To business. Tailoring DRB to 6mm gaming and the late C17.

DBR (De Bellis Renationis) is a set of wargame rules covering the period 1500 to 1700 AD. It is published by WRG and Phil and Sue Barker hold all rights.

I like DBR and don’t rules bash. But one valid criticism of any ruleset that covers so much time and geography is that it loses specific period flavour.

These amendments attempt to tailor DBR to the very late C17 period and to 6mm gaming with the fewest possible amendments to achieve the desired results. You will need to buy DBR to play them. I have not play-tested these amendments yet, and will get back to you when I do.

The ‘desired results’ of each of these amendments are based primarily on how I want like my battles to look rather than purely play, and some result from trying to maximise the visual appeal of 6mm troops.

Wargaming is a visual hobby and in this period I want to be able to see and play with regiments, deployed with a short distance between each other and manoeuvred in at least two lines.

We start with DBR played in Condensed Scale, as laid out in the official rules.

Amendment 1 – I want regiments. Three foot bases look like a regiment so that’s what I will call it (see pics below). There is an immediate scale problem but that is easily fixed with a wave of the pen. A (single battalion) regiment is roughly-shmoughly 600 men - so 200 foot per base, which works for me, but in condensed scale a base (element) represents double that and 1200 man regiments are too big.

But condensed scale is derived from doubling both the frontage and depth of an element in normal scale. By holding my tongue differently, ‘my’ condensed scale only doubles the frontage, giving the desired 600 man regiments with remarkably few knock on effects. Depth is always right out of scale compared to frontage so I'll ignore it.

This gives roughly 600 man regts with a figure scale of 1:10, which seems a good base to go on from.

Amendment 2 - I want my regiments to have some distance between them, not all be lined up in one gapless line. DBR encourages the latter with overlap and support rules.

Two amendments achieve my aim.
1) I am reinstating the ‘a group can only be 4 elements wide’ rule from DBR Version 1.
2) I don’t want to weaken infantry vs attack so an element lined up on the same imaginary line within 1BW of another can give support and prevent overlaps as if was in edge to edge contact with its neighbour.

Amendment 3 – In 6mm, regiments with attached 3 pounder guns [Art(I)] can look like this, with a gun on each end of a regt…

…not with two guns on one end. This is something that 6mm can achieve that other scales can’t.

Therefore that’s the way I’ll do it. To make things easy, only the gun on the right hand side of any regiment will shoot or fight combats. For all intents other than visual, the whole gun is on the right, the split being an optical illusion when it comes to play. If a player really wants to concentrate fire on the left, they can designate the left hand gun as ‘primary’ at deployment and mark it somehow so no one forgets. If no such declaration is made, the right hand gun is always primary.

Amendment 4. I want to encourage successive and orderly lines of infantry and to discourage strange manoeuvre dances. So if foot elements of 1 command are all exactly lined up with each other, they may move together for one pip as though they were in contact as a group. The 4 element rule will not apply as this is moving as a group, but is not a single group. I may have to eventually draw a couple of diagrams to get this across properly. It is also a bit of a pip discount to make up for having to use smaller groups.

Amendment 5 – and the last one for now. The ‘closest element is the primary element’ rule encourages some odd artillery deployments where players try to ensure their Art (S) is closer to the enemy than Art (O). I want to be able to deploy in nice neat batteries and hence “If artillery is deployed in batteries (2 or more elements in base to base, complete side edge to side edge contact), a player may designate which element is the primary shooter. The whole battery may pivot on one corner to move.” The whole losing two shots thing should make sure this is not abused.

Future amendments may look at introducing morale classes beyond Sh(I), (O), (F), and (S), but that’s enough til I playtest these.

First photos. Ya-hoo

The army is finally finished, and it turns out posting pics is so easy even I can do it. I hope you enjoy the pics.
This is a 'Williamite' Army circa 1689, immediately following the 'Glorious Revolution' which forced the last Catholic Stuart Monarch to flee and replaced him with his daughter Mary, a Protestant, and her husband William of Orange, ruler of the United Provinces we now call the Netherlands.
Militarily we are at a watershed moment where pikes are finally becoming entirely obsolete, not only because of advances in firepower, but because the invention of practical bayonets turned every musketeer into his own pikeman. The 'pike and musket' era is about to become the 'horse and musket' era.
The army mixes British, Dutch and other allied contingents freely. The 1689 watershed also marks a shift in British foreign policy as William got Britain more involved on the Continent. Combined British /Dutch / Allied forces played a leading role in a series of alliances aimed at containing the expansionist ambitions of Louis XIV's France. It could be argued that this policy of 'maintaining a balance of power' in Europe while ensuring Britain a free hand at sea and overseas lasted until 1945.
The period saw the emergence of at least one authentic military genius: John Churchill, who became the first Duke of Marlborough. That other Churchill who served his country so magnificently in the middle of the C20 was a direct descendant of the first Duke.

A wide view, showing most of the army. More cavalry is cut off on the left of this picture.

Lines of British and Dutch foot advance. The front regiment has the luxury of battalion guns - a 3 lb artillery piece at each end of the line to increase firepower.

A Dutch infantry regiment advances.

A flank view showing Danish, British and Dutch horse covering one wing of the army.

(Next update) Allied field and siege artillery massed in a grand battery. The camp is visible behind.

First entry

The latest step in my ongoing quest to join the C21 is a blog in honour of my nerdy hobby; wargaming, or playing with toy soldiers.

I intend to use it mostly to post pics of projects as I complete them, and have chosen this time because I am now just one element away from completing my first 6mm army: a DBR Williamite army, the first force in my 6mm 1689 project. I think it's looking rather spiffy and I'm looking forward to finishing and basing that last element of Dutch musketeers.

The Williamites can muster a good 500 points + of legal list. By stripping them off their Prussian infantry (6 elements) and Danish horse (6) , and lumping in 8 elements of Bavarian infantry, I am only a few elements away from a credible if imaginary 300 point confrontation between Williamites and Prusso-Danish-Bavarians, which will have to do until I get the Louis XIV French up and running.