Triumph-Turnier "Dark Ages" am 1. Juni 2024 in Solothurn

 Am 1. Juni 2024 findet in Solothurn ein offenes Triumph-Turnier statt. Zugelassen sind bemalte und nach den Triumph-Regeln basierte 48 Punkte - Armeen aus der Epoche "Dark Ages". Die Verwendung von Battle Cards ist erlaubt.

Hinweis: Falls jemand DBA-basierte Elemente in seiner Armee hat, müssen diese nicht umbasiert werden. Sie werden für den Verlauf des Turniers temporär auf leere Basen der richtigen Grösse gestellt.

Das Turnier geht über 4 Runden. Ein Spiel dauert maximal 75 Minuten. Am Ende des Spiels erhalten beide Spielerinnen so viele Turnierpunkte, wie sie Punkte im Spiel erzielt haben. Hat ein Spieler innerhalb der 75 Minuten das Spiel regulär gewonnen, so erhält er 15 Turnierpunkte zusätzlich. Nach vier Runden gewinnt die Spielerin mit den meisten Turnierpunkten das Turnier. 

Das erste Spiel startet um 09:30 am 1. Juni 2024. 

Trophäe für den Sieger oder die Siegerin

Angemeldet sind:

• Korbi, Italian Ostrogothic
• Jiri, Feudal Croatian
• Franz, Justinian Byzantine
• Fränä, Alföld Early Lombard
• Philipp, Carolingian Frankish
• Menic, Merovingian Frankish: Neustria or Aquitaine with Visigothic Rebel Allies

Ich freue mich auf euch!

Maerk

my personal dice tower

There are the classics among games that do without random mechanisms, such as Go or chess, but also many board games such as the 18xx series, Diplomacy or the wonderful Civilization, to name just a few. In very many games, a more or less large random or luck mechanism is an inherent part of the game. This may be the distribution of cards or positions at the beginning of the game, the random drawing from a pile or a bag, or the spinning of a spinner, etc.

In my opinion the most popular random mechanism in (war)games is the throwing of dice. It is so widespread that there are numerous tools for it to help us ensure that

- our dice do not roll under the sofa

- the pawns and meeples stay in place and are not knocked over by the dice

- and last but not least ... they prevent intentional or unintentional manipulation of the die roll.

These tools are the dice cup, the dice tray and of course the dice tower. In this blog post, I want to tell you about a small but very practical dice tower that is cheap to buy, easy to assemble and - most importantly - can be personalised very nicely. It is the foldable dice tower by Too Fat Lardies:

This dice tower is suitable for up to about a dozen 16mm D6 dice. When not in use, it can be folded into a small box of 12x8x5cm. As you can see in the picture, there ist the Too Fat Lardies logo edged in on the front of the tower and of the dice tray. 

The TFL Dice Tower is a small and practical tool in its original state. In addition, however, it can also be personalised very easily. 

When assembling the dice tower, you can simply place the front plate of the tower and the front plate of the dice tray with the logo facing inwards. This way you get a neutral dice tower and a free area that you can design yourself. 

See how I designed my own dice tower: On the front I placed a variant of the coat of arms of my hometown by adding a medieval halberdier:

On the back I have painted a 16th century banner bearer of the Canton of Solothurn, based on a painting by M. Jacobson from the book "die Banner der Heimat",1942:

For a friend I painted the dice tower with a modified coat of arms of the canton of Bern:

Maybe with this post I can inspire you to create your own dice tower. I look forward to your comments.

Triumph! Mini-Tournament

Everything was ready for the continuation of our DBA campaign "The Rise of Rome". Due to illness and other absences, only three players were present on day X instead of the six needed. So we decided to play a mini-tournament according to the Triumph! rules by WGCWAR instead.

We played a round robin with three armies from the 7th and 8th century AD (army lists see here) 

- Western Slav (with the "fortified camp" battle card)

- Carolingian Frankish (no battle card)

- Italian Lombard (no battle card)

and 75 minutes playing time per game. Each player receives the victory points from the game for the tournament ranking. The winner of a game receives an extra 15 points.

Game 1: Carolingian Frankish vs. Western Slav

Terrain: Arable

Number of Terrain pieces: 5

Tactical Advantage: Carolingian Frankish 

Western Slavs advancing from the left. The Carolingians are blocking the passage between the small forest and the piece of rough terrain.

it's a thinking man's game

both battlelines are already battered but continue to fight bravely 

The game was extraordinarily exciting. Both sides suffered losses without gaining a decisive advantage. Finally, both armies even surpassed the threshold of 16 points in the same round! The Carolingian Frankish won the game by a very narrow margin of 18 points to 17 and they are awarded the 15 surplus points for their victory.

Tournament standing:

- Western Slav                17 pts

- Carolingian Frankish    33 pts

- Italian Lombard             0 pts

Game 2: Western Slav vs. Italian Lombard

Terrain: Arable

Number of Terrain pieces: 6

Tactical Advantage: Western Slav

Italian Lombards (bottom of the picture) lined up against Western Slavs on a battlefield with an awful lot of terrain pieces

My Lombards had two knights ready to crush the opposing slav heavy foot. Good plan, but poorly executed ..

.. both lombard knights elements plus the knight general set aside as casualties ..

With the Lombard battleline disintegrated, the Slav general attacks and sacks the Lombard's camp

The game ends with a glorious 23 (+15) to 9 victory for the Western Slavs!

Tournament standing:

- Western Slav                55 pts

- Carolingian Frankish    33 pts

- Italian Lombard             9 pts

Game 3: Carolingian Frankish vs. Italian Lombard

Terrain: Hilly

Number of Terrain pieces: 4

Tactical Advantage: Italian Lombard 

Italian Lombards (lower part of the picture) vs. a massed Carolingian Frankish army

The early phase of the game was marked by a remarkable lack of command points (PIPs) for the Carolingian general: with dice results of 1 - 1 - 1 - 2 in the first four moves, the Carolingian army could not develop as desired and remained stuck in its narrow formation.

Knights are impetuous and advance immediately when an opponent retreats. This causes the battle line to disperse. It is not uncommon to find an element of knights isolated in the midst of enemy troops.

The Carolinians can never really make up for their deficit from the first phase of the game. When light Lombard cavalry then conquers the Carolingian camp, the game is decided.

The Lombards win the game by 19 (+15) points against 6.

Final tournament score:

1. Western Slavs              55 pts

2. Italian Lombard             43 pts

3. Carolingian Frankish     39 pts

It was a great day with lots of fun and exciting games. Many thanks to our hosts for the hospitality and the catering! Also the miniatures were happy to be on the battlefield again 👍

Terrain Pieces for "rough" terrain

You want to play a minature game? Then you need minatures, that's obvious! Yet - almost as important as your gang of wild west gunfighters, your pack of orcs or your Spartan Hoplite army is a collection of terrain pieces to play the game. While you may start with pieces of coloured felt representing woods, hills and rivers, most of us miniature gamers are looking upon terrain pieces not only as a necessary part to play the game but also as a means to enhance the visual appearance of it. A nice looking battlefield populated by beautifully painted minatures sets the icing on the cake of an exciting game:

another Wargaming Moment

For all armies in Triumph! games there has to be a camp present on the battlefield. The camp serves for no purpose other than being a possible objective for your opponent. You have to protect your camp to prevent it from being sacked. Taking your opponent's camp gives you half the points needed for winning the game.

In my Triumph! games camps are seldom sacked, and when it happens, it is usually done by light cavalry swiftly moving around the enemie's flank and taking the camp before the owner can react to this action. To better protect your camp you may choose one of your fighting units as a garrison, but then it has to remain there and will not participate in the field battle (choices, choices ..).

Now the year is 235 AD and an arabo-aramean army from the city of Hatra is fighting arab nomads on a flat piece of land at the seashore. The Hatra player has deliberately placed his camp at the extreme left of his battleline (using a Battle Card), thus gaining space in the centre for the development of his formation:

arabo-aramaean Hatra at the top,

arab nomads at the bottom of the picture

Medieval German Army for Triumph Rules

Sadly the Covid crisis did not give me more time for painting miniatures. Nevertheless I have adapted my existing DBA Medieval Germans to the Triumph Medieval German Citstates/Princes armylist:

To my existing DBA Medieval Germans I had to add
- six stands of Bow Levies
- three stands of Archers/Crossbowmen
- one stand of Cataphracts
to let me choose most options in the Triumph army list.

Some years ago when I paid a visit to the city of Prague, I bought me a nice ceramic model of the Old Town Bridge Tower. He had to rest in my parts box for some time but finally it became the main part of a Camp element for my medieval miniature armies.

The Triumph Medieval German Citystates/Princes army is now ready to be played:

Setup and Scoring Template for Triumph! - Games

Setting up a standard Triumph! game is not a big deal:

1. choose the battlefield topography (based upon the armie's invasion ratings)
2. find out which army has the tactical advantage for this battle (based upon the armie's manoeuvre rating)
3. find out if either army qualifies for a flank march (again based upon the maoeuvre rating)
4. dice for number of terrain pieces. The player with the tactical advantage may modify this number.

You just need the armie's ratings, two D6 and a scrap of paper to take some notes. Just follow the process in the official Triumph! setup guide. To further aid the process I have created a simple template which guides you step by step: Fill in the army ratings, the diced numbers and the resulting attributes for the game:

completely filled in Triumph! template at the end of a game 

The template lets you take note of the names of the players and their armies, the date of the game and the year of the battle should you wish to do so. Additionally, there is a scoring row for each player where you may keep score of your points during the battle.

You may download the template in pdf format if you want to give it a try. The backside of the pdf explains its use step by step. If you like my template or if you have suggestions to improve it, please leave a note in the commentary field below.

Triumph! - End of Year Tournament in Switzerland

There is a small wargaming community in Switzerland, each player with his favoured rulesets, periods and scales. What links us all is playing Triumph! with 15mm armies. To strengthen this link once again, we met in the old infirmary of my home town for a four round open for all armies Triumph! tournament.

the old infirmary in Solothurn, Switzerland

We had nine participants, two of them playing their first wargame tournament. To assist the newcomers and in general to give quick advice whenever questions would arise, my dear wargaming buddy Korbi and I played as a team, taking the roles of player and guide/umpire by turn.

• four games
• 75 minutes per game
• each player scores the number of points equal to the enemy stands eliminated
• if the game ends within the 75 min. timeframe, the winner gets extra 15 points

Triumph!-Turnier in Solothurn

Hussite Army for Triumph! Game

I have been playing and painting/collecting miniature armies for many years now, but not one of all these armies has had a war wagon to fight with. So it was high time to build an army with war wagons - and which army comes to your mind when you think of war wagons? The Hussites of course!

Upgrade DBA Republican Romans for Triumph! Games

This is another blog entry wich bears the subtitle "The pleasures and pains of playing Triumph!". You are asking me what the h*** I am speaking of? Well - the pleasures of playing a Triumph game are quite obvious: It is an excellent easy to learn fast playing yet hard to master ruleset for ancient to medieval historical miniature battles. The (sweet) pain arises from its 658 army list and 26 troop types: Most of my existing 15mm armies made for DBA 2.2 need to be adapted, i.e. I have to rebase existing elements and to add new ones while some others are no longer needed.

In order to make my DBA armies of Polybian and Marian Romans playable for Triumph, I have painted the following new elements:

Wargaming Moment

In einem Triumph!-Spiel liege ich mit meinen vorislamischen arabischen Nomaden gegen die Arabo-Aramäer aus Hatra deutlich zurück. Die Niederlage ist nur noch eine Frage von wenigen Runden. Ich habe jedoch noch eine kleine Chance auf den Sieg, wenn ich in meinem nächsten Zug das gegnerische Lager erobere! Ein Element meiner leichten Söldner-Fusstruppen hat gerade genug Reichweite, um das Lager in extremis engreifen zu können - allerdings ist es für diesen Kampf so positioniert, dass es beim allfälligen Zurückweichen das Spielfeld verlassen muss und als Verlust gilt. Dieser eine Kampf wird nun das gesamte Spiel entscheiden!

siehe auch: Wargaming Moments

In a Triumph! game with my later pre-islamic arab nomad army against Arabo-Aramaean Hatra, defeat is only a matter of a few more rounds. But there is a slim chance to snatch victory from my opponent by capturing his camp! One element of my mercenary light foot is just in range to attack the Hatra camp. Unfortunately their attacking position is such that a possible fall back move makes them meet the edge of the game board and being destroyed. This one close combat will now decide the entire game!

see: Wargaming Moments

Italian Condotta Army for Triumph!

After having played Triumph! for about one year now, I have finally finished my first army in 15mm built upon a Triumph! army list. It is the Later Italian Condotta army of Venice which has quite a number of options. It took me some time to paint them but now that they're finished I am mighty proud and have already won a first battle leading them against a sister army, the Genoese!

Triumph! Setup Template updated

For all the latest Triumph! games I have used my template for the setup phase and I think it comes in very handy. With this small form you can handle the setup phase consisting of determining
- battlefield topography
- tactical advantage and disadvantage
- flank marches
- number of terrain pieces
without referencing the rulebook. In addition you can use the template for keeping track of the points score during the game.

setup template in action

Now I have slightly modified and simplified the terrain pieces part of the template. It is now almost self-explanatory and I have added a step by step instruction on how to use it on its backside. You are free to download my Triumph! setup template V.06. Your comments are welcome; please use the comment box at the bottom of the page.

Triumph! Setup Template aktualisiert

Für alle meine Triumph!-Spiele habe ich in der Startphase mein Setup Template verwendet und finde es sehr nützlich. Mit diesem kleinen Formular kann die gesamte Setup Sequenz, nämlich


- Topografie des Schlachtfeldes
- Taktischer Vor- und Nachteil
- Flankenmärsche
- Anzahl Geländeteile


ohne Konsultation des Regelbuchs durchgeführt werden. Zudem dient das Formular zum Notieren des Spielstands während des Spiels.

Auf Grund der gemachten Erfahrungen habe ich den Gelände-Teil des Formulars etwas angepasst und vereinfacht. Das Formular ist beinahe selbsterklärend; zusätzlich habe ich auf der Rückseite eine Schritt- für Schritt-Anleitung für den Gebrauch eingefügt. Hier findet ihr das Triumph!-Setup Template V.06 zum Download. Rückmeldungen dazu in der Kommentarzeile unten sind willkommen!

Späte Westgoten-Elemente für Triumph!

Triumph! ist eine neue Spielregel der Washington Grand Company (WGC) für historische Schlachten des Altertums bis zum Hochmittelalter mit Wurzeln in DBx, siehe auch meine Posts:
Triumph! Test Game 
Frühe Schweizer in Triumph! 

Für mich ist Triumph! ein echter Fortschritt gegenüber DBA. Aus diesem Grund habe ich angefangen, meine DBA-Armeen so zu ergänzen, dass sie auch für Triumph! spielbar sind. Nach den frühen Schweizern sind nun die späten Westgoten (DBA II/82 later Visigothic) für Triumph! bereit:

Template for Setting up a Triumph! game

Setting up a Triumph! game is not a big deal, but for your first few games a scrap of paper and a pencil will come in handy. As an aide memoire and to support the setup phase of the game and for keeping score I have created a small template (half a page of A4).

my Triumph! template

Frühe Schweizer in Triumph!

DBA-Armeen

In dutzenden von DBA-Spielen habe ich viele verschiedene Armeen kennen und schätzen gelernt. Darunter gibt es solche, die ich ohne zu zögern auf den Tisch bringe wie alle Imperialen Römer, Graeco-Bactrier, späte Visigothen, Fatimiden, usw. Dann gibt es diejenigen Armeen, die auf dem Spielfeld toll aussehen und gegen einen historischen Gegner ab und zu auch erfolgreich sind wie die Skythen, Parther, frühe Hopliten, klassische Inder. Gallier oder Vikinger. Und dann besitze ich noch Armeen, mit denen ich nie zurechtgekommen bin und die ich kaum je spiele wie die Alten Spanier oder Scots Common. Leider gehören zu dieser letzten Kategorie auch die Schweizer (Early Swiss, Later Swiss) Armeelisten, was sehr schade ist, da ich gerne die zahlreichen Schlachten meiner Vorfahren (wenn sie denn meine Vorfahren waren, wer weiss das schon?) in DBA gespielt hätte.
 

meine frühen Imperialen Römer für DBA

Triumph! Test Game

Triumph! – what is this?

Triumph! is a new ruleset for playing miniature battles from the classical era up to early renaissance, written by WashingtonGrand Company WGC. These are the same guys which have published the 2.2 “plus” amendments to DBA back 2012, when they called themselves “Washington DBA Gamers” WADBAG. I very much like these DBA 2.2 “plus” rules and have been playing them ever since.

Now WGC has published their own set of rules named „Triumph!“. You can get it at Wargames Vault’s in pdf format in a so called “early access edition” for 15$. The authors claim that this early access edition has been playtested thoroughly and is complete and fully playable. Refining the text for clarity, adding diagrams and design notes will be done prior to final publication.

Triumph! - Testspiel

Was ist "Triumph!" ?

Triumph! ist eine neue Spielregel für Schlachten mit Miniatur-Armeen aus dem klassischen Altertum bis zum Hochmittelalter, verfasst von der Washington Grand Company WGC. Das sind die gleichen Leute, welche im Jahr 2012 - damals unter dem Namen "Washington DBA Gamers" WADBAG - die DBA 2.2+  Zusatzregeln erarbeitet und publiziert hatten; eine rundum gelungene Erweiterung, die ich seither an Stelle der Originalregel spiele.

Nun hat WGC mit Triumph! also eine eigene Spielregel publiziert. Triumph! kann bei Wargames Vault in einer so genannten "early access edition" als pdf für 15$ gekauft werden. Die Autoren sagen, dass diese early access edition ausführlich getestet wurde und die komplette Spielregel umfasst. Für die finale Version sollen allenfalls textliche Klärungen und zusätzliche Beispiele und Design Notes eingefügt werden.