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TOO GOOD TO LIVE - To paraphrase Billy Joel, why do Only the LH Generals Die Young?

THE POWER OF FIVE - Is it a Boy band? Is it a Mystic Eastern Cult? No , It's a Hideous Disaster ...

"The best one I can think of is vs Bob and Bruce (again!) at Colchester last year.

There I was, playing a "top table" game in round 3, mainly because of the incompetents I'd played in the previous game who couldn't beat my Ax with their Bd (editors comment - that was us....and that's another story altogether..hrrumph!).

Bob and Bruce stick a massive ambush in the central sector which I realise is illegal, so it gets relegated to the back of the board - leaving a huge chunk of their army - and all of their game plan - in tatters.

I then generally proceed to attempt to fuck up the game, but given the huge advantage of the relegated ambush I'm still in a winning position IMO, so.....

Imagine a command of Malaysian elephants bearing down on a stack of quivering Bw(I).

The Bw(I) in attempt to show they were worthy of the trust placed in them opened fire...Scratch one elephant!!!

The remaining elephants ploughed on over the corpses of the dead elephant... the Bw(I) fire again...

"In his defense the smellies weren't commanded by him, but they were in his army...so I believe this qualifies...shame it's not as good as his Burton Baggage trick."

Dave Pants Everett and his mates "hanging out"

I remember a very short competition game against Neo-Elamites. Their list was of 2 equal sized commands. I was lucky in the first combat, where one of my LH took out LH of his. He was a bit unlucky because one of his generals managed to get caught in the recoil and died. Next PIP dice for that general's command was a 1 and whole army breaks after 2 casualties. 30 minutes deploying, 5 minutes playing the game

Playing at the Nationals this year using Hsuing Nu I was playing Hunter Hopes Mittanni - not a good match up but, well, OK

Much to everyone surprise not only did the LH (S) hold but we broke through. Now I usually fight with my LH Generals (editorial comment - So, we'll be seeing more Pants moments from you soon then...?) but we managed to destroy what was in front of us, so I thought I'll move through the gap into safety, the theory being to be about a mile past the chariots.

At this moment my guys forget they are LH and push back the CV (S) either side of where the generals was. Being as chariots have a recoil distance of 40mm, they are no longer pinned, and Hunter promptly turns the chariots round and slaps my general for being stupid ( Pity he couldn't reach across the table because I could have done with it too). Inevitably this broke the command due to the generals die roll the following turn

Although I didn't actually lose this game at Warfare, all three of my allies decided they didn't want to play and happily stood and watched as an Indian command of knights moved completely from one side of the table to the other to slap into some of m bemused Ax.

Three 1's.... and a 2 for the CinC is personally a little demoralizing for me ........and very funny for my opponent!

dateline Last Thursday, Eastern Patrician Roman with Ostragothic Allies (Brian Holmes) vs. Indian (me).

Brian deploys in the "Oh dear, ellies, can't fight them" style (flat back 11 on the baseline cowering like girlies - flank march the Wb(S) ). I go for the "up for it" deployment, well forward.

As the mighty Indian army advances, the CinC's command runs rampant down the left flank. My Bw(X/S) give his Ostragothic Bw(I) a neat "cactus" effect, the Lh force his Kn out and the Eli(S) proceed to give them a flattening. The icing on the cake is produced when one of his Kn dies, taking some Ax(S) minding their own business nearby with them.

His Wb flank march appears just as the Ostrogoths run like girls. I swing two ellies (including the CinC) toward them. 10-0 in the bag!

As the ponderous armoured ellies plod toward his quaking Wb a lone Ps leaps from the adjacent terrain and stands next to my CinC thumbing it's collective nose. Pinned! The effrontery! The sheer inconvenience! In a fit of lunacy, I ram the aforementioned ellie right into the smirking Ps (who's laughing now, eh?).

The ensuing 6-1 on the dice is, of course, something of a foregone conclusion, as is my inability to prevent the whole command doing an "Ostrogoth" towards the table edge.

This is a story of my five minute victory Vs my fellow Clevelander Wayne Carter and his Gauls at Cold Wars 2001.

Well Wayne lives less than 1 mile from me in Cleveland Ohio, So we travel 370 miles to Lancaster Pa and end up meeting in the second round of the 25MM Doubles tournament. Wayne's partner is Neal a 12 year old who he is going to teach the finer points of DBM to during the weekend.

