By David Kuijt
Congratulations! You have found your way to my Secret Cache of Clever Maneuvers. I've hidden this page because I don't want to reveal these maneuvers to the other players in my group unless I do so by crushing them in battle. Since the only link is through the @ sign for sending me mail at the bottom of my main DBA page, you probably discovered this page by sending me mail. Well done! I like mail.
This document is a small series of sneaky things you can do in DBA that aren't obvious, but can be very effective. Note that this is not an attempt to teach cheesy maneuvers like the Elbow of Death -- those are tricks, slightly abusive of the intent of the rules. The maneuvers described here are intended to be slightly more clever than that, and stay within the spirit, as well as the letter, of the rules.
Any suggestions for further clever maneuvers are welcome; good ones will be put up on this hidden page, with credit given to their authors. Mail any such suggestions to me at kuijt@umiacs.umd.edu I'll be adding more maneuvers as I think of them.
A lot of the current maneuvers listed involve effective use of skirmishers. Anyone and their dog can use Blade effectively -- you line them up, stay in line, and there isn't a lot of subtlety involved.
This maneuver involves keeping one or two LH directly behind a rank of Cv/Kn. Charge in against enemy Kn, with your LH as a second rank. Even better is to get him to charge you. Combat occurs.
If your forces win, nothing special happens, although if you kill the enemy you will have LH in a good position to get some interior flanking lines and quickly break the enemy. Try to run right through their ranks and hit them from behind -- if you close the door on enemy troops in a 1-element wide gap your LH will be killed for inability to recoil if the enemy wins that fight.
But if your forces lose, the Cv/Kn element in front can recoil through the LH. The enemy Knight will advance impetuously, putting him directly in contact with your LH. With average luck, he will be in at least 1 overlap, maybe 2. And he can't disengage because your LH is faster.
Even better if you can do this to the enemy General, pulling him way offline. Since he is +1 in combat, it is even more likely that he will charge forward into double overlaps and hit your LH at a disadvantage.
Occupy a piece of Bad Going near where the enemy are going to have to move with one or two Psiloi. Hold the Bad Going weakly enough that he doesn't feel threatened, and keep your Psiloi back, so the enemy are not impeded by being in the Face of your element. If he comes close enough, rush a Psiloi partially out of the forest (leaving at least one toehold inside) to attack a flank of an enemy Knight.
The Knight will turn to face, and you will attack it at +2 to +1 because even though he is not in the Bad Going, you are. You have a good chance of killing the Knight (25%), 28% chance of you forcing a recoil (not so useful, unless you have the good luck to have him backed against a non-aligned friend), 14% of getting a Push, and 28% chance that your Psiloi will recoil. There is only a 4.5% chance your Psiloi will be forced to flee, and it can't be killed.
If you kill the Knight, fine. But if he recoils your Psiloi, he must follow up impetuously. The Psiloi ends up still in contact with the Knight, and the Knight cannot disengage (equal speeds). In any subsequent combat the Knight will be quick-killed because now it is in Bad Going.
Even if you get a Push result in the first combat, the Knight is still locked in a fight it can't win. Throwing another element into the battle to help overlap the Psiloi doesn't help much -- a recoil still pulls the hapless Knight into the Bad Going. This is really great to use on Knight Generals!
Of course, this is obvious enough that it will only work on inexperienced opponents, and likely only once at the most on them. But see the enhancements below.
Stack two units with 300 pace Bad Going movement in a column, with the back unit being a Psiloi. Keep this column well into the woods, at least a couple of inches. To most eyes it will look very innocent -- as an unstacked column deep in Bad Going it will even look unready!
But it is a deadly trap to an enemy Knight or Knight General riding by safely in the Good Going. When a column or line of Knights ends the enemy turn close enough, the Forest Column springs into action, hitting it in flank and forcing it to turn.
In the following combat, your front infantry unit is likely destroyed. Sad, but now his victorious Knight charges forward, to end up locked in melee with a dread Psiloi, with one toe in the Bad Going! It is a Forest Trap, and the enemy Knight will soon find himself dead or driving deeper into the forest, never to return.
