Having over my 30YW stuff yesterday, taking those photos and posting them has led me to thinking about what Imagi-Nation belligerents might be called into existence for some sort of campaign? Probably King and Emperor or something similar.
How about the Imperium of Austeria and the Kingdom of Severia?
Of course, I won't be restricting the numbers to mere 400AP DBR - I reckon for 30YW, 500AP gives better balanced armies anyway, particularly for the Swedish whilst still using the Brigade system.
The fact was, I bought my 30YW armies with an entirely different view, with the army sized pre-determined. It works out at around 900AP of Imperialists and 750AP of Swedes according the the DBR accounting system.
Why the difference? My own rules rather favoured the Swedes - especially their horse - whose units were smaller, but rode in a single rank, and charged. Unless the 12-figure Imperialist horse shot very well, the 9-figure Swedish units more often than not would send their opponents flying. The Imperialist numbers made up for this and led to some very interesting battles.
I still have the battle maps of a series of actions fought under my rules (wish I still had that rule set), including the Battle of Coutras as a 'disguised scenario', and Nordlingen. Although these were played long ago, I wonder if there would be enough interest in a narrative with maps and pictures...?
A very personal, and eclectic, collection of wargaming plots and projects; battles and campaigns... with pictures; lotsa pictures....
I'd certainly like to see them.
ReplyDeleteIs DBR more like DBA or DBM ? I've played DBM a few times and loathed it, while I quite liked DBA. Mainly because it was short.
DBR is more like DBM, in that at 400AP the armies will comprise upwards of 30 elements (60+ is not uncommon for some armies.
ReplyDeleteYou can play 100AP, 200AP or 300AP games (I never have, but I did have a project in mind - that died because I could not find the single box of Conquistadors I needed - 'The Conquest of Tenochtitlan", with 200AP armies plus a 25-AP 'naval' add-on), the smallest of these might go about as quickly as DBA.
For some armies, though, I formed the impression that 500AP would give better balanced forces and hence a better game.
On the whole I tend to think of the DBx rulesets as 'free form' board games with figures. Quite abstract. They aren't really 'my thing', but conceptually they seem fine. In the early days the battles looked like battles, a surprising outcome of making each element a tactical unit.
Somehow over the years all that was lost. The rules lawyers and gamesmen exploited the slightest loophole, amendments were as ill-thought-out as they were voluminous (DBM) and I don't think DBR was ever sufficiently developed (which, of course, will mean more ... well, when you want an epithet for amendments, think gondolas).
I haven't played DBM for maybe 5 years now, and the few DBR games I've had haven't been very satisfactory.
I used to think the DBx sets were designed exclusively for competitions (the comprehensibility of which events quite passes me by). However, a remarkably long-lived campaign I think under the title 'Condotta' was run about 10 years ago in Christchurch. Had one of the players not violated the spirit of the thing by insisting on commanding alone in each battle (thereby handicapping everyone else - a warning if ever you want to run a DBx campaign) this would have been much more thoughly enjoyable and fun than it was.
Sorry if I've told you more anout penguins - I mean DBx - than you really wanted to know...
Cheers,
Ion
Hey Ion - Great Blog - only just seen it as Robin Sutton pointed it out to me a couple of weeks ago - I've added your Feed List to the AWC Website at http://awc.wargaming.info/ - Cheers, John.
ReplyDeleteDBR can provide games that are very similiar in size to DBA. These 100 pt games can be played on a table of similiar size to DBA and in a similiar time frame. Locally there is in fact a small event in a couple of weeks here in Christchurch.
ReplyDeleteWhen you have a moment have a look at my website where you will find plenty on DBR and DBA.
http://thewargamesroom.blogspot.com
My thanks to 'Mycenius' (Hi John!) and TWR. I have now (well, several weeks ago by this date)included the links to your respective websites.
ReplyDeleteCheers,
Ion