Slimbridge DBA

[Martin Smith]

Slimbridge DBA yesterday, run by Keith McGlynn at the Tudor Arms, an old pub by the Gloucester and Sharpness Canal in deepest Gloucestershire.
Eight players, and we all played each other, so seven games each...bit of a record for me at a tournament (between 09:45 and 16:45).
Winner Richard Pulley (6 wins), second Smiff M. (6 wins), best painted army prize Colin O'Shea (also 6 wins....tight tournament).

## Five Championship games from this small event ##

I took Shang Chinese I/13b, one of the earliest Chinese armies 1300-1100 BC, just because I'd never run it out and it was a bit quirky. General rode a heavy chariot, while the massed foot sloggers included dagger-axe men, archers, javelinmen and a unit of desperate convicts (5Hd).

Games:-
1. Invading v Nick Pope's Classical Indians. Chinese archers and Indian chariots and cavalry duelled it out on my left, but the bowmen came off worst. Then the main Indian line closed in, and a Chinese attack took out a chunk of enemy elements on my right. Stars of the show were the desperate convicts, who shrugged off all attacks and nobbled an Indian archer unit, for a 4-2 Chinese win.

2. Invading v Stephen Finn's Macedonian Successor (Antigonas) army. Most fighting took place in the narrow space between a big waterway and river. Chinese archers shot from the other side of the river, phalanx rumbled forward, Shang HCh general trampled some Galatians and the gallant desperate convicts held up the phalanx for a while. Close game, but a Shang win by 4 to 2+Hd.

3. Invading yet again, on the steppe against Colin Evans' Parthians. The Shang nabbed a central hill, shot up some horse archers and routed a cataphract unit, for a 4-1 win.

4. Invading (why change now...?) via a time machine v Colin O'Shea's Southern Dynasty Chinese. A Chinese army was definitely going to win this one.......😊. The convicts served well again, and overran some enemy crossbowmen, while my Shang were generally losing the shooting match against Colin's war wagons and crossbows. Fortunes of war turned when my dagger-axe men destroyed a war wagon, and were then extremely lucky to rout the counter-attacking enemy cataphract general, ending the game. 3g-2+Hd win for the Shang.

5. Invading againnnnnn v Steve Cottle's Early German/Batavian, Civilis' Revolt army, one I've never played against before. The Batavian-Roman auxiliaries landed into a village from a wide river on my left, but then ran out of steam. The Shang advanced and attacked with heavy chariots on the Chinese right, while the archers shot down Civilis and friends (cavalry) in a lucky (for me) 6-1 dice off. German warbands routed some archers, but the chariots were lethal, giving the Shang a 3g-1 win.

6. I defended for a change, against Brian Shipp's Carolingian Franks, who deployed deep, hemmed in by a large village and some enclosed fields. Two Frankish elements were lost when deep columns were unable to recoil from shooting, a Frankish archer unit was routed by dagger-axe men in fields in the centre, and then on the Shang right a sweeping flank attack by Carolingian heavy horse against Chinese archers was stopped in its tracks. Shang win, 4 kills for the loss of only the desperate convict horde.

7. Last game, short and sudden. My Shang invaded v Richard Pulley's Medieval Spanish, accompanied by a Venetian Condottieri ally. I mis-deployed against the Venetian landing, and suffered for it, losing the convicts, two archer units and the intervening Shang general for a resounding 0-3g+Hd defeat. [I should know better- I play the littoral card often enough, and should have sent the dagger-axemen on shore protection duty].

Great games, lovely venue...thanks to Keith McGlynn for organising 👍🏼👍🏼.