I'm afraid this will be brief as I haven't time to do a proper report.

After being persuaded to attend by Richard I decided that I'd use Hittite

Empire as it has always been the army I've used first in a chariot period

comp under any rule set, Ian Austin had sent me some sample lists to use

for inspiration and I thought one of them looked OK for me and, perhaps

most importantly, it had Reg generals, lots of Cv and Magic Tents (well

mule carts actually I think) and so would be forgiving for a newbie.

List ended up as:

C-in-C: Reg Cv(S) general, 5 Reg Cv(S), 4 Irr Cv(O), 6 Ps(I); 24ME

Sub: Reg Cv(S) general, 5 Reg Cv(S), 1 Irr Cv(O); 18ME

Sub: Reg Cv(S) general, 3 Reg Cv(S), 1 Irr Cv(O), 1 Reg LH(F), 9 Reg

Pk(F), 4 Irr Ax(O), 4 Irr Hd(O); 28ME

Syrian ally: Reg Cv(S) general, 3 Reg Cv(S), 3 Irr Cv(O), 10 Irr Ps(I), 4

Irr Hd(O), 2 Bg(I); 24ME

Baggage: 6 Bg(I); 3ME

Scouting stratagem

The Cunning Plan - there wasn't one :-0 More a case of slap the army on

table in what seemed to be a sensible manner and take it from there using

the manoeuvre potential of the mounted and combat ability of the Cv(S) in

particular.

First round drew me against Michael Whelan using Early Northern

Barbarians - essentially Wb(F) beyond number and a Cv(O) chariot wing. I

defended and Michael placed a huge wood on one flank whilst I placed

mainly Fields to keep the battlefield as open as possible - I often do the

same in FoG so this was a nice comfortable start :-) The match up was a

really good introduction to DBMM for me - the game was going to be fairly

straight forward so that I'd be able to get the basic mechanics sorted

quickly and some experience of the grading factors. Plus Michael is a

fantastic laid back guy who would be a pleasure to play against at any

time :-) The actual game was fairly straight forward with Michael having 2

massive foot commands and the mounted on the left wing and I'd more or

less just lined up all the chariots aiming to go forward after expanding

out on my right. Slightly complicated by my ally, who was my left wing,

being unreliable - and 2 goes of spending 3 PIPs by the C-in-C failed to

change that. However, we basically had a fight along the line and my

chariots beat his chariots and my chariots chewed up warband (found that

Wb(F) aren't even speed bumps to Cv(S) due to the gradings) until the army

broke - the ally was made reliable by advancing enemy but didn't end up

fighting as the barbarians broke first. 25-0.

Second round found me facing Dave Mather on top table - shome mishtake

shurely? Hittite civil war, however, he didn't have an ally, had a massive

Pk(F) and Wb(F) command and had knight chariots plus a brilliant

(allegedly) Muwatallis. This time I invaded and things came over all

misty - to our amusement considering my usual rules preference :-) Table

was mainly open with some woods and a hill on my left. I decided that with

a whole game under my belt I'd flank march the ally on my right - keeps

him reliable after all. Dave had an infantry centre, Kn and Cv on his

right and Cv on his left deployed behind a Hd screen in a cunning plan

moment. I went with a line of chariots with the Pk(F) in the line opposite

his knights. Dave's cunning plans now had a couple of issues - his planned

command swap via brilliant stroke isn't possible in mist and cavalry

cannot interpenetrate Hd, oops :-0 Instead he had to settle for advancing

the right wing and centre whilst then starting to turn and move the Cv(O)

chariots around from behind the Hd - all whilst moving 160p due to mist.

