General Theodore Gustavus Ignatius Freitag or TGIF for short.
This period lends itself to silly names.
DBA – SEVEN YEARS WAR PROJECT By Doug Hamm Here I go with another installment of "Doug is not doing ancients DBA but some sort of
horse and musket thing...."
With the thought that the 'formal' warfare of the Lace Wars will suit the DBA style, I
proceeded to rebase my eclectic collection of Seven Years War armies into something a little
more defined. However, I did it backwards by arranging the look of the units the way I felt
both matched the numbers within each unit I had, and the space between each figure within
the base itself.
I did not follow the DBA convention that all bases, regardless of troop type must have the
same frontage. Frankly, I have never seen the need in reality as in the rules elements get
paired up, moving up to nearly a full frontage in some cases anyway. As it turned out, this
caused no problems in the play-test.
The foot regiments (28mm) are 6 inches by 1.5 inches, while the horse formed on 4 inch
frontage bases. Yes you could have two horse units charge an infantry unit. The factors
would be that one supports the other with only one of them fighting. If they lose, both
suffer the same fate. Easy really.
1 This photo shows the advancing battle lines. The Swedes in the distance are deployed (left
to right) heavy horse, grenadiers, artillery, grenadiers, and a musketeer regiment with a
flag. The Hessians in the foreground are deployed (left to right) a musketeer regiment, a
militia unit (those without a pack), the artillery, grenadiers, and musketeers (with a flag)
Here is a close-up of the Swedish jagers. Before you search the web or ask me where I
bought them, they are converted from Front Rank AWI Brunswick dismounted Dragoons. I
shaved off the cockade and gave them hose and stocking rather than the gaiter-trousers of
the original figure.
2 Here are the Swedish heavy horse (again slightly converted) in supported column. I
modelled two elements for each regiment, but the player need not always keep the
regiment together as they represent the squadrons which make up each horse unit.
The battlelines engage in the above picture. For morale purposes, white markers are used
to indicate the number of recoils an element has taken. The better the unit, the more recoils
it can sustain. Conversely the poorer the unit, the less recoils it can take before being
eliminated. This is a simple morale system which works well with DBA and could, in fact, be
integrated into the original rules. Your poor Persian levy or medieval horde cannot take a
recoil before being eliminated, for example, while the Greek hoplite might be able to hold
for only 2 recoils before calling it a day. For my SYW armies, the poor militia cannot take a
recoil before fleeing; the mighty Guard Grenadiers up to four before fatigue and casualties
are too much, as represented by the successive recoils.
Again, this was a play-test, the rules hastily scribbled, so do not ask for the glossy version
quite yet! 3