
My sons and I got together yesterday on Google Meets (Hangouts is apparently dead) for a couple of games of remote DBA. I hosted the first game, with the two of them playing, using my new Libyan chariot to command a Libyan army. For those conversant with DBA, this is army I/7b, and I don’t have the figures done yet to provide any choices, so all the warriors were deployed as “auxilia” and there was a Sea Peoples stand rather than a second chariot. There were up against later New Kingdom Egyptians (I/22b) whose only choice is whether to deploy the Sherden guard as “fast” or “solid” blades. William was in command of the Egyptians and elected to make them “solid”. A dice off for attacker/defender and for terrain left the Egyptians invading Libyan territory, so they were away from the water in a wilderness of rocky ground (represented by the brown cloth shapes) and a difficult hill. Since we often have a hard time seeing things remotely anyway, we kept the terrain layouts pretty simple. If this were a convention demonstration game, it wouldn’t be hard to improve the table dressing. The Libyans deployed with most of their more capable troops to the left of the hill, and covered their right flank by deploying their skirmishers on the difficult hill. The Egyptians were impeded somewhat by their need to carefully pick their way through the rocks and scrub. They were deployed with most of their chariots out on their left flank in a bid to demoralize the enemy quickly by taking their camp.
Eventually the battle lines met at the edge of the rocky ground. The Libyan swordsmen wilted under the hail of Egyptian arrows, losing one of two stands as soon as they were within range. The usual DBA shoving match started, and the Libyans rapidly lost their fourth stand, ending the game.
We played a second game, with Arameans (I/6c) against Syro-Canaanites (I/20b) using Norman’s collection and board.
Nice, Rob. I love the “hillows.”