I can too wheel into your ZoC, look it up in the rules.
I played WRG 7th Edition a few times, and was not happy with it. Not
because it was bad, I was young and kept losing. Now I play DBM and DBR,
preference to the Gentlemen Pensioner's Renaissance period (DBR) as more
elements shoot and I like it when more elements can be killed one DBR turn
than in an entire DBM game. I think that is why DBM is becoming DBMM, a
deadlier game meant to pull in the younger audience thrilled by testosterone
filled Space Marines and Plasma Cannons.
DBM:
Which stands for De Bellis Multitunidis, covers war from 3000BC until 1500AD,
which is a fair whack of history, but it does it because it is abstract so
Roman Legionaries move and fight on the 6'x4' table surface the same way as
Medieval swordsmen and Japanese Samurai. After 40K
I went into historicals as they are more 'historical' and thus not a
children's game.
My first army was that of Palmyra - who? all you
non-scholars or archeologists ask, where? - because it had a Queen, Queen
Zenobia, and lots of men with bows and I like it when I can roll dice to kill
stuff without having to be in contact, and heavy cavalry where the rider and
horse were completely armoured in metal scales and carried a kontos (what's
that?), a rather big lance, along with horse archers. And this army was in the
desert, and in fact I have been to the ruins of the City, razed to the ground
by a Roman Emperor when Zenobia made a bid for Empire herself (lasting about
one year). Palmyra is in Syria, past AA missile defense systems ready for an
Israeli attack. I did very well in my first competition with this army and
should have come in the Top 10 but for my first opponent calculating the
points the wrong way - I didn't know what was going on. I have had two 6th
places as well, I think with the same army or one similar but Irregular in
nature. I haven't taken them out much, in fact haven't played that much DBM
except for a few tournaments as FOW and DBR are my
preferred games instead.
Instead of the ubiquitous Roman Army that rarely
wins, I have an ubiquitous army of Alexander the Great. I haven't been able to
emulate his feats although one player has got the phalanx down and gets good
tournament results. I still have a large number of Pike elements to paint and
would like to try a Ptolemaic army with 72 Pk(O) and (I) elements, and some
other stuff. It would be fun. Alexandrian Pk is a polymorphic army, able to
turn into any one of the successor states which are equipped pretty much the
same way, except that of Seleucis, who has too much variety.
I can also
field later Muslim armies such as Ottoman and Timurid thanks to my Moghul
Empire DBR army (that with the new DBR pretty much means I can't use them in
DBR anymore except against other newly crappified Eastern lists). Then there
are the armies I can borrow from my brother, such as ubiquitous Roman, equally
ineffectual Mongol, and Attila's Huns.
DBR:
I came 4th in my first DBR (De Bellis Renatonis) tournament, also my first lot
of DBR games and got special mention from DBR Sold His Soul To The Devil
Legend Mark Robins, using a Transylvanian army of light cavalry, low quality
foot stiffened by some Lancers to resist Knight heavy armies. I was able to
out dance them and use my few Lancers to telling effect. Against Richard
Stubb's suitably optimistic and vain French he pointed out his General and how
wonderfully painted it was - so I killed it first. In a later tournament he
left one element off the table causing me to lose the game as I thought I'd
killed everyone I needed to and had it in the bag. Grrr. I get my revenge at
FOW often enough.
In 2.1 the Polish Commonwealth became my home. Fabulous
looking Winged Hussars all replete with banners and flapping flags glided over
the tabletop to destruction in the face of solid Pk/Sh lines until I figured
out the way to win - War Wagons! Yes, slow ponderous wagons that became my
Panzer Divisions, indestructible Tiger tanks that blow Pi apart and eventually
Shot. My tanks became so successful I wrote an article about using them and
moved onto the Moghul Empire which can have seven of the grinding beasts. Thus
well armed and with the right tactics I managed a 2nd in the Victorian Titles
(larger than cancon that year) with the Poles.
To cancon went Babur (whose
town or birth I have visited and was arrested in, a few weeks later 1,000
people massacred by the army in a failed protest) and the Moguls and six WWg
backed up by brightly painted Sipahi (my most detailed 15mm efforts to date, I
also painted my brother's 30YW Germans) and Bw(I) and Sh(I). I didn't get a
place unfortunately, just missing out, my WWg causing their destruction and
Sipahi able to take on Lancers and win. Eastern armies have a rough time of
it. In an eastern tournament I came second again at the Victorian Titles with
Safavid Persian, winning the place after a herculean civil war.
3.0 and the
earlier playtest editions on the Yahoo! Group put an end to my tactics and
glory days with non-European PPS (Pike, Pistol Shot) armies. Now WWg have been
hamstrung as weapons platforms, cavalry has lost its flexibility, in fact
armies that required flexibility to manage disparate troop types are useless
in open tournament. Seeing this early I was prepared and brought what I
thought was a good army, but not quite good enough as I got 4th or 5th again
when 2nd was a distinct chance except that my victory against the Devil
Himself Mark Robins was snatched away and I had to produce my own magic to get
a draw. One other bad game and my chance was gone. Still, all the players
learnt a lot from the new edition: that Art(I) is powerful in batteries, Pk
are still hopeless and should be left at the back, Dr are the only foil
against Artillery (can't be killed), and 2EE elements such as Pi(S) are best
avoided like the plague: they cost me the game against Robins when I two
stable commands and three of these supposedly Superior troops vanished to a
flank attack in a single bound. I could have prevented it, if I hadn't rolled
3 1pip dice the previous turn (see, only the Devil could make that happen at
such a time). My tactic was the use of large numbers of Pi(I), now given the
ability to ride down Sh after shooting gaps in the enemy's line. It worked and
I will refine the force with the lessons above and hopefully get a placement
at cancon soon.!
I don't know what I'm going to do with the Moghuls.