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Late last year I released the first version of this tool. It was a nice data project that I thought would fill a rainy afternoon and be of benefit to others. Earlier this month Chris Laudermilk left a comment that lead to a significantly improved v1.0.
I haven't played De Bellis Antiquitatis (DBA) for decades, but I do own a copy of the latest version. Who knows I may use it one day.
Three years on and AI is running amok! I reworked the images in the original animated gif to "unblur" them with the help of an AI powered image editing site. I also cropped the images closer to the subject. I think it's an improvement. Progress marches on.
Sometime ago I stumbled across a free STL file for the "Confused General" from the cover of the De Bellis Antiquitatis (DBA) rules.
Thanks to fellow Lance & Longbow Society member Will McNally I now have half a dozen 15 mm resin prints. I'm grateful to Will for finding time to print these amongst his busy printing schedule.
This is a follow up to both this year's survey about Art de la Guerre (ADLG) and my previous survey about DBMM v1.
In 2009 I ran my first ever online survey about wargaming. The subject was DBMM v1 and examined all the things you might expect. As I've already stated no one took a blind bit of notice. Even so, I decided to run another survey. This time the subject was ADLG.
When designing the ADLG survey I intentionally re-used many of the DBMM questions with a view to writing a comparison post like this.
Unfortunately the specifics of some questions do not allow a direct comparison despite being superficially the same. For example: DBMM uses four books of lists whilst ADLG lists are divided into seven periods. So the question "What's your favourite period?" produces very different answers. Eliminating such questions left seven directly comparable questions.
So without further ado here's a short comparison of the two surveys.
I bet you never expected to see this!
Despite ceasing to play DBMM in April, I still subscribe to a few lists just like I do to a few DBM lists. It's a vicarious pleasure not unlike car crash TV: you know you shouldn't look but do anyway. Recently two things caused me to revisit some work on spontaneous advance I'd done in February but never published.
The first was the usual DBMMlist flurry of "tis, tisn't" emails on how difficult it is to interpret the spontaneous advance rules in DBMM v2.0. The second was a post on the DBMM Forum by David Cantó from Barcelona who posted a flow chart for the spontaneous advance rules.
2010 has seen me abandon DBMM for Field of Glory in a search of more fun in my wargaming.
Overall I'm pleased with both the game itself and my progress as a player. I'm still not as quick as I'd like to be but I'm certain that's only a matter of time.
On Sunday, I played my first ever game of Field of Glory (FOG).
After over two years being befuddled by DBMM I felt the time was right to try something different. James Hamilton, also a member of MAWS and a well known FOG player, was a kind enough to talk us through a game and explain both the major mechanisms and options during a trial game.
This post replaces the old side bar that listed all the Befuddled posts:
I recommend caution if you plan using these guides with versions DBMM 1.1 or 2.0. Some will be unaffected but some will be rendered useless.
At the end of last month I posted a short article publicising an online survey on this area of the rules. All told, 37 people took the time to complete the survey. I’d like to thank those who took the time to participate.
I ran the survey because I’d had a few problems in competitions with different interpretations of this part of the rules. My plan was to run the survey, work behind the scenes whilst it was running and establish the “correct” answers and finally to write another Befuddled guide. Needless to say things haven’t worked out that way.
This is a quick plug for a new survey that I set up a couple of weeks ago to explore the extent of befuddlement about one of the more basic areas of DBMM: the impetuous advance.
There are five scenarios to test your knowledge of the rules. Be careful some of them are a bit tricky. So far 29 people have taken the survey and it’s clear that befuddlement abounds. The survey will be closed next week and the results made public.
Sunday morning saw me on the road early heading for Halifax and the latest round of the Northern League 450 point doubles competition. I could tell it was going to be one of those days right from the start. Believe me it was. I apologise in advance for a longer post than usual.
I’d never been to the Halifax club before and this proved to be a problem: Halifax town centre looked nothing like the maps I’d downloaded. Luckily, I spotted a large flyover which I hoped was the one on my map and headed for the nearest garage. The guy in the garage hadn’t a clue but the large lady sitting on the wall outside the garage enjoying a cup of tea did.
This is the fourth, and final, part of of my look at the results from a recent
online survey into player’s attitudes to DBMM.
Two questions in the survey were designed to assess which internet resources players used to resolve their issues:
Surprisingly, the DBMM wiki was only used by 8% of players with 16% rating is as either good or excellent. I wonder if this is because it is the least well publicised of the internet resources available.
Four questions in the survey were designed to assess how the rules where used during a game:
What is most striking is the relatively small number of neutral responses to the first three questions above: 13, 13 and 18% respectively. Unlike the distribution of responses in Parts 1 & 2 the distribution differs a touch from that you’d expect with almost a double humped, “polarised” or possibly even bimodal distribution. It’s tempting to suggest that there are two distinct groups of players.
Five questions in the survey were designed to probe players’ attitude towards the DBMM rules & rulebook:
It’s interesting that the least well liked sections of the rule book are Command & Control, Setting Up A Battle and Fighting A Battle; the very ones you need to fight a battle.
The survey sample showed that the majority of players think the rules are difficult or very difficult and that the rule book is; not clearly written; isn’t written in concise style; is not well organized, nor is it easy to understand. A few more diagrams wouldn’t hurt either.
Between 29th July and 15 August 2009 I ran an online survey to look at players’ attitudes to DBMM after two and a half years of playing version 1.0 and to establish a benchmark prior to the release of version 1.1 later this year.
Overall, the survey proved popular with 128 DBMM player’s taking part. To draw my conclusions I’ve set up a database to analyse the results in a bit more detail.
I’ll be posting my finding here in four or five parts over the next couple of weeks:
Last week I created an online survey to assess the factors behind the success of DBMM 1.0 and posted some preliminary results based on an analysis of the first 60 responses. Since then things have moved on apace and there are now 118 responses. This is excellent. Thanks everyone.
The survey still has a week to run. Once closed, I’ll make the raw results public and set about summarising the trends and analysing the data for relationships for posting here.
In the meantime I thought I’d post an interim analysis of one of the questions explaining the approach and terminology I’ll be using to summarise the data. Feel free to skip this if you want to.
Spurred on by Phil Barker's recent comment "give me a report card and I'll tell you how good or not you are" I decided to set up an online survey to assess the factors behind the success of DBMM.
It seems like a good time for a survey. DBMM has been around for nearly two and a half years and version 1.1 has been promised for the end of 2009. The survey will run until the middle of August but the response in the first 48 hours has been excellent with 81 responses. Thanks everyone.
Last Sunday saw the Befuddled On Tour yet again. This time to the delights of Stoke on a rainy summers morning.
Bill Skinner and the Stoke club had organised their second DBMM one day competition. As well as DBMM there were Flames of War and Armati competitions running. I should say at the outset that he and the Stoke Club deserve all possible praise for running a great day with a smashing venue, ample free parking, good food and a fun atmosphere.
Amongst my late medieval armies I have both Polish and Lithuanian armies. One of the more interesting options available to both armies is the inclusion of War Wagons (WWg in DBMM speak); irregular and regular variants respectively.
Learning to use these properly has been a voyage of discovery so I thought I’d share some notes to aid the Befuddled. Before that here’s some 15 mm Hussite War Wagons from the brush of Jason Dawson:
