Dear Terry,

A few comments on Jeff Bolton's suggestions for DBM amendments in No.46 none of which I'm afraid will feature in our next amendment sheet. When Richard and I do something a particular way in the rules which at first seems strange, there is likely to be a good reason for it. Some players write or phone us and ask what the reason is. Occasionally we have got something wrong and after several months careful testing we will publish a workable change as an official amendment. This approach has two things to recommend it. Firstly, the change is official, everyone will know about it and you don't have to argue with opponents. Secondly, it avoids sometimes embarrassing public dissection of your ideas.

I cannot see any point in rolling for the ability of a general unless playing solo games. The general figure represents the player, who is quite capable of providing all the stupidity mediocrity or, in the case of Saga readers, genius that is necessary. As for sacred standards what good did Our Lady of Blachernae do? Not a lot at Manzikert!

Although it has apparently escaped Jeff, there is already provision for scouting in DBM. How it works is simple, though perhaps radical. You move an element ahead of the army with multiple march moves to check woods and dead ground for ambushes. I recently moved an element of inferior auxilia into a built-up area for safety and was both surprised and gratified when six elements of Light Horse burst out and fled in all directions.

Allowing Psiloi to move through difficult going as a group in line would bring back the bad old days of a unrealistic table-wide line of skirmishers advancing as one man through thick and thin without disruption. This is not what we want. Lack of visibility disrupts control.

I have already given my reasons why Knights (I) don't get rear support against Light Horse. Allowing Cavalry rear support against foot would be fine for them, but would make Blades and Warband endangered species, exactly doubling their chance of being destroyed.

Cannon differ from ancient artillery in combining a flat trajectory and the weight to go through several ranks. The four ranks represented by an element is enough for full effect. Artillery (S) already get a sufficient plus to allow for lucky hits.

Allocating PIPs instead of allocating dice would increase the player's control. We don't want players to have more control. We want him to have to make difficult decisions. It is also easier to check an opponent's dice throw than his mental arithmetic.

The proposed introduction of Bows (F) merely slows all other Bows. Allowing Bows to provide rear support in close combat would massively change play balance. What mounted would dare charge archers? Currently, if a mixed spear/bow formation predominantly acted by fire, it is Bows (X). When it was predominantly a close fighting formation supported by archers behind, these are classed as Psiloi. Typical would be a Byzantine formation with 4 ranks of spearmen followed by two of archers. This we depict as one Spears element of 4 figures representing 4 ranks of spearmen and a Psiloi element of 2 figures representing 2 ranks of archers.

Sue and I will be in Montreal late August for a conference and will then be doing some Canadian touring. Any suggestions or contacts?

Dear Terry,

I have already replied at greater length to D.M.McLaughlin's article in No. 48 when it was originally printed in Slingshot, but a quick summary for SAGA.

CAVALRY v FOOT - He correctly identifies a problem. We are currently testing a simple solution in which Cavalry flee instead of being destroyed by Pikes or Spears. We do extend this to Blades and Warband since these do not passively prod off cavalry from missiles, but instead throw things back, rush out, or in the case of Blade (S), laugh the missiles until the Cavalry in desperation charge home.

BLADES v ARCHERY - There is no historical case of any troops we class as suffering heavy losses from archery. The legionary response to arrows was to charge instantly to contact, spoiling the fun.

REAR SUPPORT POR LIGHT HORSE - We were tempted to put this in to lure players into foolish tactics. He has missed the fact thst the LH would lose 2 elements at a time. Extra LH are more useful on the opponent's flank.

MIXED FORMATIONS - The problem with Bw (X) has been that their shooting should be improved by having 1 rank of shields and 3 of bows instead of 4 of bows. We are testing a new wording. In all other circumstances they are treated as Bowmen, counting as (S) shot at by Bowmen or if they have a rear rank of (S) Bowmen on the same base, other as (O). Assyrians are not victimised by getting a rear rank of Psiloi. It gives them the same resisting power against mounted as two ranks of Spears, but at less cost!

Tongue in cheek, have you noticed that while players often suggest improvements to favourite troop types, they never seem to suggest compensating for the changed balance by increasing its cost.

Dear Terry,

Greetings from the Derby City. As I am sending in my renewal, I thought I would take this opportunity to add a personal note.

I want you to know that I really appreciate the job you have done with SAGA and with SPEARPOINT. As a relativae new guner (2yrs) who prefers Ancients, I am alwys looking for information on how to improve my play, design, set up and painting of armies and I consider your publication the best source to futher these objectives. Currently, my preferred rule set is DBM which I find to be a fine system for fighting and feeling like the players are under some historic restrictions. (set-up and army cohesion).

I play a Late Imperial Ronan (15mm) army as well as Hohenstauffen, Greek, and Seljuk Turks. In particular I am looking for tips on set up and play of the Romans vs. the various types of armies. Also I have read hints on things like setting up ones line at such an angle as to prevent overlaps and the snake manuever where a column wheels 90 degrees and then forms line. Do you have anything along this line?

Thanks again for such a great publication!