Because of the necessary sacrifice of a friendly unit, this maneuver is only good when you can bag the enemy General, or if you will totally disorder his line to your great advantage. Still, you will likely have the advantage of surprise: who would expect that a flying column of light foot would charge forward into the good going to attack Knights?
The Forest Trap involves sucking an impetuous unit into bad terrain with a unit that cannot be killed, and that it cannot disengage from. This works admirably with Psiloi against Warband, even better than against Knights.
Warband cannot kill Psiloi, in the open or in Bad Going. Against single-ranked Warband you need only have a single Psiloi. Every victory by the Warband will pull it forward against the Psiloi, gradually moving it towards the waiting forest. Once it is within, it suffers a -2 Combat Factor, and can usually be killed within a turn or two at +2 versus +1. Its own impetuous nature will negate any disengagement that might have occurred if it drives the Psiloi back. Its only chance for life is for the Psiloi to recoil it, but even then it must retreat out of the face, and the greater movement of the Psiloi can usually catch up and re-engage.
Double-ranked warband are more immune, as with +4 factor against infantry they are likely to cause a Flee result in the initial engagement in the open. But this can be counteracted by double-ranked Psiloi! A double rank of Psiloi gets no combat bonus. But if the front unit is forced to Flee, the back unit is still there. And the impetuous movement of the warband throws it into contact with the second Psiloi, so it is still stuck like glue. With luck and reasonable pips the fled Psiloi can be brought back into the fight to form a back rank for the new front-rank Psiloi before an adverse combat result Flees it also.
Psiloi are very useful in fighting heavy foot -- they cannot be killed, and they must be faced or they will get into advantageous flank positions and cause real trouble. But Pike armies like the Later Swiss can often ignore Psiloi in a frontal role. With the huge combat factor of double-ranked Pike (+6 versus foot) they will force a Flee on any Psiloi in combat 42% of the time. After any Flee result the Pikes can advance into the hole just made in your lines and cause serious trouble long before your fled Psiloi can make a reappearance.
If you have a lot of Psiloi, double-ranked Psiloi is the answer for double-ranked Pike. The Psiloi do not need to be stacked tightly to each other -- they can have a gap between them (up to 20mm), as their purpose is to keep the doubled Pike in the Face, not necessarily in combat. When one Psiloi is driven off with a Flee, the Pike are still in the Face of the second rank. If they move forward to fight it, you have had a turn to bring back the Fled Psiloi, enough movement to keep them in the Face if they force a Flee result on the second Psiloi as well.
In this way, with a few pips, you can use a double formation of Psiloi to negate a double-ranked set of Pikes. And while it is true that you aren't going to kill his Pikes, it is also true that you are negating the strength of two of his strongest line units with two of your weakest. With any luck you should be able to take advantage of a strength advantage somewhere else in the battlefield.
Knights and Bows are two of the most common element types in a Medieval army. Almost every single European Medieval army has both of them. They are a very interesting matchup: if the Knight charges to contact, whoever loses the die roll dies. Since this often happens with a wall of Knights charging several Bows, this can result in a wave of slaughter as overlaps accumulate. All or nothing, on one throw of the dice, with the winner of the first combat likely to devastate the opposing forces up and down the whole line. Whenever two Medieval tin-can armies clash, a major component in victory is timing the collision of Knights against Bows. An ill-considered attack and you are lost. Success and your opponent is in dire straits.
In Knights against Bows, the chances teeter on a knife-edge. In a single element meeting Bows have the advantage, but it is too close to make either player happy. An overlap on even one flank can mean the difference between killing two or more units, and losing the same number.
So how to turn the odds in your favour? As the Bow player, this is easy. Never engage. Keep your line well-ordered, move up, and shoot the hell out of one enemy unit. As the Knight player, you have to keep ranks and be ready for your chance.
