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Friday, 22 August 2014

The Alpha and the Omega of Phil Barker

Having quite recently finished "my first complete run through" of Phil Barker's DBMM new (2010) rule-set (I say first, as I know there will have to be many potentially painful passes before I really get to grips with it), I unexpectedly came across his original Airfix Guide to Ancient Wargaming (1975) book when I was rummaging around in my cluttered garage.

The 1975 book endorsed the WRG (4th Edition) rules. I took the slim,  purple aside over the next few nights and I found it quite informing, stimulating and refreshing, hankering back to an era of fruitful experimentation and "make-do with models and rules". The butchers knife coming out to assemble in a Frankenstein manner new troop types from various boxes of mixed Airfix figures. In reading his chapter on tactics I saw that I have the uncanny knack or is it ability ability to commit every wargame sin under the sun as per one of his diagrams "Ho hum!" (see below):


Reading through DBMM v2, the spirit of the original tome (promoting WRG 4th ed, and I must confess to have never actually played the WRG Ancients rule sets, although I seem to have picked up battered copies out of "collectors interest") still seemed in keeping with his latest. The same refreshingly (to me at least) anti-competition style gaming and more praise for the historical aka Society of he Ancients.

Good reads, both of them, I hope I can get a few more DBMM games this year.
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4 comments:

  1. PatG22 August 2014 at 13:00

    Much the same here - started with the purple primer and ended up with DBMM.

    Enjoy - they are a great set of rules.

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  2. Geordie an Exiled FoG23 August 2014 at 09:29

    Thanks Patci hope to get some more ancient games under my belt this year

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  3. John Lambshead23 August 2014 at 11:43

    I played the original DBM rules and found them very strange. Not at all to my taste.

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  4. Geordie an Exiled FoG26 August 2014 at 23:32

    Hello John, yes it is strange, but like Guiness, you get used to it by repetition and I think in the long run it is good for the blood.

    It's even stranger when you talk to people and they tell you "how they think it should be played" - usually to their advantage, but if you stick true to the rules (and are prepared to take the rough with the smooth) then it plays well

    If you are a competition gamer, I think you will hate it :)

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