So - at the last minute I got the chance to attend Cold Wars 2012 in Lancaster, PA. My main mission there was to play some DBA. Back "in the day" I always poo-poo'd DBA as I only played big multiplayer games on 10 foot (or larger) tables with thousands of miniatures. Now that I'm married and live in a large house with lots of small rooms, small games like DBA are looking more attractive to me. I mentioned I was coming to Cold Wars on the Fanaticus website and they said to come to the Friday 7pm 25mm DBA Open - they had some loaner armies. So I showed up and the tournament organizer (Roland) loaned me a Burgundian army (last one in list IV). Turned out DBA is a pretty easy game to learn but there are some finer points with the whole "geometry" bits that I'm not fully clear on. But anyway, here are some pictures from the convention (taken with my phone camera - I thought I brought my regular camera with me but I couldn't find it - turns out in was in the console compartment between the seats in my car - I never put anything in that compartment!).
Click on any photo to view the full-size image.
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| Looking at the Flames of War tournament tables. |
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| DBA 2.2+ Pyramid event |
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| Warhammer "The Great War" (WW I) tournament |
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| Flames of War tournament action on Friday night |
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| More Friday night Flames of War tournament |
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| My first game of DBA in the 25mm Open vs Roland Fricke. Roland loaned me his Burgundian Ordonnance army for the tournament (Army list IV\84) |
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| Roland advances on my Burgundians... |
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| We get stuck in... |
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| My Knights keep pushing him back so they keep advancing out-of-control... |
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| Bam - I pull off a lucky win! |
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| My 2nd game was against Darrell Smith (I think!). Darrell went to get some food between rounds so we started late and didn't finish. Darrell got the high ground first and kept me at bay. Darrell was ahead 3-1 when time was called. |
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| My 3rd and final game was against Jeff Franz (I think - I shoulda wrote down the names!) excellently painted Early Crusader army. This was another one where Jeff got to the high ground first and I hammered myself against his position. I was down 3-1 and I knew he'd get his 4th on his next bound so I made three even-odds attempts at a knockout (including my general in an even-odds quick kill situation). I won two out the three and then Jeff put the nail in the coffin on his next bound for a 4-3 win. |
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| Here's the situation vs. Jeff after the first set of bounds. Jeff's light horse went for the flanks early. |
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| After DBA I went around snapping shots of nice looking games. This is a Fire and Fury ACW game. |
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| A Napoleonics game using the "Carnage and Glory II" computer-moderated rules. |
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| This is the GM setting up his 1870 Franco-Prussian War game. Each of these 8x11 tiles is laid out in a "brick-wall pattern" to simulate a hex grid. This is an area movement game where units (on what looked to be 60mmx30mm stands) moved from tile to tile. The rules were home-grown but based loosely on Peter Pig's Square Bashing rules. |
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| A fuzzy close-up of the FPW figures (15mm - I assume Old Glory 15's). |
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| I'm pretty sure this was a large ACW skirmish game in 25mm using the popular Brother Against Brother ruleset. |
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| My Friend John Rigley from Albany, NY ran this "Weird War II" air game sponsored by Eureka Miniatures. The large airplane in the center is a bomber making a run over Germany while in the foreground you can see Germany's latest weapons - Pterodactyls with jet engines and German insignia! |
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| Pterodactyl close-up |
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| The smaller plane following the bomber contained a secret weapon of its' own - Rocketeers! |
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| A fantasy mass-battle game using the "Battles by G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T" rules with fantasy mods. |
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| A game using the "Look Sarge, No Charts!" WWII rules. |
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| Bruce Weigel's 1866 game in 6mm |
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| Close-up of the 1866 game. |
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| I believe this is a Napoleonic-era game using the Carnage and Glory II computer-moderated rules. |
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| The 1870 FPW game in action - no lack of players! |
