Thoughts from three games at Recoil! My Thracians encountered Franks, fousands of Franks! who knew an Ancient British light tank division can dismount from its vehicles? and Alfred the Great is brilliant, oops!
Recoil! is a an annual DBMM 200 competition run by Neil Williamson over two Saturdays at the Hutt Valley Wargaming Club, this year August 26 and September 9. There are three, two-hour rounds each day. This year we are divided into two sections of four players each, Ancient up to 1000 AD and Medieval post-1000 AD. First day we play within our section and on the second day we cross over between sections. Terrain is preset, defender chooses sides and, depending on the difference between the deployment dice, can move one or two pieces of area terrain. Many thanks Neil, lots of fun is being had 
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.Paul Graham is using six barbarian armies starting in the north at the mouth of the Rhine and ending in the south at the mouth of the Danube. I was Paul’s first opponent so he unleashed fousands of Franks. Second up for me was Graham Starkey using Ancient British with no warband and, instead, LOTS of chariots. It turns out, and I didn’t know until I watched part of Graham’s first game, that these chariots can dismount as superior warband. Third up was Alastair Duncan with Middle Saxons. Another learning for me, Alfred the Great can be brilliant and can declare a brilliant stroke to give himself +2 in close combat, just like that!
Many thanks to my three, excellent opponents, gentlemen all. And thank you for taking the time to welcome and talk with Chris Blackler who traveled from Levin, via Kapiti Hobbies, where he acquired some Fire Forge steppe infantry. We are starting to form a local wargaming group in Levin playing DBA and connecting with others in and around the area using different rules. Chris is starting Mongols for DBA.
Thracians
With 240 AP I have three commands:
- the King with nobles (ordinary cavalry), ordinary light horse, and peltasts (superior psiloi) who can support the King and the nobles
- a Thracian sub-general who is ordinary cavalry, light horse, peltasts (superior auxiliaries) and peltasts supported by archers (superior and ordinary psiloi)
- a mercenary Greek ally command led by Xenophon (ordinary cavalry), and including ordinary hoplites and more peltasts (superior psiloi)
- all the Thracians are irregular and the Greeks are all regular
- I have more light horse and psiloi than anyone else in the competition. A moral victory!
In order, my results were 14-11, 14-11 and 23-2, leaving me on top of the Ancient section and second overall, well behind Allen Yaxley’s Medieval Irish who have 71 points.
vs Franks
Paul was the defender, the difference on our deployment dice was not enough to let him change the terrain, and the terrain map is in the pics. I expected Paul to have superior warbands in the centre, flanked by ordinary warband, with a small fire brigade of cavalry held back. My cunning plan was to put pressure on both flanks, using the King’s command on the more open left, and the sub-general’s on the right. The sub-general would push all his psiloi through the rough ground, with auxiliaries protecting their inside flank and light horse sweeping around the terrain. Xenophon’s peltasts would screen the centre, with the hoplites well back ready to march to a flank.
Paul deployed more or less as expected and the game was afoot.
On my right my psiloi pushed into the rough ground to clear the Frankish psiloi and tried to expose that flank of Paul’s army. Paul moved his cavalry to protect the flank. His warband and my auxiliary peltasts bashed each other. It was messy – my psiloi were pushing forward as were Paul’s warband but neither could get a decisive edge and break through. Importantly, the protracted infantry tussle was a PIP drain, I needed to pull some of my light horse back to cover the gap between my psiloi and auxiliaries, and those two things combined to prevented my light horse “sweep” around the flank getting far.
On my left the King was confronted by warband and a small number of inferior archers. His cavalry, light horse and peltasts got in amongst the Franks and were causing casualties but not to the archers who were a rock, anchoring the flank and fighting better in close combat than they shot!
Xenophon marched his hoplites to support the initial success on my left and the screen of Greek peltasts did their job well against the superior warband. A few of these warband were destroyed by hard flanks as the King was able to squeeze an occasional element through to support the Greek peltasts.
Casualties grew on both sides – most of those from the fousands of Franks were only ½ ME and most of the Thracians were spent. Both Paul and I were surprised when Neil said, “15 minutes to go”. When time was called the Franks had lost just on 10%, incurring two penalty points, and the Thracians had lost less than 10%, no penalty points.
Thank you Paul for a most enjoyable game. I will write about my second and third games in a separate post.
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| The map for our preset terrain. When you compare this to the pic of the table, you realise the terrain features on the map are exaggerated in size. |
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| Paul is defending and has the first bound. This pic shows my line of psiloi screening the centre and part of my left. On my right, closest to the "camera" (it was my phone), is where our psiloi, auxiliaries and warbands fought their messy, indecisive fight. Paul's cavalry are behind the warband in this sector. On my left you can see the King's cavalry and light horse massed to attack on that wing. The hoplites held back in the centre marched to the left. |
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