The Swiss, 15mm DBA

Twenty eight years ago Liz and I went on honeymoon to Murren in the Berner Oberland. One day we went on a steamer trip to Thun where we visited the castle, therein was a lovely display featuring medieval Swiss armies (there was also a floor dedicated to Swiss methods of punishing unruly women, but that's another story).  I was also struck by the large number of colourful flags flying all around the region. Swiss national flags, but also lots of Berner Oberlander flags, and flags of each town and village. I was in a bit of a DBA phase at the time so when I got home I wrote to Essex and got myself a 15mm DBA Swiss army. Then we moved house, the unpainted army went into a box and stayed there for nearly 28 years....

Fast forward to 2018 and I'm clearing out stuff to sell at the Lincombe Barn tabletop sale, and I find an old bag full of 15mm figures. They go into the box of odds and ends to sell, but then as I'm at the show I think back to the happy summer days in the mountains, and before long the bag of figures is off the table.....

It still took 2 months to get them on to the painting table, but last week the Swiss finally made it out of the bag and onto the worktop. And here they are, kitted out in the red and yellow of the Berner Oberland, with contingents of pikemen from Interlaken, Lauterbrunnen and Murren (if the army ever expands then Grindelwald and Wengen will get contingents too, but thats for later).

I'm quite pleased with how they have turned out, especially as this is the first DBA army I've painted for ages. Of course between getting them and now DBA 3 has arrived and the army lists are completely different, but I'm not fussed and my Swiss will take to the table with what they've got for now.

Figures are mainly Essex, with a few old TTG and Minifigs (which similarly have sat in a box for nearly 30 years).

Something I'd like to add would be a vignette with a dancing bear and handler (these are the Swss, after all). I know there are suitable figures in 25/28mm but I've not seen anything suitable in 15mm. Anyone got any ideas?

I alsofound this rather nice bombard in a siege emplacement, with some rather nice crew, which I thought I'd paint up as well. Not sure which company makes them - I also have a trebuchet from the same company. Again - any clues?

Horses, Feet and Guns

Over the last couple of days I've been playing in Peter Colbeck's Marlburian campaign weekend. A hypothetical setting pitting Marlborough and his allies against a Franco-Bavarian force (I was driving the Bavarians), the aim being to secure as many strategically important crossings over a large river - there were five bridges to fight over.

Bavarians vs, Dutch

The campaign map

All well and good, and we were using "Horse, Foot and Guns", Phil Barker's (just recently published) set of DBA-based army level rules. We gave these a spin in one of Peter's earlier campaign weekends with mixed success (set in the Crimea, flippin' stoic Russians hardly ever able to move, my Sardinian light cavalry and horse artillery nipping about like AirCav causing all sorts of mayhem, it was a really weird wargaming experience!)/ So I approached the campaign with some trepidation.

A welcome distraction from the strain of war

I won't go into a blow by blow account of the campaign, suffice to say that Marlborough defeated one of the French armies on day 1, my Bavarians won a very unexpected victory against Peter's Dutch this morning to hold the southern bridge that I captured the day before, and in the final battle Prince Eugene's army held off the second French army to secure their bridge. However, early on day 1 the first French army had sent detachments to the three bridges in the North and they were under our control, so by the end of the game the Franco-Bavarians held four of the bridges to Marlborough's one.  strategic victory aided by us reading the brief, unlike Marlborough and co. who seemed to miss that element and were aiming more for defeating armies in the field.

Marlborough (on the right) about to give the French a bit of a kicking. An unusual deployment for the English army though and the English right flank got a pasting

Attack of the aged Brian Mays :)

It was a fun couple of days, and made all the better by Priti's most excellent cooking (aided by Laura on the first day) and the usual excellent company and bonhomie. But those rules, HFG really isn't on my list of favourites by a long way, not least because of its overcomplexity. Compared with the elegant simplicity of DBA this feels far more like the "Challenger 2000" of DBx games (and anyone familiar with Challenger 2000 will know this is in no way a compliment!)

Still, a fun weekend a a good excuse to get some games in - accompanied by amusing hairpieces from our gallant enemies :)

Lunch, day 1

Laura finding the wigs quite attractive

Follow your spirit, and upon this charge Cry 'God for Harry, England, and Saint George!

Despite a nasty fever (102 degrees yesterday, down to a manageable 100 today) I felt I couldn't let the 600th anniversary of Agincourt pass by without  some fun and games in the newly recommissioned wargames HQ. So I broke out DBA and gave it a bash. I don't have 100YW armies so my Wars of the Roses and Burgundians stood in for the action.

Things went fairly according to "plan", although some poor die rolls on the part of the English as battle was joined made it look a bit iffy for a while.

However, normality was restored as good King Henry despatched d'Albret for the 4th element killed and victory once again went to the English.

Just curious to see that my green sheet looks blue in these photos - obviously the ground was pretty waterlogged :)

The Joy of DBx

This weekend I have been at Peter Colbeck's place for his biennial wargames campaign weekend. This time the setting was the 30 Years War, with six armies (Sweden, France, the Holy Roman Empire, Saxony, Bavaria and the Spanish Netherlands) slugging it out for supremacy in Europe. In the end the Franco-Swedish-Saxon alliance was victorious, with the French taking the star prize. The rules in use were a cut down version of DBR. And a great time was had by all.

My Swedes hunkered down between a river and a deep gully, awaiting an attack from the Spanish. After  a long hard fought battle the team from Ikea emerged victorious

 And the great thing about this weekend was that it reminded me jus thow much I enjoy playing DBx games. I started DBA with 1st edition many years ago and have just about kept pace with developments to date (although I fear DBA 3 might be a step to far for me, at least to start with). Over the years I've collected many armies, starting with a Wars of the Roses army and now extending to several more medievals, Saxons, Vikings and Normans, Romans and Britons, Greeks, various arab types and, following Peter's ECW campaign a few years back, various ECW, Scots and other 17th century armies. Various specialty units, such as the Farleigh Hungerford contingent for my WotR collection from when we lived nearby in Trowbridge - now joined by a Berkeley contingent with our move to that area in 2012) And I remembered the DBA league games we used to play at Abbey Wood after hours, and other DBx campaigns that I'd been involved in or run. And I'm remembering wat a fun set of rule sit is and how ideal it is for quick games and one day campaigns.

I have a nasty feeling I'll be sprucing up my existing armies and working on some camps, baggage units and other "specials" in the not-too-distant future! I wonder if I can get the Berkeley crowd interested? :)