Five Reasons I Know Basic Impetus is a Brilliant Game...

1. I have rebased a DBA army for BI. Rebasing miniatures is hideous, and I have usually avoided it. But here they are, my new 13th Century Germans, consisting mainly of the forces of the Archbishop of Cologne with Emperor Frederick II along for the ride. I painted these ages ago, and they have been on the blog before in their DBA guise. Not the best painted minis in the world, but I like them.






2. The rules have taken off at the school wargames club. I could never really get school students interested in DBA. I think those who have grown up with Warhammer think you need to roll handfuls of dice for it to be a fun game. Well, with BI they can.

3. My great friend The Nameless One judges it to be 'a really fun game'. This is from a man who grunts noncommittally whenever I try to get him to play DBA or anything else for that matter with me. He is also the Lord of Ten Thousand Half Painted Armies. Who knows? Inspired by BI he might even finish painting one. But let's not get carried away.

4. I played a game with my friend Antonius last week, and he is inspired to paint up a Spartacan army as a result. This is astounding. Antonius is a fantasy gaming tragic, who has been known to deploy Orcs along with Napoleonic French infantry. If a historical game captures his attention, it must be good.

5. I keep enjoying it even though I am almost invariably flogged. Last term at the school club my Parthians were regularly defeated by various thirteen year olds. Hence my thinking that I would start afresh next term with Medieval Germans. Last night I had a game with Paul the Galloglaigh, threatening the Germans with Melting By Candle if they didn't perform. Well, it was close, but Paul's Mongols narrowly defeated me, largely as a result of some clever deployment that left my victorious units of knights isolated. That and my now famous appalling luck with dice.

So there we have it. Basic Impetus is a great game. Most of all, it is fun. I now have a copy of the full Impetus rules, and I can see that they would provide a much richer game as well.

And if you are wondering, I'm giving the Germans another chance....

Marian Romans for Basic Impetus

Here are the first couple of units of Marian Romans that I'm painting up as opponents for my Parthians. Figures are from Caesar, with Italeri shields. The figures are ok, but the dodgy lorica hamata (mail) has the wrong texture and looks like fur (lorica hirsuta?)

Basic Impetus Rematch

Just come home from a rematch with Paul the Galloglaigh, following my drubbing in our first game of Basic Impetus as explained here:
http://dux-homunculorum.blogspot.com/2010/12/first-game-of-basic-impetus.html

We used the same armies for our second game - Nevsky Russians for me and Teutonic Knights for Paul. I lost again, but it was much closer, and the game could definitely have gone either way. My two units of mongols on the left flank literally ran rings around the heavy German knights, destroying a unit of Livonian light horse and even routing the unit of German crusader knights. However, my Druzhina on the left lived up to their reputation of combining the worst features of eastern and western armies. They don't charge hard enough, and they can't skirmish. Although I did a reasonable job of avoiding combat with the bloody unstoppable unit of Teutonic knights, I lost all three units of Druzhina and the game to Livonian light horse and Turcopoles.

Nick was asking for a comparison of DBA and Basic Impetus (BI). I made some observations after the first battle, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say that I think BI is a better game. It is damn good fun. Here's why I like it more than DBA, if you will excuse my midnight rambling:

1. The bigger bases allow for more creative and realistic-looking units.

2. Both games are obviously highly abstract. However, some of the abstraction in DBA has always irked me, particularly related to the use of psiloi and light horse. In DBA, such units don't fight at a distance, but their base contact with an enemy unit represents them skirmishing at short range with missile weapons. If a unit of Light Horse, for example, recoils or flees from an enemy, this represents the skirmishers being pushed away by a controlled charge or whatever by the defending unit.

This all makes sense, but in Basic Impetus all this happens naturally when you use skirmishers. For example, when I sent my mongols against Paul's crusader knights, they were able to gradually start wearing the much tougher unit down. Paul naturally tried to charge my mongols, but I was able to use their ability to move sideways and obliquely to avoid contact. Because Paul had allowed the unit to become isolated, my mongols effectively enveloped the knights, shooting them down from the flank and rear. This seemed much less abstract, and certainly more enjoyable than DBA, where I would have just moved the light horse into base contact with the knights and allowed the dice rolls to represent what we actually played out in BI.

3. The rules for BI are accessible, simple and mostly clearly written. There are a few confusing things - eg the quick reference sheet makes it clear that units can move backwards, but this isn't clear from the paragraph on movement in the rules. However, the Impetus forum supports the game extremely well, with the game creators responding rapidly to rules questions. I have always found DBA to be somewhat arcane.