Wayne's Gauls with a Spanish ally which are really my troops he borrowed for the weekend face my Ugarit/ Canaanites. There is almost no terrain except for a gentle hill in the Guals central deployment sector.

Wayne is attacking and puts his Spanish in the center on the hill. His cav command with a huge block of Warbands on his left backed by a smaller command of more warbands on the far left and Neal's command of Warbands on the right. First bound he rolls a 1 for the Spanish so are unreliable and sit on the hill.

He pushes his cavalry forward facing a line of 12 Bw(I) under Shut Up Dave's command. We have poor pips and just deploy out on the flanks and my center chariots wheel to try and get on the flank of the cavalry commands warbands.

Second bound the Spanish are still unreliable and the cav and warbands advance to 200 paces away from the archers and chariots. First shot is on the C-in-C Cavalry General in the front rank 6-1 right between the eyes he's dead. Other shooting takes out 1 more cav.

Our bound we charge his warbands with chariots and he picks up another cav from shooting and 4 warbands die. Making 7 dead out of his command so they break because there are no 7's on the Gauls dice.

(Yes! I knew they wouldn't turn on their real master) and the game is over. It took about 5 minutes to play and young Neal's "like, when do I get to play" look was worth a million bucks. We all laughed till we had tears in our eyes.

Hey - Communal Italian.. great army, float like a butterfly, ... sting like a butterfly.. the most fun you can have with pants on, like trying to smash
a hammer with an eggshell.

So since the olive-growers and assorted bandits did pretty well at a practice comp.. 37 out of 40.. i thought i would take them to the Australian
Nationals at Cancon in 1999. Being an imprudent sort of a chap Ii based my army around the theory that no-one would expect 4 regular generals at 350
AP.... right, that's 124 AP of generals, and 226 AP of other assorted Kn(F) and Sp(I) and Hd and other such rubbish..

Game 1... looking at the armies listed by date i looked down the pairs and went 'whooo hoo'.. i had drawn one of our locals, a player colloquially
known as 'the bye' from his charming manner of handing his opponents 10-0 without a murmur.. (no names no pack drill).

Pants moment No 1. coming up... doh.... one of the players failed to show, the draw skips one and I get .... Samurai under the redoubtable Geoff
Frost, not the best matchup for Kn(F) and Sp(I).. never mind, my superior maneuverability should give me a chance...

Pants moment No 2. ah-hah i see he has left a gap in his deployment, custom made for a small command to internally turn a flank ..... i shall roll my
first pip dice and charge into the gap, and leave him bemused by my speed and decisiveness.... (rolls dice) ah-hah... how do I allocate 1,1,1,1 ???

I just knew it wasn't going to be my year to win anything.. first game of the year.. first die roll of the year.... and its 1/6 x 1/6 x 1/6 x 1/6 chance
of occurring.... 1/1296

Oh well... when all else fails line up four generals and charge em straight up the middle...

This army never fails to be fun.. its the only army i have ever used where i have lost all four generals (dont ask) and still been fighting.. the one
where the Hd slaughter Knights, and the spear die like flies.

cheers

Doug Melville

Normans 1066AD vs. PIA (only god knows, & him of course) at Lionheart 99' (Oz)

We set up, I go, hummmm looks pretty easy to me...

Munch, munch, munch... Burp!!!

After much munching & no getting munched back (whatsoever), I decide to end it (I never did like to playing with my food anyway).

Basically imagine an open field where Irr Bd(i) cower like the dogs they are.... & where Kn's (specially generals) rub there hands at the though of a
few after dinner mints...

Little did I know that the dog Bd(i)'s had a cunning plan (specially cunning since he was .5 of an EE off breaking)...

The counter charge into the front of Duke William, fair Bishop Odo, & god knows how many Kn's (who were busy shaking hands (& talking about dinner mints)....

Anyway to cut a long story short, I proceed to roll 1 with each of generals - have a guess what he rolled each time

Well anyway its now my bound, I haven't taken a single casualties (cept'ing Duke William & fair Bishop Odo in the previous bound) & now its time to roll my pips, I think to myself "there's no way I could roll 2 1's in those two specific commands, no never.... just couldn't happen"

Regards, Martin

He is attacker.... and rolls his first bound pips...

Pants Moment number 1...

He rolls a six for the flank march... I guessed right... I'm exultant ok, well i will still be ok, have a bound to respond...

Pants Moment No 2. He swings the wind till it blows directly in my face... ok, well, we weren't relying on Bw.

