Alexander the Great - DBA Armies

I've been brainstorming ideas for my campaign for Alexander the Great, and as rules continue to ferment away I've decided to take a pile of old models from various shoe-boxes around the house, loft & garage, and have a bit of a stock-take over a bottle of cheap beer: rather a good use of an evening, all things considered! 

First up, I discovered my ancient collection (probably from the 1990s) for DBA Macedonians and Persians, which I've also combined with a heap of further figures I got on a kickstarter several years ago and then never managed to do anything grander with; and lastly I have other DBA armies for Pyrrhus, which contain several elements that can be co-opted to serve as decent Macedonian troops.  Altogether, I believe the models are a mix of Irregular Miniatures, West Wind Miniatures, and Essex Minis.  Quality is wildly variable, but frankly the aim is progress, not perfection!

So, what do we have?

Well, a good starting point is the Pyrrhic army I got about 2 years ago for DBA.  This gives me a good core of painted Macedonian/Greek units.  Specifically, I get 1 Kn (Companions), 1 Cv (Thessalians) and 1 LH to straight away give me all the cavalry I need.  I also have 4 Pk elements and even a 1 Ps.

Next I have some spare Pk - specifically, 4 Pk bases from Irregular, of Pikemen at the attack with spears at 45degrees.  Additional good news on the pointy-sticks-are-good front, I have enough spare unpainted figures for 2 Pk extra should they be wanted.  These models are however not even base-coated,and I remember they didn't come with pikes - I had to hand-drill out holes to put plastic fibres inplace for the pikes, which is some thing I've never had to do before, and strikes me as very much something life's too short for.  Still, here I only have 8 models to fuss over.   

Also here are models for the 4Ax (Hypaspists), represented by no less than two elements I have of models - plus even some spare based as the lighter 3Ax element for when they fight more flexibly.  There's no Pk option for them, but I can easily use one base of Pk for them since I have no need for so many at the moment.  In addition to the above, I have 2 Ps bases, featuring slinger peasants with floppy wide-brimmed hats (bloody casuals...)

Lastly I have additional cavalry from the old Irregular models.  The figures are a bit squashed-looking and difficult to see detail on, but I believe I have a new element of Kn (Companions) to use, plus two elements of Cv (judging by the horse-hair plumes, beards and such, I guess they are Thracians?)

For the Persians, I have the following units of cavalry: I believe I have six Cv bases of generic Persian, Median and Bactrian cavalry.  I also have an element of very heavy cavalry, featuring scaled armour over the riders' legs and their horses - presumably these are Kn (Persian, Bactrian or Saka Heavy Cavalry).  I also have 5 LH elements, featuring a mix of javelin-armed Persians and more exotic bow-armed steppe-horsemen. 

Lastly for the Persian army's foot-sloggers, we have five 3Ax elements with huge rectangular shields - a quick Google search tells me these are likely Kardakes, so rebasing them as three 4Ax bases seems very likely.  I also have three 3Ax bases of Persians with the crescent-shaped shields, so these will fit nicely as Takabara infantry.  Best of all, I have 4 elements of Sp, representing Hoplites who can serve as the Greek Mercenaries.  I have also got a single 4Bw element to represent archers, even though they aren't available in the latest DBA army list.  Rounding this all out, I have two Ps elements of Persian slingers. 

Campaign Ideas & Designs

I've been considering what to do for a campaign, which may actually get finished.   Long experience has taught me that planning a campaign, considering a campaign, and designing a campaign are without a doubt the surest ways to never actually play a campaign!  

As a result, this is something of a different approach from me, which I;ve decided to post on the blog.  I'll be attempting a campaign in small scale, aiming to get as much fun and drama out of as little book-keeping as possible, to let me play some small DBA games with a link between them.  

I've decided to go for Alexander the Great, for a combination of reasons - I have the memory of playing around with a primitive campaign of it I made myself about twenty-odd years ago, so there is a nostalgic value; I possess figures, mainly unpainted, which could be used; I have various books on it for inspiration, and I recently read and enjoyed the classic Mary Renault book 'The Persian Boy'.  

From this, I decided to design a campaign I could play easily to cover the Macedonian conquest of Asia.  Armed with lots of confused but eager thoughts, I decided to have a night of brainstorming my ideas - here's the result:

I sat down with a drink and nibbles at the dining room table, got a huge sheet of A2 paper, and basically spent an evening scribbling down every idea I could think of, all around a big node-to-node map of regions in the Persian Empire.  Practically all of them are uneven, and of uncertain use, they probably run counter to each other, and many will be simply incompatible, but: I have them written down to the stage where I can knock them into order.  

The aim is to produce a basic system for linking some DBA battles, to see if Alexander can conquer the Persian Empire, how far he can expand, and if he can establish a stable dynasty after he's gone or if the whole thing will collapse into fighting sub-kingdoms.  I've at least got my big themes for the campaign, and a notion of what I want to represent, even if I'm not quite sure how to do it.  Rather than stop here and forever ponder if a vague idea would ever be any good, I'm resolved to start playing it out as a test, and blog my thoughts about the results: bad ideas will get ditched or rewritten, and good ones will be kept and refined.  One way or another, the result will be that I get a campaign played out!