Slitherine

Thought some of you might be interested, I fly out tomorrow to take part in the 8th World Wargames Championships. This year the event is being held in Melbourne Australia.

Iain is far to busy with Legion Arena at the moment to come, so I am defending the family honour. Dont know if you are already aware that he is a Double World Champion at this so I will have my work cut out. Still looking forward to it !!

Regards
JDM

Good luck....

Yeah, good luck! For them that is , they are going to need it.

Thanks for the good wishes guys

Regards
JDM

Good luck, JD. Give'em some hoplite medicine

Best of lucks.

BTW which wargames will be played in the Championship?

DBM and DBR only, and then only in 15mm scale!

DBM and DBR, too bad. I've played DBA and DBM, and switched to either Classical Hack, Armati, Ancient Warfare, or Might of Arms. Each of these systems has its own quirks, but I found that DBA/DBM uses an unrealistic all-or-nothing approach to combats, where a victorious unit either totally destroys the opposing unit, or just pushes it back a step with no other harm done, depending on the two unit types. The other systems all have some sort of cumulative damage, making a combat more of a slow "wearing" process, except in overwhelming situations, instead of a one-roll "winner-take-all" affair. On the other hand, the uncertainty of the die roll for the number of orders available in the current turn lends a certain realistic "fog of war" effect.

The sizable historical miniatures tournaments at the HMGS conventions (Historicon, Cold Wars, and Fall-In), in Lancaster, PA, USA, include games using all or most of the above rules, and I would hope to meet Iain at one of these events if he ever travels state-side to support his game habit. The recent Cold Wars gathering topped 2,000 attendees, which isn't bad for the "baby" of the convention list.

I believe the IWF is "non-rules-ist" - you can organise any comp you want, as long as you can get whatever they require as some form of national representation together.

DBM & DBR just have it togehter a bit better at the moment - and/or the idea of hte IWF originated with DBM players??

DBA/DBM/DBR are probably the most commonly used historical miniatures tournament rules, mainly because you can run a battle in an hour or less with them, as opposed to three or four hours for most rules sets. That makes for a lot of rounds in a single day, rather than two or three at most.

It was developed as a fast-play rules set, at the expense of realism. I always seem to think of it as "checkers", compared to "chess" for the other rules, although the distinction isn't really that clear. The other odd thing about the system is the chart of "who does what to whom", which tells you that if unit type A beats unit type B, B is destroyed, but if A beats C, but doesn't double C's score, then C is only pushed back a stand depth, and if A beats D, D is pushed back and not destroyed under any circumstance except a full moon on a Friday the 13th. What I find hard to handle is that a single bad die roll can take the center out of your battle line in one turn, and I'm notorious for amazingly bad die rolls.

DBA is like that, but DBM & DBR are much more complex and time limits are 3-3.5 hours a game, though some games end in a draw with neither army routing.

You should run yuor army in 2 lines then - as many ancient did!

As Iain said - DBM is a 2-4 hours game, and competitions organise 2 daytime rounds per day, and some have a 3rd in the evening.

DBA is an hour long game with only 12 elements a side, and produces very good games really - you can even try the electronic version at DBAOL.com (DBA On Line).

DBR is te rennaissance equivalent of DBM, but has a very good "condensed" scale which some people find a lot better than the normal scale, and which can be used for DBA-esque games.