Wargame Bayou: 2nd Annual DBA Smackdown

Yesterday, two wargaming clubs: Colorado Military Historians and Colorado Springs Gamers Association, met for the second consecutive year to engage in the DBA Smackdown! Unlike the previous year, the honor of the CMH organization was upheld as we defeated the opposing club by a narrow margin on the honorable fields of battle.

First, we participants would like to thank the organizing members of both organizations for their efforts in coordinating the event, food, venue, etc. Thanks guys! Secondly, a big thank you to the hosts, Collector's Mania in Parker. Nice people, clean store and plenty of varied inventory - go see them. And, last but not least, thanks to the CSGA for providing all of us with worth and able opponents! Job well done on everyone's part!

The Smackdown consisted of several games: one BBDBA event; many one-on-one DBA battles using 2.2; one 3.0 battle and even a couple of Hordes of Things battles (15mm and 28mm). There were also some pick up games of DBA going. There were prizes given out in several categories, and all parties seemed to have a great time!

I know I had a ball. I played in the BBDBA event. The theme was Roman Civil War and the two sides set parameters months ago for the ranges of Roman and allied armies allowed. The actual selection of armies and allies was a closely guarded secret of both clubs until the time of the game.

I can really only speak to the details of the big game I played in...so: My partner/emperor was General John Brown, he commanded the Roman 2/3 of our army. I commanded the allied contingent, Later Pre-Islamic Arabs. Art, our opponent for the day ran a Constantine-era Roman army with Alan allies.

Being the attackers, Art deployed first, 2/3 of his command, all of his Romans were placed in their positions. The right wing of the army was left open at this point as Art's main Roman force of footmen deployed ominously in the center - auxilia supporting the wings. This was perfect due to the positioning of two wooded areas nearby. This would be a tough fight for us against that deployment. A small force of Roman horse deployed to the left wing of the army. We assumed that the Alans would likely deploy in the vacant right wing, but could deploy on the left and try to overwhelm our own right with a strong and fast horse army.

We then deployed our forces in total: the Arabs on the left wing, a small Roman contingent in the center and a powerful Roman force dominated by horse on the right wing. There was no enemy opposing the Arabs at this point - but - Art did indeed then deploy his Alan allies to oppose them.

We took a while in debating our deployments - to the delight of Art. He did indeed cause us much conversation - so, kuddos! In the end, I think we decided on the right approach. We essentially ignored the large force of slow-moving infantry in the center and fell upon the two weaker flanks. We broke both flanks of the enemy army - and the center of the enemy only engaged in combat on the last turn of the game and after the flanks had been broken. The battle had good flow and all players had glory and challenges.

There was a particularly awesome moment in the game where Art had maneuvered his elements in a position to attack our C-in-C element from both front and flank - killing the C-in-C would obviously had a detrimental effect on the outcome for us. It was a pretty tense moment and a relatively even die roll...I tapped a drum roll on the table as the dice flew...and...we won the little fight! Whew! I took a picture as the enemy elements recoiled!

At awards time, a really funny thing happened. We award a pink die to the player that rolled the most "1" results in the Smackdown. This year, there were three nominees. So, each of them stepped up to roll the pink die - with the award going to the lowest resulting roll. Art won the award - yep - by rolling a "1". Had to get a picture of that! The other awards were DVDs, a jar of hummus and a copy of DBMM - I forget now what the categories were (sorry). There was a can of chili and beans to be given out for sacking a camp - but alas, no camps were sacked this year! I won the hummus (yuck!).

Fun stuff, the General and Art are both stellar players and good coaches. I like DBA, particularly Big Battle DBA. Here are some pics: