DBN by Alex Testo

Alex Testo has developed a set of rules inspired by the DBx stable of rules, specifically covering the Napoleonic period.

They are well written and presented, with some nice detail. At its heart, the basic game engine is delightfully smooth and so play runs easily off a simple Quick Reference Sheet.

Having read the rules twice, I am left with an impression that most game queries are going to be likely answered in the rules. 

One of the important elements that Alex has brought is the concept of attrition. Combat is by opposed die rolls plus modifiers. If you score higher than the enemy then a hit is applied, score double or more and you inflict 2 hits or something more serious!

The first hit is just a hit, two hits make the unit shaken and on the third hit, a unit is removed from play. Units do not get a chance to recover from hits.

I am presently collecting two napoleonic armies, my 28mm French / Austrian and my new project of Epic scale French / Prussian. The former are well established on 80mm bases, the later are on 55mm bases, but the project is so new that now would be the time to change basing without any real disruption.

In wanting to get these rules to the table as soon as possible, I face three initial possibilities on scale and basing;

The rule set prescribes base sizes of 40mm frontage for 15mm and smaller and 60mm for 25 / 28mm. A single musket base is representing something like a brigade.

Firstly I could re-base specifically to the measurements prescribed in the rules.

OR

My Epic can be placed on 55mm frontages. I’m not a big fan of the 55mm infantry strips sitting on the supplied 60mm bases, because you end up with a small gap at the end of the line, that can look a bit odd when placed next to a similar base, so I snip the rounded ends of the strips and attach them to a 55mm base, a nice tight fit.

Click on me!

For my new Pocket Army project, I have the infantry currently on 35mm deep bases, which allows for 3 ranks. That makes for a musket unit with 3 ranks of 10 men, so 30 heads to the base, which has a nice density to it. 

I will refit the cavalry to the same frontage (4 mounted for my dragoons shown above), but wanting 2 ranks (8 mounted) to make them look right next to the infantry, with a little bit of mass about them, they need to go on a 55 x 60 bases.

The artillery can happily could have a frontage of 2 guns with crew on a 55 x 40, though looking at conversions in the rules setting them at 60 deep would be fine.

If I went with this, then in moving from a 40mm to 55mm frontage per unit, I should increase all measurements by a factor of 1.375, so on the measuring ruler, 100 Paces should be raised from 25mm to 35mm. So for example, muskets fire at 200 Paces, so with this change, would fire at 70mm instead of 50mm.

I have asked Alex for a bit of advice on the subject of base size and he has said that the infantry and cavalry should really be on the same depth of base, so I may need to visually enjoy them as per above, but if forced to recoil etc, I might need to ‘imagine’ that the infantry have the same base depth as the cavalry. He also suggested that the 28mm artillery should have a 80 x 80 base placed underneath it, to keep everything true.

OR

If using my 28's, then they could stay on their 80mm bases and a similar process would see a doubling of the basic measurement, with 100 Paces being represented by 50mm instead of 25mm (exactly doubled), so my home made ruler would be marked up in 50mm (2") increments with musket bases as an example, firing at 200 Paces (100mm).

For the basic 12 element game, which in the rulebook uses a 2’ x 2’ battlefield in 15mm on 40mm frontages, I would need to grow the table to a 3’ x 3’ or just slightly less for the Epic and to 4’ x 4’ for the 28’s. In each case, you are really looking at the concept of a Pocket Army playing in a small space, which I like.

Alex describes the 12 element army as a corps sized formation and the rules have scope to increase the number of ‘corps’ used per side to give a bigger game, much like ‘big army DBA’ does. 

In this case, the battlefield would widen by 1 foot (300mm) per additional formation (corps). These bigger armies also accommodate multi-player games and can reflect some of the bigger historical multi corps battles. There are videos on Alex’s YouTube channel that have AAR’s on Eylau, Leipzig, Borodino, Ligny and Waterloo as examples.

Anyway, for now, I will do some knock-about games with my 28’s as that gives me fully painted forces, but as a project, I will chip away at the Epic scale as I need something that gets me away from the table where I stand, to the table where I can sit.

Every now and then, something comes along to re-enthuse and I am seeing DBN in that light. There will be more to come on this here, while over at over at the Commanders site I may set up a specific DBN page and put updates there.

Edit - I have made my ruler at 40mm per 100 paces and will try that with both the Epic and the 28's and see whether it works and if not why.

Resources;

My Commanders site is just some extra webspace that I use to do the more snippet based type of posts and project discussion. It is paid for and advert free. LINK

https://commanders.simdif.com/dear_diary.html

The DBN site (for a copy of the rules, go to DOWNLOAD or if you want a hard copy, go to MORE and click on the CONTACT page to make your request) LINK

https://dbnwargaming.weebly.com/

For a video AAR of Quatre Bras LINK

 

https://youtu.be/hXJy05JOmU4?si=VI_20tLbej4upVAn

Starting a new Pocket Army for Dodgy Backs!

Well, there is a bit more to it than that - it is connected to some ‘thinking’ - Oh Dear!

It is a Pocket Army because its size will be contained, but it is also a three foot army because I am speed painting and viewing at the three foot rule is a guiding principle. It is also a …. Oh what should I call it! …. A restricted mobility army for those occasions that my back / leg problems have a flare-up and I need to sit at the table with just a small game in front of me. It is also an experimental army to bring all of the above together for some sort of assessment of feasibility on how best to proceed.

Since doing the 10mm infantry in 2 ranks on 3 bases, I am now looking a 3 ranks on 2 bases, but having a similar total frontage of 110 - 120mm.

Pocket Army - 5 x infantry, 1 x artillery, 1 x light horse and 1 x heavy horse per side will be the object of the exercise. Last year I cut a couple of neoprene gaming mats down to 4’ x 2’ and I would see these armies operating in that sort of space.

Three Foot Army - Painting with the three foot rule in mind. I have been doing some test bases, where the figures are primed and then glued into positions on bases ….. and then painted - fast! I have never previously thought this a good idea, but it certainly forces you away from getting involved in all of the detail. 

Just get a general impression and the paint only goes where the brush and the eye can go and it is a faster way to paint. I don’t enjoy seeing the results close up, but at gaming distance (three foot), there is a lot of forgiveness. I know this sounds a terrible thing to say, but without the usual love poured into them, it allows me to tell the family that when I’m dearly departed, not to worry about them, they can even be thrown away! They will be as disposable as any football or concert ticket.

So far I have painted a group of Pendraken 10mm bases and now a group of these Epic bases. At the conclusion of that, I think it just comes down to personal preference, though I think the looser 10mm artillery looks better to the eye than the very fixed Epic poses with the gunners in rigid positions, but I like the Epic infantry better (I will rebase by 10mm to the same look and see how I feel about that). The cavalry fight it out on equal terms.

Restricted Mobility Army - I am having problems standing for lengthy periods at my gaming table. It is 40” off the ground to reduce bending, which is good, but being on my feet in a fairly static position can soon bring discomfort that lasts for a few days. Sitting at the dining table brings some relief, but not if stretching across it, so the idea of having a 2 x 4 mat under my nose, while sitting, holds some appeal - restrictive, but sometime you can’t have a cake and a bun!

Long (long) term, more of my gaming may come down to this sort of play, so perhaps having a couple of Pocket Armies on stand-by for that eventuality is not such a bad idea.

Experimental Army - I have a potted history of jumping back and forth between scales, systems and table setups. There is of course a financial cost to this, but equally important a time cost, whether that be painting or moving between systems etc, so I am just feeling my way along with this project, to see where it goes ..... if anywhere! 

One of the benefits of going with the ‘three foot army’, with most things being painted while on their base, I can build all of the bases of the whole Pocket Army ahead of time and game with them unpainted, pushing them into the painting queue one at a time as the fancy takes me, until the armies move slowly from being mostly unpainted, to painted.

This a critically more effective way of seeing whether a project suits and settling upon the right set of rules, rather than having to paint everything first.

In my minds eye at the moment, is a game with relatively big bases and fewer moving parts. Having tried variations on this theme, I quite like the latest iteration as follows.

Infantry - For Napoleonics, taking the British aside, the formations can be represented 3 ranks deep, so even if I go for a smaller frontage, the extra rank keeps the number of heads in the unit high enough for a good visual presence.

Above - This is a three foot photo of a 3 foot unit .... it looks okay to my eyes! (actually, in truth, it does withstand closer inspection).

2 bases are needed per unit as I want to be gaming at the more tactical level, where the difference between line, assault column and square can be shown. My first unit off the production line to have these traits are Epic Prussian musketeers, with each base measuring 55mm x 35, the whole unit occupies a frontage of 110mm, with a total of 60 heads, which gives a fair sense of mass.

Above - the same two infantry bases now in column. 

The only thing I am not sure about yet is whether the ranks might be better positioned slightly closer together on say a 30mm deep base, but the deeper base makes assault column look ... deeper! Anyway 5 or so such units on the 4 x 2 should work okay. 

Cavalry - These are set on 80mm x 60mm bases in two ranks of 6 to give 12 models. The example here are Epic French Dragoons. When I did the same base in 10mm, for the same ‘look’ it allowed two ranks of 7. Both look good. 

I intend to use the cavalry as a single base per unit and not concern myself with formation, their class of light, heavy, lancer etc will be what matters. Three bases can represent a whole brigade, say 2 up front and 1 behind, with a frontage of 160 - 180mm .

Artillery - These (above - Epic) are set as 3 guns on a 80mm x 40mm base to represent a battery. In my games, usually 2 guns are used for a battery, so the 3 models offers a bit more real estate. 

However, if I compare the Epic base to the 10mm base (above), In my view, I think the 10mm looks better. The guns have more room to breath and the crew are scattered more randomly over the entire base. My Epic version by comparison looks a bit too rigid. I will likely try and do a separate limber base, to represent the guns when on the move.  

Anyway, as stated, this is a plodders project, that may or may not bloom! 

10mm Napoleonic French Bases

A few weeks ago, I bought a few bags of Napoleonic 10mm from Pendraken, to make single test units for infantry, cavalry and artillery, plus a command base. There is a previous post that discusses this and the thoughts behind how the basing should look (link in the Resource Section below).

A main thrust is to try and get some benefits from speed painting, relying on the ‘three foot rule’ to get armies painted and to the table quickly. 

In that post I discussed basing options and showed the infantry unit painted up and based. 

This post concludes things by showing each of the test units all fully painted up and based for further consideration.

All these figures were glued to bases before painting, something that I have never tried before and thought would be much harder to do than it was. It actually helps with the discipline of speed painting.

As a reminder of the infantry side of things, here are a couple of shots of the Austrians in line and column. They are on 40mm x 20mm bases, with 12 figures to the base, so that is 36 figures to the unit, which I think is enough ‘heads’ to get an okay look.

The unit is double flagged simply because I bought 1 bag of everything and by using a 36 figure unit, I ran out of infantry and so had to use extra command figures to get the third base. As this project continues, that second command base will just move to the next unit, to be replaced by 12 standard infantry.

Next up I did the artillery. I am aiming for roughly using a figure pack per unit and since you get 3 guns and 12 crew in a pack, all three guns and crew have been used to  represent a battery. This single base is 80mm x 40mm and I like the effect. It looks like a deployed battery. I think it best to represent limbered artillery with a separate base of horse pulled guns. At this scale, it not particularly an issue to have enough limbers.

For cavalry, you get 15 models to the pack and here 14 have been used in two lines of 7. The standard bearer is front centre, but I have not yet decided yet what to put on that pole. These are Austrian dragoons in the colours (blue facings) of the 6th Dragoons, based on a single 80mm x 60mm MDF base.

To help the speed painting, I adopted something that a poster at Lead Adventurer Forum (thank you) described as ‘wet painting’ for the horse. For this, I kept the brown paint quite wet so that as I slopped it on the horses, it pretty much went everywhere it needed to for fuller coverage. This is hugely helpful with pre-based horses.

Setting aside figure prep (easy), basing, priming and then later adding basing paste and flocking which are fairly fixed in terms of time spent on them, the actual painting of the cavalry unit took just 1½ hours, which I am pretty impressed with and I think the overall effect (3 foot rule) is fine.

Finally there is the command base, these are generals and they have been put on a 40mm circular base, which I feel looks too big, but I like the bigger base for senior command and I think the real problem here is not the base size, but that the figures have been spaced too far apart.

It might be a scale thing, but I note that all of these bases look nicer to the eye than they do via the camera.

Anyway, it occurs to me that 1 base of cavalry, artillery and infantry already done, this is half way to a Neil Thomas style force in his ‘One Hour Wargames’ system and so for the little effort of 3 more infantry bases (3 packs of infantry at the cost of roughly £21) that a usable Austrian force would be complete.

For my own tastes, I would see that as stage 1 of a Pocket Army, with a later doubling of it to reach a stage 2 size that essentially gives a 12 unit army, possibly a sweet spot for many.

So there we are. Will I complete it - well, I thought more than likely I would, but not just yet. However, at the recent Partizan show, I was quite taken by that 4’ x 4’ self folding terrain board made from a re-configured wooden pasting table that Martin from Peter Pig had brought along and perhaps that might make a nice self contained project.

I have seen similar boards used at the last two Phalanx wargame shows used with 6mm armies (a Napoleonic and an Ardennes WWII game).

But of course as always, there is a lot of good stuff that is competing for immediate attention! I am looking at getting the Wagram board game to the table, having a trial or two of the Blood Red Roses rules that I bought for 28mm Wars of the Roses, painting the 9 x 28mm French Napoleonic Voltiguers started a few weeks ago, completing the 3 table corps game and keeping my hand in with the Advanced Squad Leader situational exercises. All are on the immediate horizon.

Resources

The previous post that introduces plans for 10mm basing styles. LINK

https://battlefieldswarriors.blogspot.com/search/label/10mm

My sister webspace ‘COMMANDERS’  showcases the various figure and boardgame systems that I am enjoying and gives a flavour of where current projects are up to. Link.

https://commanders.simdif.com