A New Year
For the first round of rationalisation I looked around my 'painting room'.
Incidentally, my bedroom is the coldest room in the house - inside the fridge is warmer. Painting often grinds to a halt once the frosts start. I really need to make an 'outpost' in the 'living room'.
Here's what I found:
(a) 15mm - American Indians, Russians, Latins, Ottomans, Carthaginians, Feudals, Medievals, Maya, scythed chariot, Spanish Conquistadores, Inuits, Arabs, repairs & miscellaneous.
(b) 20mm - Incas, Sea Peoples, Mex-Am, Jacobites, Colonial, Egypt (Fr & Brit), Tecumseh, Biblicals, War Wagons & misc ancients.
This is a ridiculous amount of part-painted and unpainted bits and pieces. Need to finish off some of these projects.
Saturday 2nd January 2021 - Gt.Houghton
In spite of the heavy snow (cars going at 10-15 mph) I managed to get there. Of course, by the time I came back the roads only had slush on them (typical).
Started out with another DBN Ottoman v French game. Changed the army make-up though:
4 x Ms(M), 2 x Art(M), 1 x LI, 2 x Lh (Mamlukes), 2 x Jg (Rayas), 4 x Hd, 2 x Lh & 2 x ?
As I had allowed the camera batteries to get too low no pictures were taken.
The Janissaries threw a '6' so became ordinary muskets. In spite of that they were amongst the first units to fall. 4 units of Ms(M) had to be set up well behind the main line because of terrain restrictions - they never got into action. Result was a 4:5 win for me.
What I learned - (a) I should have more fellahin as they are cheap and can pin the much more expensive enemy units. (b) The Mamlukes were definitely worth having in spite of them being somewhat headstrong. (c) The Janissaries are a waste of space - must work out alternative regional army lists. (d) Never seem to have enough movement PIPs.
Regarding (c) it seems that (according to 'Tehran to Tangiers') regional governors were supposed to deal with military conflicts immediately and then call upon the central army for support. As a consequence most Janissary units would only turn up part way through the proceedings. Maybe we should see them as reluctant allies only!
DBA v3.0 - two games:
2.9 Syracusan v 1.36a Sicels
Ian set up with bad terrain holding both flanks. I refused to advance into that trap so waited for the inevitable clash. My artillery and warband went down pretty quickly along with a unit of hoplites. I scraped back two enemy elements but things were not looking good until....I managed to 'sandwich' the enemy general. A close 4:3 win
1.44a Early Neo-Babylonian v 1.43a Scythian
Neither of us had suitable troops to take on the other so I corner sat - bad decision. 4:2 loss. Ian said that I should have attacked - another New Year's Resolution is to be more aggressive in my play (like Luke Harbach).
Saturday 9th January - Gt. Houghton (again)
I grabbed the two available boxes of figures - Ottomans & Indians.
The Ottomans were bought as a cheap Minifigs pack at a bring & buy a long time ago. through the years I purchased extras to make up a DBM army. Chris beat me to it and fielded his version first. It was not impressive and may have been quietly sold.. Unfortunately the new DBA list is somewhat different - only 1 x 4Bw plus 1 x Lh extra. Can't say that I am enamoured by the Ottomans in any pre-Napoleonic form.
As for the Indians - I should have looked more carefully at the label - it said 'Indian spares and Khmer'. So not enough for an Indian army of any kind but the Khmer/Cham could be managed with a borrowed 1 x 4Bw. Think that there are some suitable candidates for this shortfall amongst the unpainted spares.
Four games of DBA v3.0:
4.55b Ottomans v 4.13d Medieval German 4:3 win - held back in the centre and broke the wings.
3.23a Khmer v 3.9b Burmese 4:2 loss - artillery unit wiped out yet again.
4.9 Eastern Forest American v 3.19c Welsh 4:3 loss - hard fought against better troops.
3.22a Maya v 4.29 Tupi 4:3 win - I managed to get my general killed early in the game.
A much closer set of games than usual.
