Civil war

Educational theory says that now that I've been playing DBA for a while I should be improving from a state of unconscious incompetence to a state of conscious incompetence.  Well, today's game certainly seemed to provide support for that theory.  I feel like I'm getting worse at DBA, but at least now I'm quicker to figure out what I'm doing wrong!

We played a Middle Imperial Roman civil war, I took East versus my opponent's West.  The board was as below, with a steep hill in my deployment zone, a gentle hill opposite, a wood on my right and a waterway on my left.  Our armies were the same, except he had chosen Bw where I chose Ps.

After the first bounds

I dithered a lot with my set-up.  I certainly didn't feel like I had any sort of plan and it probably shows.  I started to run my LH around to the left hoping to outflank the Art on the hill.  My own Art moved up the road facing his Cv.  He moved his Ax into the woods and generally advanced the rest of his army but left behind an Ax and Bd near the road.

Having this many groups is painful when you roll a 2 for pips

I kept rolling low for pips and my LH movement was gobbling them up so I didn't get much further forward.  His Cv and LH came down the road and veered to hug the edge of the woods. His CvG backed up his Bd block.  And his rearmost Bd went towards the waterway to intercept my LH. 

My Cv moved towards my right flank when I saw his Cv and LH coming.  I left room for my Ax to recoil - I've been caught like that before!  My Ps moved to the left to broaden the line, thinking I might be able to skirt around him.  My Ax on the steep hill moved forward to throw a ZOC out in front of my Ps and Bd.  I would have liked to charge the Art on the flank with my LH but he had the hill so I would probably have to recoil, and then in my turn the Art would blast me.  I needed to get those Ax up fast to help out!

East 0 - West 1

Then I got a shock - his lone Bw stepped up and shot my Ax to death with a 6-1 roll!  His own Ax came off the hill and suddenly my left flank looked flimsy.  I juggled my Bd and Ps around to get the Ps behind the Bd before they got chased off by the enemy Bd - I wanted the combat advantage when our lines collided.  His Ax continued to advance through the woods so I brought up my Cv to oppose them.  My Art was shooting at his LH but failed to achieve anything real.

Take a bow.  East 1 - West 1

In my turn, my Ax came off the steep hill and killed his Bw by recoiling it into the flank of his Bd.  My Bd also managed to recoil both of his Bd units.  Then my Art managed to recoil his Cv and LH back onto the road.  My CvG moved to behind the Bd to the right of my Art, with the thought that I might be able to pounce on his Cv in the future.

Jostling for position

In the next few bounds, my Ax retreated to form a line with my Bd block, but his Ax formed up opposite it and his Bd moved to overlap me on the steep hill.  I moved my rightside Bd out of the way and charged my CvG into his Cv but only managed to recoil it.  However, both his Cv and LH now had a toe in the forest so if they recoiled again they'd be dead.  I then succumbed to temptation and ran my LH right behind his Ax in the hope of recoiling his Ax into it.  Of course, I was right in the sights of the Western Roman artillery and we rolled even on the dice so my LH was left swinging in the breeze with nothing to show for it...

Click click, BOOM!  East 1 - West 3

So in his turn, his Art destroyed my LH.  And then he flanked my Ax and killed it too.  And now he had the flank on my Bd line.  I think I only rolled a 1 for pips, so I stupidly attacked with my Bd where I couldn't actually kill anything.  Unfortunately I didn't take a picture of the final setup but here's what happened:

East 1 - West 5

His units flanked my Ps-backed Bd and recoiled them, killing both because they'd been flanked by his Bd.  Game over.

Post-game thoughts:

1. It was really interesting playing against essentially the same army (only 1 unit difference).  Much trickier as there weren't any strong mismatches.  A much more tactical game that I think I lost because I got rash and did risky things whereas my opponent held his nerve.
2. It was funny playing with no Wb on the board!  I'm so used to their adorable impetuous advances.
3. I'm still pretty bad at using Art.  I still prefer LH.
4. My initial setup was bad.  If I could play this game again I would start with my Bd in column on the steep hill.  I would advance them against his Art.  My Art and Cav would creep up on the flat, guarding the right flank of my Bd.  No idea what I would have done with my Ax though!
5. I should have left my Ax on the steep hill rather than pouncing on his Bw to kill it.  I was so keen to avenge the unlikely shooting of my other Ax that I didn't foresee how fast my flank could collapse.  If I'd stayed on the edge of the hill I would have had the uphill in the bad ground and my ZOC would have put his Bd line in disarray for a while.

Again, it was a fun game, and I feel like I'm still on a learning curve for DBA.  Soon hopefully I'll have some Kn, Wb and Ps painted and then I'll be able to play the Patrician Romans.  Thanks for reading.