He piss farts around sending his sp and Bw forward...

Pants Moment No 3... MY bound - MY pips... 1 for the CinC - bugger.... 1 for the Ally, double bugger, 4 for the command that isnt doing anything.

All right, we can hold or start to KMDT the CinC column, the Ax have to stand around with their 'nads out. The CinC column starts to KMDT to face the flank march..

Long Story Short.... the next three bounds for the CinC command it rolled another, 1, followed by 2... 2... by which time the Ax were being
slaughtered. The Ally never became reliable the entire game. When I did finally get my Kn into the flank march he allocated it a 6 and brought on 2
Bw (O) causing my knights to flee again leaving the Ax to their fate....

Martin also completely redeployed his CinC command to come round the end of the rough going. (Damn Regular Dice). Between the flank march and the CinC command they took my CinC command out as I tried to fight 2 regular commands of LH and Kn(S) with a shattered command of Kn (O) and (S) and some Ax that was rapidly collapsing. To finish it off, as my ally stood and watched in the center, his sp and bow (O) marched unconcernedly past my uncommitted Bw(S) and shot my Bw (O) in the difficult to bits (I'm shooting into a strong wind remember).

Game Over. And the Moral ???? well... no matter how well you think you have set up, no matter how the terrain falls, no matter if you out deploy and
outguess your opponent, there is no situation in DBM that cannot be cocked up by rolling a succession of 1's at critical junctures.

Doug

What Can Go Right, Will Go Wrong

In a recent practice game for the World team qualifiers, I played against Jonathan Beech of the RAF, with my Kushans against his Sassanids. I ended up defending, so obviously Jonathan deployed his hephalumps in front of my C-in-C’s cataphracts and his dailami double ranked in front of my Bw(X). Aha! Thinks I, time for a light horse screen and a hurried redeployment.

The light horse screen goes out, and due to a succession of ones for subsequent pip dice, gets caught by the hephalumps who go straight through it into the cataphracts who haven’t had a chance to move out of the way. This however isn’t the pants bit. On my left a mixture of Kn(X), Bw(X) and LH(F) have caught some Cv(O) in the open and have ruined their day, exposing the flank of the Sassanid centre whilst my LH and Ax on the right have taken a command, bringing the score back to 6-4 from 7-3.

So we reach my last bound as the defender. Attrition has lead to a knife-edge situation. If I can just take another two elements, the Sassanids will go home, but if I lose one element I go home. My pip dice come out adequately the demoralised C-in-C gets a five for his three groups and the other two commands get fours. I promptly set up two double element kills, a fifty-fifty shot with two LH into the flank of two Cv(O) (2-2 but he can't recoil), and a beautifully elegant two LH into the flank of a demoralised Cv(O) which turns and will recoil into two undemoralised dailami with the factors 2-0 in my favour. (Pants bit about to happen!)

At this point I must have lost my presence of mind. Eager to get to the combats, and not willing to waste time on flee moves, I uttered the fateful words ‘The C-in-C will hold himself for one and one for his nob, and the other two groups for two each.’

At this point Jonathan points out that I have to shoot at him and I realise that I’ve held a DBE of Bw(X)/(O) in front of the Dailami that I want the Cv to recoil into. I shoot, they recoil, so I can now only kill one of them with a recoil in combat. Inevitably this happens, and would have won me the game if not for the shooting, but it is now irrelevant as the Sassanids are still 1 away from going home and I have to rely on the 2-2 combat… which falls 6-1 to the Sassanids, killing my LH and losing me the game 9-1. Had I allowed the C-in-C’s command to flee…

Hi Tim, I've been taking some ribbing about this one for a while so I
thought I'd share it.

Table 4 in the last round of Britcon playing Kushan vs Carlo de Norme's
Early Carthaginian, merrily unaware of how possible it is to place from
here.

Carlo has invaded and got the narrow table the Carthaginians were after but
despite this the deployment goes well and as the casualties start to mount
on both sides it becomes clear that the Kushans have the slight upper hand.
The Carthaginians are an element from breaking and the Kushans cataphracts
and elephants are a move away from the flank of a Carthaginian Wb/Sp
command, the Kushans are close to breaking too but there's very little in
the way of real targets for the Carthaginians to get the required kill, just
lots of Lh dashing around.

