The Ancient period has always been my second favorite interest; the first being, at one time or another, Napoleonics or Victorian-era colonial. But I have never been able to fit myself into the various ancients rules that have been around. I am just too slow witted to catch on to such complicated systems and they did not seem to lend themselves to historical recreations, just for one to one competition. I have felt much like M. J. Nichol who wrote in Wargames Illustrated, "Prior to the discovery of the D.B.A. rules, our Wargames group had ... attempted over two years only two ancients battles ... In the months since the first set of D.B.A. rules appeared amongst us, we have played approximately thirty games..." For our group read "over 15 years" instead of two.
At the 1990 Historicon, one of our group picked up a slim set of rules with the strange title De Bellis Antiquitatis (DBA) published by WRG. I looked these over, but being dim witted, could not really figure how they worked by just reading and, moreover, I could not make heads nor tales of the army lists-full of Ps and Ax and Kt and HCh and Bd and such. However, at one of our regular gaming sessions in the spring of 1991, the host was unable to put together his intended game. So instead, he set out a mini DBA tournament. Each player would play three games with three different armies. With four different pairings that meant 8 different armies. Howcould that be done? Each army had only 12 bases of figures. Each base had only 2-4 figures. There were only about 15 different types of troops across all national armies. This looked promising from a numbers standpoint, at least. With a little instruction and a practice game, the rules became pretty clear. A few rules with elegant simplicity. Players alternate movement. Roll a die to determine how many bases of figures (called elements) can move * Elements touching and moving together can count as one unit. For 15mm figures, movement ranges from 2" for most infantry and cavalry in bad going (a delightful English word for rough terrain) to 5" for light horse in good going. Play on a 2 foot by 2 foot area. Double everything for 25's. Moving into contact with an enemy element constitutes combat. Each unit has a combat factor that is added to the roll of a six-sided die. There are a few modifiers for things such as overlapping elements, presence of a general in the element, and extra ranks for pikes and spears; but these Eire held to a minimum.
Both players compare results. A close loss sends most units into a short retreat but some will be destroyed (such as elephants by psiloi, as lights are called). A difference in the score that is double, destroys the looser. Each type of troop has advantages over some other type and, in turn, is at a disadvantage to some. Morale is included in the combat factors. Skill in the game is manifest by how well one uses the advantages and avoids the disadvantages. That is, of course, true for all war games. What makes DBA a little different is that, like chess, the rules are simple, but the variation is vast.
It seems that our group's strong interest in DBA was not unique. DBA players abounded at Historicon9l. There were pickup games in the hallways and a tournament held on Sunday had 50-60 players. Alan Spencer did a wonderful job of organizing the affair, matching up historical armies, and providing armies to those who needed them. He did it again at Cold Wars 92. Both in the hallways and in the tournament there was a special feeling among the players of sharing something special. DBA'ers seem to be friendly, offer advice and encouragement. In the tournament with very few exceptions, players helped each other interpret rules and make better moves.
DBA seemed to be conceived primarily for one-on-one competition play. One aspect of the earlier rules I studied was that they were also for competitions, but the lists were rigid or consisted of large units with very small stands such as would be modern day companies or platoons. These were hardly amenable to large historical battles. What sold me on DBA was the suggestion for doing large baffles and in later issues I hope to describe some that we have done.
I still liked the idea of a DBA tournament that could be run quickly. I also thought it would be interesting to have all the players use the same armies. Thus each participant would have to know the capabilities of different armies and not just be an expert with one. Therefore at the University of Michigan general gaming convention - UCON- I put on a "Duplicate" DBA tournament. This worked out well so I tried it again at ColdWars, 92.
In this situation, each player uses the same armies and fights against historical opponents, e.g., once as Romans against Carthage and then reverse, then as Macedonians vs. Indians and then the reverse. Thus all players engage in four games against four other players, all using the same armies. At ColdWars92, I allowed 16 players (there were more who wanted to play but I had only 4 Indian Armies). The following chart shows who played and their standings. Some were new players and some were experienced. While he scores are quite disparate, every player won at least one game. Joe Coniglio was the only player to win all four. It is interesting to look at the army wins and losses: the Romans won 11, lost 4, and tied 1, Carthage conversely won only 4, lost 11 and tied 1; Macedon and India each won and lost 8 games. A player wins by destroying 4 enemy elements or eliminating the enemy general (and having lost fewer elements). The winner of a game gets 2 points plus 1 for each element destroyed. For the tournament, I subtracted a player's own total score from the total of all opponents. Thus the first place player won 4 games with scores of 4 elements plus 2 win points for a total of 24 but opponents managed to destroy 5 elements across all four games for a net score of 19. If net scores were equal, the player's own score was used as a tie breaker.
Next time I will give each pair of players the same die rolls for each round to reduce the luck factor. Let tactics rule supreme.
Someone in our group suggested that I seem to concentrate on one set of rules every decade-in the 70's it was Column, Line, and Square; in the 80's it was The Sword and the Flame. That took care of my first two favorite periods. Now, at last, I can enjoy ancients too; I have DBA as my rules for the 90's
At the SPARTACON II put on by the Lansing branch of the Miniature Gamers of Michigan (MGM), Craig Tyrrell carried out a very innovative DBA promotion. He set out 4 terrain squares, various armies, and rules so people could just sit down and try out a game. He, and others who knew the rules, would drop by to answer questions. This is an excellent way to bring folks to an understanding of the rules. Wouldn't this be a great way to recruit newcomers to the hobby at board and fantasy cons.
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