Victory! The 9th of June I win a DBA tournament here in Rome. It wasn’t an official one, but an event only for Romans to show rules and tournament formula to not “professional” DBA players. So I had less competition from hard gamers, however my victory was a real one. A 30€ gift was the prize. I spent them quickly for a Vallejo matt varnish can and for a photographic book about local fallschirmjäger reenactors.

The tournament theme was Caesar and his enemies. Obviously I brought a Roman army. These are my troops after the aristocrats defeat, 5 bases destroyed against nothing for me.

In the upper photo you can see my first game. I’m the reflexive chap in the centre. On the right upper corner there is Andrea, in Rome from Terni because the day before we passed all the time together playtesting his latest new game.

We were in SoloGiochi, a wargame shop in the north of Rome. I never stayed there before, because the city is pretty big and I live far from here. However we like this location very much so we will organise the official Roman DBA tournament here in September.

Our national DBA tournament circuit is based on groups of friends that live in cities in the north and centre Italy. Some new DBA player entered this event, so we hope they will be here the next time, and in the other tournaments. The photo of an happy day with miniatures.

As in previous years we are in Agliana for Hellana wargame convention. The same trip to Tuscany from the early hours of the Sunday morning to the night, with a pause for the highway stop dinner. All is done to live another wargaming experience together with our friends from every corner of Italy. Look at the categories tag for other editions.

The classic DBA tournament. I prefer to play with other games during a convention, so even this time I only supported my DBA community with photos and friendship.

A Russian view with snow. And Italian and Soviet soldiers.

A WWI naval battle with an interesting use of cotton to built clouds!

When railway modelling in HO scale meet wargame in 20mm scale: a WWII fight in Germany.

Bigger scale and bigger building. Another WWII delicatessen.

Using Comitatus rules to build a battle at the Roma’s gates.

This playable scenario displayed a view of the Porta Ostiensis near the ARSM club headquarters. This scenario recreate a specific Gothic War event.

A new presence in the convention was the Gundam Italian Club. I’m an orphan of eighties too.

Some models, even if the better one was the Zion vessel!

I did my duty with a couple of Ferrum et Gloria scenarios. This one was an opportunity to test the “duel rules” and to have a fight secutor/scissor versus retiarii. An experience to make some tweaks to something. Then some people wished to buy the rules, but I’m still writing them, pity. Now I’m a little distracted by this convention period because we will have “La storia per gioco” and “Dadi.com” in the following weeks, but I’m very involved with the rules writing.

This was the right time! Third place in the Arezzo DBA tournament of the Italian DBA annual championship. Yeah, I’m a champion again…

After a lot of time Legio Palatina, my club, humiliated the Compagnia della Chimera club! They humiliate us every tournament indeed. However this one was held in their city and they were in full formation. So we are more happy. Gasbarri, the Italian 3D wargame champion and leader of the Arezzo club, ate humble pie, prostrating himself in front of our club.

We lined up on the field a larger team than usual, with the new entry Gabriele. I always try to intimidate our adversaries remembering them his physical presence. In lots of competitions I team up only with Diego, so we could combine only two scores to built our team score, when you can add the best three scores as team result. And this time Diego reached the first place.

Another humiliation moment for Gasbarri. He is desperate viewing Narciso deployment! Great photo! : D

We were 13 people, 5 from Roma, 2 from Canino, 1 from Firenze and 5 from Arezzo. We played in the Fumettopoli store. As every time I bought one skin colour paint bottle of the Rackham range, remains of a old supply. The owners are very kind but their loo is permanently almost out of order for something. The loo and the paint, two constants of my Arezzo tournaments. However this time we looked for something more exotic to eat instead of the restaurant in front of the shop. There was a big fair about international food along the streets of Arezzo but too many people had crowded it so we chose another restaurant. To close, a photo of my small DBA camp. Or rather the reason why I won with my army: I had got hidden troops inside the fort!

A lot of events in these days. So I am behind schedule with my reports. Be patient! This is a brief report about the tenth DBA tournament in Rome, organised by me and my Legio Palatina chaps. Well, the first note is that it wasn’t in Rome but in Canino, a town north of Rome where Narciso lives. The municipal authorities gave us a room and the place is peaceful and a little bucolic.

We went to Canino the day before to find room, tables and seats. We had some troubles, changed three times the place, competed with local Red Cross (!) for tables and seats, but we found what was necessary at last. We bought bottles of prime quality olive oil to give free to participants, and some cheese directly from producers to bring with us at home. And in the meantime we tested our armies at Narciso’s home together with a new entry: Gabriele. Here you can see Diego while he is doing what he likes more: teaching strategy.

The day after, the tournament day, he had 13 participants, an odd number, so I sacrificed myself and I didn’t play. I brushed up the DBA rules only to act as umpire and not as a player and my army fought only in the tests.

While we were playing with little toys, another child was playing with a computer. Bigger children played 4 games, 1 hour and a quarter long, two in the morning and two in the afternoon. The lists were based on the late Roman era.

We were inside a local small museum about archaeological finds in the area, precisely from a destroyed medieval castle and from Vulci, an Etruscan (Roman, later) city in that neighbourhood. More photos than material objects, but the museum is still growing with new donations. While the tournament was playing some people give them 3 coins and a fibula they incidentally found in the garden, 2000 years old things. We have got a lot of history in our country… Here in the photo the president of the Gruppo Archeologico Romano, the Canino section, owners of the rooms.

