Cold Wars Theme Event, Game 3 - DBA AAR

The final game of the Themed Event was against Mike D and his loaned Middle Frankish. 

Mike won the roll for attacker, and so I placed two gentle hills, a brush, and a river.

Of course, Mike chose to invade on the opposite side parallel to the river, so I decided to slowly send a psiloi around my force to see what the river was.

With a bit of scouting, the psiloi discovered that the river was paltry and wouldn't offer any protection, so the Avars finally got themselves moving.

Of course, my delaying allowed Mike enough time to prepare his lines. In hindsight, I should have gotten across the river and charged Mike's slower infantry force when his army was still condensed.

This meant that when my Avars went in, it wasn't going to go well for me in terms of match-ups - as it turns out, Cavalry and Auxilia don't do so well against Knights and Spears. In the first round of combat I lost two units.

While I was able to sack Mike's camp (as he was too focused on the battle in the center of the table), my line continued to break up, as I lost another auxilia.

I took out another unit, but Mike had a crushing round of combat, routing multiple units from the battlefield. Victory went to the Franks, 6-2.

And that conclude all the AARs from Cold Wars (about a month and a half after it ended). I really appreciated all these games, which were quite enjoyable, thanks in no small part to my opponents! I'm looking forward to getting more games of DBA on the table, especially since I have a couple of paired sets of armies that should work well against each other.

Cold Wars Theme Event, Game 2 - DBA AAR

The second game of the Themed Event was against Mike G and his Later Sassanid Persians.

Finally, someone else managed to win the initiative roll, and so I became the defender. I chose two gentle hills, two brush, and a BUA.

Unfortunately, due to the BUA's location, I was unable to deploy my full line, which caused a couple traffic jams as Mike's army approached.

With a lucky roll for pips, however, I was able to get most of my own units up and ready for combat. Mike's movement stopped just short of combat.

Then, with a resounding crash of metal, men, and mounts, the two battlelines smashed into each other. With so many combats, Mike and I decided it was likely that this turn would be the last.

And as it turned out, it was! While Mike was able to knock out two of my units, I took out four of his, and so won 4-2.

A Walk in the Market - Gangs of Rome AAR

Bill, Keith and I gathered to play Gangs of Rome last Friday night at Half Day Studio. 

We decided to play the "Careless Is as Careless Dies..." scenario, which works well with three players. Bill's objective was to escort his Dominus off one of two board edges, past the other players. Keith and I were technically allied, but only one of us could win in the end, depending on who brought down the Dominus. 

Bill loosely deployed his fighters in the center of the table, surrounded by mobs. Keith and I set up our fighters to block the open table edges that Bill's Dominus could escape from.

The gangs that Keith and I took were relatively restricted due to the scenario. We each had to have three fighters and 65 points. This meant that Keith's gang, which met the points limit exactly, couldn't take any Denarii. My gang costed 63 points, so I was able to take a Throwing Blade and a Thrown Javelin.

During the first turn, Bill chose my side as the one he planned to escape from. He moved his gang towards me, while Keith hurried to keep his gang members close. I was able to launch a couple mobs into Bill's gang, and even manage to do two damage to the Dominus (who, with only six Flesh and no defenses, was extremely easy to target and wound...)

Keith's fighters threw themselves into the fight, forcing Bill to defend his flank. Bill also sent out a fighter to try and stop one of my gang members from using her Throwing Blade.

Despite Bill's efforts, I was able to use the Thrown Javelin's range and the Dominus' lack of defense to strike the old man down, technically ending the game.

However, we did continue the turn to see how it would end. Keith lost all three of his models in fights with Bill's gang. And Bill lost a fighter when not one, but two mobs went into a rage and tore the poor woman limb from limb!

It was an interesting game, although Bill was at a slight disadvantage as we were using one less mob and one less defending gang member than the scenario required. It also seemed a little too easy for attacking gang members to hit and wound the Dominus with ranged attacks.

Cold Wars Theme Event, Game 1 - DBA AAR

On the morning of my second day at Cold Wars 2018, I took part in a Themed Event for DBA, based around the Early Byzantines and their enemies. As I had the previous day, I used the III/13b Avars list, with its mix of Cavalry, Light Horse, Auxilia, and Psiloi. 

My first opponent was Nick and his Italian Ostrogoths. 

Nick placed two plough, an enclosure (the green field), and a wood on the table.

While my line shuffled forward, Nick used his pips to maneuver his knights from column to line. I decided to try and reach Nick's camp with my two light horse for an early victory point.

That, however, turned out to be a terrible idea, as Nick was able to simply force both units of the table with his psiloi.

The shooting from the Ostrogoths was then able to break my line into unmanageable chunks, and a poor combat saw one of my cavalry units fall to an opposing unit of knights.

The game ended when Nick was able to overlap my cavalry, removing a unit from the table and winning 4-0. Apparently I hadn't learned much from the previous day!

Training Match - Arena Rex AAR

Earlier this week I brought out Arena Rex to demo with Bill.

I let Bill chose two Cohorts of three fighters from my Ludus Magnus collection, and then let him pick which group he'd like to play in the game. 

Bill ended up with Otho Mentulus, Marcus Furius, and Viatrix, while I had Hermes, Tribune, and Urbicus. 

The game was a simple fight to the death - whoever had the last fighters standing would claim victory.

I set up four marble columns as hazards, and two pits as lethal hazards.

Both Cohorts advanced across the sands as the crowd cheered and roared in anticipation.

First blood went to Bill, and Otho managed to quickly cut down Tribune with a few savage strokes of his sword. The other members of our cohorts fought dangerously close to the edge of a pit.

Urbicus cut down Marcus Furious, but was quickly confronted by Otho.

Unfortunately, Otho's engagement meant that both my gladiators were unable to use their Favor, and so Hermes was eventually whittle down and removed from the fight.

However, Urbicus managed to get a decent enough attack in so that he could shove Otho into the pit. Suddenly it was just down to the two remaining fighters, and Urbicus was exhausted.

Viatrix delivered a brutal final blow to the opposing gladiator, leaving her alone on the blood soaked sand. 

It was good to bring Arena Rex out again. It's a light yet complex set of rules, and even a small game with three gladiators aside has a lot of moving parts. I'm hoping to get it to the table more often.