Hi, Terry,

I read the article on DBM rules modifications (SAGA #47) with some interest, and Tom Coveney's letter with some regrets. I was pleased to see in the article mv ideas about Kn(I) are thought a good change. Phil Barker continues to adhere to the onginal. His statement, that these troops are "to be aimed at the enemy general" is just plain stupid. I have hardly played a game where my opponent didn't throw light horse in front of it. (And Mr. Barker said this would be 'sugar-coating' these troops.) The times I got to the enemy line I would go after foot, cavalry, or knights. But go after the enemy general? Most of them are Cv(S), and if you note the odds, the Kn(I) has no chance to kill him without an overlap, but does have a chance to die. They're good against others, but not against generals. I'm glad the lists don't require them, as they are certainly not worth the cost. If they were as ineffective against enemy generals historically as they are in these rules, the Byzantines would not have used them. (Giving the plus to the Byzantine Thematic cavalry, however, IS sugar-coating' the troops. The reason they get the (S) is because of the second ram;. Otherwise, they would be (O) troops. And Cv(S) vs. Kn(F) are almost equal. Making them +4 makes them decidedly superior.)

As for double elements, they are inherently weaker because the second element is a hinderance and cannot maneuver, and its fate is tied to the front element. I believe the best solution is to make the second element cost 50% rounded up.

About the letter, Tom is absolutely right. These rules are mad for tournament play, not historic re-creation (or recreation). But I feel just the opposite as he. Re-creating historic encounters got boring for me. I wanted a game where it's My army and My skill that makes the difference, and not be hobbled by the mistakes of historic generals. Take Cannae. There is no way the Romans can lose unless you force them to behave as Varro did.

My biggest complaint lately has been about the army lists. They work best against historic opponents, and even then you get some very uneven games (Late Sarmatians vs. Dacians is laughable) I've decided to try a DBM100 freestyle tournament where players use DBM rules, a 2'x2' play area, receive a general and camp and 100 points of any troops they want. It's not historic, but neither is Macedonians vs. Normans. And it may yield interesting. evenly-matched games whereby players can be rated.

I'm also one of those who designates Byzantine Thematic Skoutatoi as Sp(I). While I've agreed with 99.99% of what I've seen, the Pk(I) designation is bogus and doesn't fit in with anything I've seen written about these troops.

Dear Terry:

Hope things are going well with you and your publishing projects. Enclosed is a check for another year of Saga. I've also enclosed yet another bit of musings on ancient war gaming. Sometimes I suspect there are people in this hobby who will be very happy when I finally get through getting ready to play and become so busy there's no time for philosophical musings!

I'm on my way back from making a reservation for the 1996 vacation tour to Rome, Florence. Athens. Rhodes, etc. The tour operator starts in Switzerland then concentrates on ancient history in Italy and Greece. As I get closer to departure. I'll gladly take requests from readers for photos and recon of places like Pompeii.

Given the excellent and most thoughtful response to my query about the differences ln DBM Roman armies, here's another task for some one. Any body have an, thoughts or experiences about DBM army sizes? The San Francisco Bay Area gamers like to use 350 points for competitions. Anybody have any thoughts on good/reasonable army sizes for basic competition games? Also anyone ever try to push the limits of the envelope as we say in aviation. by seeing what is the largest sized army under these rules which will be still playable for one person? I'd be very interested in others' experiences and views.

As mentioned above, I'm still in the research phase of working up my army. B, the way anybody else have the same experience of working up 350 DBM points and then 500 points with no trouble? The difficulty comes when I double check the figures and can't seem to get 350 and 500 points! Oh well.

There's also another slight problem in that I've found the excellent Veni, Vidi. Vici decals showing late Roman shield patterns. The trouble is that I've also run across an article on patterns from the Notitia Dignitatum in a back issue of Journal of Roman Studies, which makes a very good case that the patterns aren't terribly useful. The article in parts is kind of obscure. I could follow though his point that insignia Legion XX Valeria Victrix's boar ought to be part of their shield pattern. The author taught or might still teach at the nearby University of California Davis. I've discovered that academics can be surprisingly accessible about their writings. As one put it once, "you mean you actually read that just for interest's sake!!" As an alum of their dreaded local rival, I'm still trying to get up nerve to address the author. After that if I figure out enough of the article to sound coherent! If anything comes out of this, I'll do up an article for you.

Best wishes for this ancients campaigning system for every one.

Dear Terry,

I am enclosing two new submissions for you to use in SAGA. I hope that you can publish it. In the future, I am hoping to submit some good battle reports. Unfortunately, in the heat of battle, we keep forgetting to take notes! I may just have to sit out of a battle and serve as scribe.

Here in Minneapolis, we now have a group of 22-24 actively engaged in campaigns using DBM a the tactical/operational battle rules. We have 3-4 more players wanting to get in on the next round of campaigns. I would like to explore campaigning in the future. Would SAGA be interested in articles on the topic? Have other SAGA readers expressed a strong desire to do campaigns?

Finally, can you be accessed through Internet or one of the e-mail services? If you can, maybe we could set up a better way for other writers and myself to get articles to you. Just a thought.

Anyway, I must say that I look forward to each new issue of SAGA. Your magazine is a source of inspiration and information. Let me know what I can do to help. Thanks for the great work!

Dear Terry,

I've really enjoyed the first three issues of the SAGA newsletter you sent me. In fact, I've enjoyed them so much that I've enclosed a check to cover the cost of re-subcribing. I'm bad about remembering that sort of thing - if I don't do it now, I'm afraid I'll miss something. Something good, like your "Defense of Britain."

Regarding your call for articles: do you want items such as book reviews, figure reviews/announcements. For instance, I wrote in a letter to Hal Thinglum for MWAN about 19th Century Miniatures and 15mm ancient galleys. Would you be interested in printing stuff like, "Gee I found this neat line of ships available from so-and-so and they'd be great for this-and- that...?" Just a thought.

In addition, do you allow "want-ads?" I'm in search of unpainted Airfix Romans and Britons for use in an Alesia-type game to satisfy my urge to play with plastic and at the same time for use at convention games for young 'uns.

Thanks for a great read.