4. The rules for contacting the enemy in BI are much simpler than in DBA, avoiding the need to make units match up exactly.

5. The gradual attrition units suffer, and the way that a whole series of melees can be fought in a turn as a victorious unit pursues a defeated foe provides a more exciting game than the contact - rebound - contact - rebound - contact - rout nature of DBA.

6. There is greater 'period flavour' in DBA, trying to give armies specific characteristics. For example, the special ability of Roman legionaries to discharge pila differentiates them from other heavy infantry.

I'm trying to think of anything I prefer about DBA. Certainly there are more army lists available for DBA at the moment. I think it is also likely that it would be harder to use DBA in competitions that try to evenly match up armies from 2500BC-AD1500. Medieval knights in BI are a heck of a lot tougher than Sarmatian cataphracts, for example, although both are treated the same in DBA (from memory).

I'd love to hear if anyone has had a different experience of the two games, and would like to champion DBA.

Parthians for Basic Impetus

I have painted up a Parthian force for Basic Impetus in a rush, all ready for the competition I'm running at the school this year. I've based the figures using the base sizes for 15mm, which seems to be what most players do with their 1/72 armies. The figures are mainly HaT Parthians, with a few conversions using HaT Roman Cataphracts and Orion Parthians.


I also used this army to experiment with the Army Painter quickshade dip, beloved of many painters of 28mm figures.
http://www.warlordgames.co.uk/?page_id=3407

Instead of using a black undercoat, I undercoated these figures white, did simple block painting with no attempt to shade, then painted on the dip (I used Strong Tone). When they were dry, I went over them with Vallejo matt varnish, then did a few lighter highlights on clothing and armour.

My verdict on Army Painter?

Yes, it is overpriced repackaged furniture polish, but good luck to them. I wish I had thought of it first.

There are no problems using it on bendy plastic figures. I tested it on a HaT Andalusian spearman, bending his spear every which way with no ill effects.

I don't recommend dipping the figures. Use a brush, and treat the stuff as a wash to add depth and shadow, rather than something you have to gunk all over the place. Do some highlighting at the end of the process - it makes a huge difference. Part of me feels like I'm cheating, but it certainly saves time, and at the moment that is something I don't have a lot of. I like the effect, particularly over flesh, whites, yellows and reds, and it is great on horses. It doesn't look so good over blue.

I'll certainly be using it to put armies on the table.

First Game of Basic Impetus

The Dux met up with Paul the Galloglaigh last night to try out Basic Impetus. I read the rules a while ago and really liked the look of them, so have been eager to give them a go. So - Nevsky Russians vs Teutonic Knights.


Paul the Galloglaigh, sans customary armour

I used figures based for DBA, but on cardboard bases of the right size for Impetus. This had the advantage that I could write the unit stats on the bases.



The game took 2 hours, but it would have taken less than half that if we were more familiar with the rules. The result was a resounding victory for the Galloglaigh's Teutonics. My Druzhina did OK on the left flank against the Teutonic light cavalry, but the single base of Teutonic knights facing my right flank went thorugh everything they met like an angry rhinocerous, routing a unit of Druzhina and another of Mongols in a single turn. The attempt to cheat by using air support proved unneccessary...



So the verdict: How does Basic Impetus stack up against DBA?

I think I'm going to like it a lot more, and Paul rated the rules as 'a solid 8/10'. The things I really like about the rules are:

1. The larger base sizes, and emphasis on making units that look more like what they are supposed to be than is possible in DBA.

2. Even translated from Italian (with some obscure bits), the rules are still less arcane than DBA.

3. The rules for movement and contacting the enemy are simpler than DBA, and avoid the pedantic matching up of facings etc.

4. I really like the way that a unit can push back an opponent, follow it up and instantly fight a second melee. In the game we played, the Teutonic knights hit a unit of Druzhina, pushed it back after inflicting damage, followed it up and obliterated it on the second melee, then advanced impetuously and destroyed a unit of horse archers! Devastating, and rings true I think with the 'impetus' of mounted knights.

5. Games will be fast, once we know the rules better.

6. I like the progressive loss of unit strength (VBU) as units get 'ground down' in combat. I prefer this to the backwards and forwards nature of DBA.

In short, I think it's a winner. I'll have to play some more games, but I'll be quite tempted to re-base some of my figures for Basic Impetus. (And indeed my Parthians, painted up especially for BI are nearly ready...)

If you don't know them, check out the rules (and different period versions) here:

http://www.dadiepiombo.com/basic2.html


'Oh bugger.'