DBA: Pyrrhus vs Sparta

Don't panic, I haven't received and painted a Pyrrhic army in the last few days! At the club tonight Luarence and I decided to play a regular DBA game rather than emark on a BBDBA bash as it was so long since we last rolled the rules out.

I took along a few boxes of my assorted 15mm ancients and we decided on making up a Pyrrhic army from some Successor bits & pieces. To oppose this, a brief galnce at the possible enemies came up with Spartans (list II/33c).

From memory this gave Laurence: 1x Cv(Gen), 1 x Cv, 1 x El, 1 x Ax, 2 x Sp, 1 x Ps, 1 x LH and 4 x Pk. My Spartans had 1 x Sp(Gen), 5 x Sp, 2 x Ax, 2 x Ps, 1 x Cv, 1 x LH. I was on the defensive so placed two woods and a gentle hill on the table. On reflection, more hills might have been more suitable to my army.

The battle was a little chaotic, reflecting our lack of practice. Initially I managed to create pressure despite having little in the way of a plan, but much of the Pyrrhic army was able to recoil or flee from my slow moving spears and in the end my disorgansied army succumbed to its opposition. Despite the loss I had a great time and will be proceeding with my plan to play a lot more DBA and BBDBA during 2011!

Lessons from today are to get much more familiar with the combat factors, rear support bonuses and "quick kill" opportunities of the various element types. I used to be very familiar with these, but some have changed and I have obviously become a little rusty.

I'll report on progress on Sunday!

cheers

Comments

  1. I've lately been thinking about a little DBA myself. One thing about it ,besides the quickness of the games, is the relatively small "armies". Even the big battle version uses forces small enough to be purchased and painted in comparatively short order. All in all a good choice if one has "major project" fatigue.

    Ron

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  2. Hi Ron,

    It is the same for me. Small armies, easy to paint up, easy to transport, quick games, fast to set up, fun to play, simple mechanisms.

    DBA isn't for everyone, but I had forgotten how much I enjoyed the rules.

    Happy gaming!
    Steve

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