DBA3 - First play through

DK came over for a quick game of DBA3. It was our first game of this version of the rules. We have played a number of games of DBA2.2 in the past and have had DBA3 for a while, but with life getting in the way and other games on the table we hadn't got around to playing it.

Anyway we had Camillian Romans versus Pyrrhic. Due to the extra details in the rule book I had to have Thracians standing in for unassimilated Italian Allies Ax3. 

The Romans were defending (on the left below) with the light troops on the right flank due to a difficult hill and ploughed fields (I liked the way you didn't know if this would be good or bad going until the first die roll). DK lined up the Pyrrhic forces opposite, putting his elephant and Kn General on his right - hoping for quick kills against my general and cavalry. 

The Romans advance! Trying to get the Ps to the Elephant. 

Clash of the cavalry ..... 

Amazingly DK rolled some truly awful dice .... Pyrrhic Cv flee, general recoils and the Elephant dies!

Whenever the elephant comes to battle it dies ... So much the the anicents super weapon. Having said that the scythed chariot is another useless element in our experience.

The Pyrrhic centre advances to steamroll the Romans. 

A minor skirmish develops on the Roman right. 

Pyrrhos goes for kill - unfortunately for DK his dice rolling isn't getting any better and DK's general is dead!

The Romans only need to kill one more elements for the win - but the phalanx is grinding up the centre. 

Now the push of pikes. 

The Roman cavalry move in for the kill on the remaining Greek cavalry. 

The phalanx takes out another part of the legion but the last of the Pyrrhic cavalry is wiped out and a win to the Romans. 

I enjoy this and not just because I won. The solid flank support made the spears tougher. The movement was quicker and the game flowed well. The phalanx grinding up the legion apparently follows current thinking of the period as I understand it. 

The key to victory was of course DK's terrible dice rolling - something which does happen very often and the loss of the General - 2pips to do anything!

Before the next game I will have to read the explanation with diagram pages in the rules ... It might make us stop having to check the rules so often 😃

Only have 2 armies to paint - Carthaginian and Celtic ...and everything else ......

Morts

Mini Beer Fest!

Last night Steedo and I invited Keeno around to try aload of real ales (some a bit strong to drink alone) and con Keeno into playing a few games .... The game part was a failure as we played 2 games of coup at around midnight after too many beers ...... We first at 2am!

Anyway a good time was had drinking beers .... We were scoring from 1-5 with Steedo using 0.5s, Keeno going to 1 decimal place and I was only using integers. We need to refine the system, I'm thinking just ordering the beers is the way forward. I also think that it is difficult to score a 5 as the context of a beer can change its flavour - an ice cold larger after good walk on a hot day for example. 

So anyway here are the scores (in the order they were drunk);

Cornish Knocker 11

Waterloo (beer of the brave 8%) 6

Leffe Nectar 4.5 - personally I thought this was too sweet, it reminded me of special brew which is not a good thing! Yuk!

Ruby Rooster (Lidl) 6

King Goblin 12 - 6.6% dangerously drinkable. 

Bitburger 10.5 - the only larger in the mix. 

Tim Taylor's Landlord 11.3 

Barngates Amberside 10

Porthleven 10.5

Marston IPA 9 - the average!

Derail ale 10.9 -

Swordfish 8.3

McEwans Champion 4.8 (7.3%) 

So King Goblin was the winner - you couldn't drink a lot of it mind you. Tim Taylor and Cornish Knocker were the session beer winners.  

Avoid Leffe Nectar and McEwans (not) Champion!

Next time we will try a game in amongst the beer scoring.

Morts

Frostgrave - first play

Well DK, Steedo and myself got together for a stand alone play through of Frostgrave. We all took wizards from different schools. DK an elementist, Steedo a Chronomancer and I was a Necromancer. 

The part of Frostgrave we were playing in is shown below - well with me terrain it is more of a Arrid-grave .....anyway!

Wish I had put some roads in .... It would have defined the layout better.

Anyway we picked spells and rolled to set up - each starting in a corner. DK did a pre game Animal Familiar and got wolf - Steedo failed to cast Secret Treasure. 

As my board is 4 by 3 foot there was an approx 6" band down each side - this caused problems from the start as Steedo put a "warning shot" across DK's war and in this terrian free band - resulting in a retaliatory strike. Some good rolling from DK meant that Steedo lost 2 soldiers and his apprentice by the end of turn 2!

My Amazon based warband creep across the table towards treasure while DK and Steedo kill each other!

Steedo when on the offensive and killed DK's wizard rolling an 20 with a +8 Elemental bolt!

Vengenance was his!

Unfortunately it did leave his wizard perilously exposed! So DK surrounded him with soldiers and kicked the life out of him! (The moment just prior to this is below!)

So two wizards and one apprentice down (and a number of soldiers). My warband had by this time got 3 treasures and my wizard off the board. Below is the end game with Steedo's treasure hunter about to kill one of my archers in the background, while my apprentice steps through the arch to kill DK's apprentice with a bone dart spell!

We called the game there!

We enjoyed the game - there were some issues with set up but that was my error by not defining the playing area with roads. Also as a stand alone learning game DK and Steedo put their wizards in danger and also attacked each other with vigour!

We didn't use any spells which required a will defence - just didn't come up.

The plan is to start a campaign once we can get Orc's Drift finished. 

Morts

Building works - ruins update

Well first up 2 old ornaments painted up for gaming - stones one is a new paint job, the other has had a repair!

These are my home brew ruins - I made linka style moulds years ago. These are the spares from the first run. Turned out rather nice. 

Finally the grendal ruins - I did the back of the arch and stuck it on.  Looking at the frostgrave rule book they laid it flat. 

Now a game of frostgrave on Friday.

Morts