on deeper bases . There are plenty of monotype armies that are identical in performance after all.

Cheers