A Change of Pace - DBA

Last night I went round to a friends place, and was able to play my first in-person wargame in a long while. The game we picked was DBA, a 15mm ancients game. The armies we were using were Ben's, and it was me using Galatians versus Ben with (I believe) the Kappadokians. 

Initial deployment, Galatians lower half of image

Galatian warband

Kappadokians warband

DBA is a nice elegant system. The rules are fairly simple, while still having a good level of tactical depth. And having small army sizes (12 elements per side) and small playing area (60cm x 60cm) just makes it so much more convenient to play than many other games. 

For my deployment I put my cavalry and chariots to the center and center-left, my naked footsloggers on the right, and my single unit of heavy blade center and slightly back as my reserve. This roughly mirrored how Ben had deployed, with his knights and cavalry facing my mounted troops, and his psiloi holding the difficult ground opposite my infantry. 

Not having a clue what I was doing, I just decided to go for it, and first turn made an all out charge with most of my force. 

Next turn Ben's knights charged into my chariots. The scythed chariot died early, but over the next couple of turns our mounted units jostled for position. To my right the foot troops faced off against the psiloi, but once I learned they couldn't really do much too them they just kind of mulled around in front of the hill. 

Eventually after a few turns of maneuvering (aided by Ben advising the DBA newbie on how the maneuver and Zone of Control rules worked) I had Ben's knight general surrounded. One moderately lucky combat resolution later and he was dead. A turn or two later I mopped up another cavalry stand, and that was game to me. 

So, a fun game. DBA is something I've looked at before, and I like the fact that the small armies make it relatively low investment to get into. If I do assemble an army or two, I'd most likely look at early Bronze Age forces - maybe Middle Kingdom Egyptians and Babylonians, somewhere around that era.