A spare pip sits unspent on the El(O) CinCs dice, "aha" thinks I, I'll use
that plus his freebie to just expand him, after all what's the worst that
could happen. Moments later I look on in horror as I complete my impetuous
moves and a LhF jumps about a million miles to hit a Sp element in front of
my CinC, handily enough there's just over a 40mm gap so the Lh can get in
but he doesn't have room for a recoil! The inevitable happens and the Lh
recoils into the CinC taking them both out and ending the game.

To cap it off the points earnt give Carlo enough for 3rd place!

As I just recently did the most embarrassing debacle of my entire
DBM career, I suppose I have to make amends, ease my heart and let the world
know. Anyways, here it is.

The occassion is the Finnish DBM Championship 2006, third round. Having
stood up to two of Finland's toughest players with only a
slightly-below-average score so far, I am content. Now, I'm facing a newbie
of his first tourney, some easy meat for a change. Or, that's what I think.

My Pyrrhic against his Italian Condotta. Weather is diced for, and what do
we get? Thirst! Combat disadvantage unless you have a water source behind
your forwardmost element after your 6th bound. Attacking, I try to place a
river, but fail. Seems like I'll have to do my worst during the six first
turns, and struggle on afterwards. He places a nice watery BUA at his table
edge, and castles his entire army around it.

The phalanx storms onwards, and gets close enough to the enemy to inflict
several rounds of damage before thirst kicks in. His Swiss ally refuses to
cooperate. Looks good, his entire army is right in the way of my killer
phalanx, except for his still uncooperative Swiss I can just plain ignore.
Against me he has Bw, Kn and a few scant Ax and Pk. Should be easy, even if
thirst kicks in.

He sends his LH(F) to harrass the right flank of the phalanx. My elephants
are right there to intercept. He has three LH(F) to my two El(O), two LH in
line and a third a bit to the right. The elephants are within striking
distance, and move in to kill. I get nervous about the single LH left,
worrying about it hitting the flank of one of the elephants, getting a
chance to kill both of them with a lucky strike.

And what do I do? Pyrrhus himself decides to be a smartass, moving himself
and his bodyguard Cv to use their ZoC to prevent the flanking. Of course, he
doesn't have enough movement to get to the flank of the elephants, but by
angling himself slightly his ZoC covers the flank despite him sitting right
behind the elephants.

Now, guess whose LH(F) go into a dicing frenzy! The pants position Pyrrhus
has parked into is actually on the zone of death of both of the elephants,
and his LH(F) kill them both. Now, that was a brilliant stroke of genius! He
got there to prevent a single fatal dice roll, but got himself two new
positions of dice fatality. Trampled by a horde of elephants, Pyrrhus' last
words became "Uh, is their ZoD really that big?"

With C-in-C dead, guess if anyone responded when someone called "anyone
willing to take command, raise a hand"? The phalanx was almost enough to
break my entire army, turning a near-sure victory into a debacle making
Hitler seem a military genius by comparison. The end result? I ended up 9th
of 12 participants, my worst tourney result ever, and the supposedly easy
meat newbie came 4th.

Oh well, I suppose that the best way to learn not to
do pants things is to actually do them, and learn from experience.
Preferably, though, those pants would occur during practice games, not
during the bloody #1 tournament of your country!

My best regards,
Anders Korsback

The Pain in Spain

Game 3 in Seville 2006 tournament, and I have a great matchup against a Medieval german army with my Carthaginians.

They have set up with two flanks of double ranked auxilia and Blade X - both facing my warband and elephants - with an uncommitted swiss ally in the middle. My opponent clearly hasn't spotted that Auxilia only fight in one rank, and had deployed his Dbe knights too far back to get into the game. I roll fabulous pips, and rush forwards, expecting to achieve a crushing victory in record time.

But the combat dice had other ideas. By the end of the first round of combat both my commands were within half an element of defeat, having lost 5 and 6.5 elements respectively. The germans then stepped up and delivered the coupe de grace. I lost 10-0, in 3 turns, against an opponent who could have beaten me my not spending any pips whatsoever. And i ended up with a 6.5 hour lunch break to boot!

Ax v Bw	Ax v Bw	Wb v Wwg	Wb v Ps	Wb v Ax	Wb v Ax	Wb v Ax	Wb v Ax
3-1	2-2	4-3	4-2	4-3	4-3	4-3	3-3

Wb v Bd	Wb v Bd	El v Bd	El v Bd	Ps (S) vs Bd (X)
3 - 5 (QK)	4 - 5 (QK)	4 - 3	3 - 3	2 - 3

The Pain in Spain

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