My flank march rolls a 6 in the first bound and I go for the massively

original roll forward with the rest of the army. Flank march arrives with

another 6 for its first move on table and can get up pretty close to

Dave's nicely curved column which causes more issues for him, and these 2

commands then play out the rest of the game fighting each other where my

Cv(S) prove to have the advantage although neither command is broken or

disheartened by the end of the game. In the centre I have to decide

whether to attack the infantry ASAP, even though I'll mainly be Cv(O),

even though Dave has some knights lurking - Dave says it depends on

whether you believe what this list says, and I say "I'm a believer" and

charge in. As Dave has his Wn interspaced with the Pk(F) I get to choose

to fight these files first in any of my bounds and then pick on the Pk(F);

this works quite nicely and I start chewing the masses up. On my left we

have some dancing to snipe off elements of each other, the details of

which are blurred other than I generally got the better of things - often

via good dice. Towards the end of the game Dave thinks he may have lifted

the mist, only to find he'd got exactly an average of 3 on his PIP dice

and so just failed - I then add insult to this by succeeding the next

bound and using the now increased visibility to put in some useful attack

and dishearten two commands :-0 Dave, seeing the writing on the wall, now

chucks in Muwatallis with a brilliant stroke in melee - he is 6:3 up on a

Cv(S) with a QK, so inevitably I bounce him off. In what turns out to be

the last bound I rack up a few more kills but am 0.5ME from the army.

15-10. Hopefully Dave can tell the story of how he came to use 5 brilliant

strokes in this game, only 1 of which was to his advantage ;-))))

Third round brings me up against the Neo-Assyrian monster of Richard

Aynsley. I defend and we have a wood on my right and otherwise fairly open

table. I deploy in more or less a line across my deployment area with lots

of chariots on the left for the open ground and Richard deploys his whole

army in a very compact formation on my right. As Richard has already

recounted his C-in-C's command of light foot goes into the wood and I sort

of attack/contain it with 2 of my commands - much sniping attacking ensues

from which I learn a lot about EMTLU and such. Richard, ever the

gentleman, kept apologising for tricksy moves, however, as I was learning

each time, and we were on top table in round 3 of 4, I didn't mind one

jot - plus I diced my way out of many of them :-) Richard's big attack,

obviously, was the Kn(S) mass heading to fight my chariots - I must admit

I was quite unsure how to tackle them other than by trying to split them

up a bit and then having a punt with Cv(S) when overlaps were available.

In the end I had to do that with Cv(O) but got lucky and took down 2 Kn(S)

that way and then got that command's general to break it. After that

Richard skilfully defended his position - as I'd taken out the command in

the centre of his army so could try and surround the other Kn command -

and we ended up 14-11 after I had a command disheartened trying to get

another one of Richard's commands (needlessly I think given the way the

scoring works). Definitely got jammy in this game.

Last game was a second Hittite Civil war against Thomas Arnfeldt - again

his Hittites were the later variety with some knight chariots. I invaded

and apart from a wood on my left the field was good going although

scattered with gentle hills. Thomas had Kn and Cv in his centre and left

with a mass of Hd around the baggage, and a smaller Ax, Pk and Cv(O)

command on his left by the wood. Unoriginally I went with a long line of

chariots with the ally on my left. I'll keep the account brief to avoid

Thomas too much pain. Basically Thomas had an excellent plan manoeuvring

the mass of his chariots to put in a major battle winning attack on my

outgunned right whilst avoiding combat as much as possibly on his left by,

if possible, running around the wood. In all honesty I had very little

plan other than to try and dance somehow to get some useful match ups and

attack his right with my ally who could possibly take him out. Thomas did

everything right, even though hampered by poor PIPs he had to fight with

his right hand command. However, and you can see this coming, he had

combat dice from hell plus some. Although he did break my right hand

command his centre command of Kn failed to kill my Cv and lost elements in

return and with some other of my Cv hoovering up Ps he lost that command.

The dice were so bad Thomas went and bought some replacements half way

through the game, to no avail. I went on to then break his right to gain

an undeserved 20-5 victory. To show how right Thomas got his plan, even

though he had terrible dice he would almost certainly have broken my army

the next bound by destroying my baggage command!

So that put me on 74 points. The table above me had a very bloody mutual

destruction and top table finished 15-10 so I was ahead of all of those,

and Her Majesty's Submarine Gibson, despite a last round 25-0 (I think) on

the table below me finished on 73 to give me the competition win.

Many thanks to all the players, organisers and umpires for a truly great

competition. Richard especially for taxi-ing and putting up so many of us,

and feeding and watering us in addition. Certainly one of the best

wargaming weekends I've had :-))))))))))