Battlefields 2007

On Saturday, March 3rd, I loaded up my Marian Romans and made the 3 hour trek to Detroit to participate in the 15mm DBA “Bring and Battle” event run by John Lawitzke at the Battlefields 2007 con, brought to you by the folks of Pro-or-Con fame.

I rolled in at 10:45, and after checking out the various games and vendors set up my own little spot to sell some things I brought along. After $100 in sales, the purchase of some raffle tickets, and one too many sandwiches from the concession stand, it was time for the DBA event.

This was my first DBA tournament (and really only my third time playing); I was very impressed with the neat and orderly spread that John had prepared.

Various terrain and the 12 loaner armies John had provided.

After some chit-chat with the other particpants (we ended up with 7, with John jumping in to even things up), John got on with his DBA school.

John Lawitzke running his DBA school. Notice the box to his right, it’s full of sloppy joes-very, very, tasty!

The school was definitely needed, since everyone playing was pretty much a beginner, some had played a couple games (like me), one was a DBM player, and a couple more had never played. I was was one of only two who had brought our own armies, so after the tutorial the other participants chose their armies. John made the initial pairings based upon dates and we we ready to roll!

Round One
My first battle was sort of a civil war-II/49. Marian Roman vs. II/23. Polybian Roman. I decided to take the 2 Cv., 2 Ps., 8 Bd. build for the tourney, my opponent Bob Sweeney took essentially the same with the exception of 2 Sp. for 2Bd. I was the invader, and as such, pushed aggressively toward Bob’s line, which was still forming up due to bad going square in the middle of his deployment area.

My Marians wheeling to try and constrict the Polybian maneuvers.

After a very protracted shoving match my Marians decided to chicken out and started rolling ones, which got me into overlaps, you know the rest…the Polybians carried the day, slaughtering my upstart Marians. 4-0 Polybian win. I know it’s poor sportsmanship, but I really must say that since this was Bob’s very first game, I have to chalk this up to beginners luck! (Oh yeah, and poor dice rolling and generalship on my part!)

Round 2
After the first disastrous battle my general cursed his men and threatened to send them to the province of Ebay for humiliating him so. It must have worked-I didn’t lose another element the rest of the day! My next match was against Mark Magdowski and the I/22. New Kingdom Egyptians.

 

Mark Magdowski measuring bow range while keeping a nervous eye on the column of Roman Cavalry barreling towards his Bow elements!

Like my previous opponent, Mark suffered from bad going in his deployment area. With a waterway on my right and a steep hill on my left, I moved my line up in between the terrain features and parked it there. I was worried about being flanked by the 4 elements of L.Ch., so I sent my Cav. units (including the general) to block the only way in. Since I wasn’t going to move my main line out of its advantageous position, I wasn’t worried about the extra pips associated with general being out of sight. Unfortunately for Mark, my Romans were in the mood to chop up charioteers that day. Instead of challenging my cavalry, Mark sent his chariots crashing into my line. Seeing that the chariots were going for the frontal assault, I sent my cavalry towards the two stands of bow protecting Mark’s flank. After scaring off one of my elements with his bow-fire, Marks archers took the charge from my general, and after killing one of his elements in melee, the general closed the door on the other element after my other element collected itself and charged back into battle. On the other side of the board, psiloi supported blade handily defeated the contingent of light chariots, winning the game 4-0.

Round 3 (Final Round)
At this point we lost a couple of players, and as things turned out, I ended up facing Mark again. Since it was kind of laid back and everyone was essentially still learning the game John gave us the option of picking different armies to try out. This meant facing I/28. Sea Peoples; I stuck with my Marians.

The astute will notice the incorrectly laid out board!

For once, my Marians were the defender and I set up the board with a gentle hill, road and woods. After the game I realized I did not put the bad going touching 2 quadrants–oopsy! Not really much to report in this game; the two lines marched towards each other, both generals in the front lines. The unfortunate thing for Mark was that his general (L.Ch) matched up against psiloi supported blades, and mine went up against Aux. Needless to say, there was a bit of a shoving match in the battles between the blades, but I doubled one of his overlapped blades, my general killed the Aux. on his general’s right, leaving him overlapped against my psiloi supported blades-dead general. The Marians won 3-0, which (barely) put me at the top to win the tourney with 7 opposing elements killed including a general. The prize was a free membership to HGMS, but as I told John, the real prize was getting to meet and play with a great bunch of guys!