The lunch moment. Well, two hours are not properly a “moment”, but restaurateurs are a bit slow and it was a little demanding an à la carte three-course meal with side dishes, pizza as bread, wine and coffee. Burp! Sorry…

Our heroes, our duces, got together to elect the magister militum! A beautiful day with challenging rules and great people.

More on Rufina convention. This time some photos and words on the game that I played.

Because it was the 8th of September, the day that remind us the escape of king and government during the war, leaving the State and the Army without orders, we played a game with Operation Squad WW2 rules. The setting was pretty basic and a little scratch. We wanted to reproduce a fight of Italians versus Germans. The firsts were desperately trying to save themselves and the Country while Italy was collapsed as nation, the latter were invading the territory while were only a few in a foreign place where their former comrades switched sides for the Allies but without knowing it!

We made some mistakes because it was the fist time we play with these rules. My friend Pippo of Pippo’s Blog fame, fought with a fallschrimjager squad even if he wore a t-shirt with a commie red star on the national flag and the writing “always partisans”! I had got standard Italian troops instead.

After a lot of promises, I organised a demo of my Ferrum et Gloria for Pippo. He wanted to try these rules and in the future he will run a full playtest for me, based on the written text, to understand if all is clear. I hope he will play an entire campaign to tweak the system points and the added rules. Bad lucky dices for me this time, so the test was not so valid to state the full potential of the rules. But Pippo liked it.

Here you can see my new arena, made by Pippo and painted by my father under my direction. Small, portable, elliptical.

Sunday an Anticamente tournament was held in Rufina. The first time with my 10mm Roman legion. And I wore my tourist t-shirt with a big “SPQR”, a real statement of Roman creed! Last time I played with these rules it was almost a year ago. So I had only a lot of good dice result to survive to enemy armies. However I know something about this game: I reached the forth place on eight participants. I had to leave early due to distance, and a fake photo was taken while I receive the cup for the third place because maybe I could reach that place in case a player would lost more pieces. Now I haven’t got the cup but only a photo. Yes, but together with my friend Fabio.

Every year my club organises a DBA tournament for our annual Italian DBA championship dedicated to Dionigi Ioghà, its creator. This one is the tenth year (!) and the theme of the event is the late Roman age, with lists renamed as the armies of the provincial duces (generals). Who win will be nominated Magister Militum (field marshal). I have chose the Dux Armeniae army, Sunday I will know how my forces fight on the battleground.

If you want to know more on this scenario you can go to the mini-website that I created for the event:
https://www.legiopalatina.it/magistermilitum/index.htm

Now we are in a new wargame season, the 2012 autumn campaign, so I am very busy and a lot of events are scheduled in the next two months. So you have to wait for my reportage. Coming soon in my wargamer life, coming soon on this blog!

Again in Terni. This city is in another region but the travel is so smooth and brief (little more than one hour with train) that is more simple to go to Terni than some areas of Rome. Me and Diego are a sort of wargame commuters! This time wasn’t a playtest for Ganesha Games but a DBA day.

I seriously started wargaming with DBA competitions. Saturday was only the last tournament of a long series since 2003. The last for now, indeed. When I see the old photos I can see the same faces but younger and with more hair. We are a championship built on friendship and almost all are here since 2003. Well, the child is a second generation player, he is the son of the champion. And this time he arrived second. A great family but I’m thinking to create a championship only for them so we could play freely.

To play we choice sad places as this dance hall for elders outside the city centre perimeter. You can observe two posters on the wall with the last sensations of accordion music, probably on programme for one of the following nights or afternoons. However here there will be a big wargame convention in October too.

The best moment of the day is always the convivial lunch. This time we ate pizza and gnocchi. Huge portions and cheap cost!
Under a game of Zen Garden between father and son during pauses among phases of the tournament.

Almost I forgot. It was one of my worst performances. Total misfortune. In the last game I lost 6 pieces against 1, half of the army! My dice was very scarce about numbers higher than 2… (put here a lot of swearing).

Another day in Arezzo, this time for the last DBA tournament of the year for the Italian championship. There will be another one but it is in Milan, too far away. Maybe there will be a special tournament in Rome in December, but now we are thinking about other things. The first time I was in Arezzo, I went for an holiday to do something new, the day before a DBA tournament somewhere more north. Now we go to Arezzo more than two times every year. And we pass our time inside a comic shop with a large room on the back for games, like GW ones and card games. On Sundays we always found a kindly lady, the mother of the owner of the shop. Among matches we can walk around comics and some boxes of costly GW products. Every time I buy some ancient Confrontation colours at sale prices. I like the tone of that flesh colours, and now you cannot find them. And just on the opposite side of the street there is a restaurant for our convivial lunches, because our tournaments are an opportunity to meet people from other cities that, tournament after tournament, are become friends. The only sad part is the menu, because I dislike meat but our men in Arezzo organise always a lunch based on meat…

I want to be short here, because I’m very busy. So I would say only that this time I risked to reach the podium during the last turn (my opponent reach the third position). The choice of the army list was almost forced because there was an army stronger than others. So it was a civil war, and if you were the defender you could, after the double switch, have a big advantage, positioning your stronger pieces against weaker pieces of the enemy. When I could make this I had great results. I broke my dice in the fight! It was a dice with runes around the edges and weird Roman numerals. Black with yellow engravings. It was like a demoniac dice who fears the enemy. It was wounded in the fight at an angle. Too much hard launches. It is dead while serving and now it is in Valhalla.