The slope line of a gentle hill can be that chance. Create a line of Knights waiting just behind a hill edge. Far enough forward that the Bows cannot climb the hill, and far enough back to cause them to move forward. Best of all is to start in front of the hill, and to move back in the face of an oncoming force of Bows. This can often suck the Bow player into incautious movement, as he brings his Bows forward as far as he can without coming into melee. He begins to use his Bow formation as a juggernaut, believing that your Knights cannot face him.
That all changes if he moves into position below the hill line. The Knight player can charge forward, gaining the +1 advantage of the slope in the subsequent melee. Best of all is if the General is involved in the center of the attack, throwing another +1 into the equation, or if additional forces can get an overlap on one side or the other of the Bow formation.
The slope line of a gentle hill can change the combat from +4 (Bows) to +3 (Knights) into +4 each. 42% each of death. Risky, but better than taking continuous fire without chance to answer. Better still, on a push the Knights gain all the advantage in subsequent combat -- they are no longer killed on a pushback. With an overlap or a general involved, the first combat roll can be +5 (Knight General) to +4 (Bow); or +4 Knight to +3 Bow with overlap, which is the same combat odds. At those odds everything goes the Knight's way. The first roll gives a 58% chance the Bow will die, and only a 28% chance the Knight will. If a Push results (14% chance), then on a subsequent roll the Knight cannot be killed.
Still a risky proposition -- somebody's going to die, and there will likely be a whole wave of death. But if you can get the slope advantage, and time the attack on your terms, it will probably be the Bows who die.
Now all that is necessary is to roll well.
Light Horse and Psiloi cannot be killed in frontal combat by Warband. But they aren't likely to kill Warband either. Most historical opponents of Warband armies have at least one or two Light Horse or Psiloi; used carefully, those one or two units can be used to gain a large combat advantage in the bloody initial shock when the ravening horde first reaches your shield wall of trusty Spear or Blades
This technique is another method of using impetuousity against the enemy. Make a solid frontage of your heavy foot (Spear, Blades, Pike) opposite the oncoming wall of enemy Warband. Put your skirmishers (Psiloi or Light Horse) in front, but in contact with, your line. They should be separated by one or two element-widths. When the enemy troops come within 200 paces of your skirmishers, move the whole line forward as a group, so the skirmishers hit the enemy warband.
Result? Your skirmishers are driven off, most likely. Success is fine too; it will disorder the enemy and make it harder for him to control in his next turn. But if your skirmishers are driven off, best of all! Now his impetuous warbands run screaming after their foes. following up one base depth. But what do they find? The skirmishers have recoiled through the line of your blades, and now they are throwing themselves into combat with a double overlap! A double-lapped Warband facing enemy Blades or double-ranked Spear is at +1 to +5, with a 50% chance of dying, and only a 3% chance of killing its foemen. Doubled Warband have an 8% chance of killing you, but a 33% chance of dying. Since that death takes two units with it, the odds are actually less favourable for the Warband when it is in double ranks.
It is better still if you can convince the enemy to make contact with your skirmishers; you will have more options to exploit the disordered enemy formation, and he will not be able to correct his disorganization as quickly with one good pip roll.
Bows work for this technique also, when fronting Blades. They can recoil through friendly Blades, and they can convince enemy Warband to make contact in the enemy bound easily enough, because taking long-range shooting without answer is not going to work. The Warband combat advantage in melee isn't bad for the Bows either -- they don't get back-rank support on the first turn of contact, and the Bows don't get quick-killed by Warband. This technique is a bit more risky, though: with the likely +3 to +0 odds (assuming a double overlap by the Warband) there is a 50% chance of the Bow getting killed. This can be acceptable odds for a brave player against double-ranked warband, however, as pulling a double unit into a double-overlapped attack against a Blade is worth the risk.
Other units, like Auxilia or Cavalry, can be employed as well. These are a bit more awkward than Psiloi, as they will force back your Blade formation when pushed back into them, and could conceivably be killed in combat against the Warband. Still, they will disorder the enemy lines, and with clever maneuvering should allow you to hit the Warband with your heavy foot in a double-overlap position. It will just take a little more work to do so.