Sunday, March 22, 2020

Corona quashed my DBA. . .




In the grand scheme of things, this can't even be considered a hardship, but it is one more example of the change in daily life that response to the virus requires. My regular DBA 3.0 opponent (and friend) is 70+ years of age and took himself out of group/face-to-face gaming a couple weeks before the country started to embrace "social distancing." I was totally supportive; you may remember that I lost my mother to the "regular flu" a couple years ago. Just not worth taking any chances. . .

So what to do until we get "back to normal?" I might play around with De Bellis Solitarius, but I'm more likely to use the home time to catch up on completing the bases on some of the 54mm French and Indian War units I based over the last 2 years. . . like the French La Sarre troops I just finished.





One great aspect of the Muskets and Mohawks rules I play with is that they are designed to be played solitaire. It is not just an afterthought, but an integral part of the rules!

Last month's DBA 3.0 game was a Big Battle pike-fest, pitting two triple-sized II/16 Asiatic Early Successor armies against each other: II/16a Antigonus (me) and II/16d Eumenes (Bruce). Historical enemies, to boot. Both pike-heavy forces, the main difference was that Bruce/Eumenes had more elephants, and I/Antigonus had some light horse and 3 Pike Generals (Eumenes' Generals were Knights). Terrain ended up on the flanks with little impact on the game.


 Eumenes:


 Antigonos:



As the Pike blocks advanced, I sent my right-flank Light Horse out to skirmish, and fed Elephants and Pike toward my left flank to defend against Eumenes mounted push.









When the Pikes embraced the Antigonid Pike Generals provided a slight edge in the initial combats. Turned out Bruce had also PIP-starved the Elephants on Eumenes left flank by assigning them the low PIP dice, depriving it of a potent weapon. These two factors kept the Antigonids ahead of the attrition race and eventually led to the Antigonid victory.




 



Eumenes "himself" fought off the Antigonid PIkes for a couple of bounds before being finally overwhelmed.
 


Be safe!