DBA Relief of a Siege

Welcome readers to a portion of the Angevin Campaign.

We have an interesting battle to lay out in the game wherein an overlord is coming to the relief of his tributary in a besieged city.

The above shows the randomly generated terrain. (the BUA is too far forward so I move it to legal spacing in later pix.)   I have been playing every battle with a required BUA on the table.  In this instance however, it poses some interesting battlefield tactical questions.  The besieged army would be in the city. Hmmmm.   The attacker is coming from  the top of the map.  The defender is at the bottom.  The besieged army may send an allied contingent and would come from within the BUA. Another hmmmm.  Or would you do something different.

Here is our map.  The besieged city is Aquitaine.  The besieger is none other than Baron Kenneth the Orange.  The trapped player is Baron Verte Ted, and the relief army is the overlord Black Raven Ryan.

We randomly determine army set up.  You may be able to see flags representing our command general stands.

Baron Kenneth the Orange on the reverse slope of the hill trying to surprise the raven as he comes near the city.

The black banner across the way is daunting.  A powerful overlord and leading baron on the continent.  This battle could be the turning point in his influence.

Baron Ted of the Green banner trapped in Aquitaine.  Here is my fear.  In this solo played DBA 2.2 game if the battle is won by Kenneth, Ted's army is destroyed.  If the BUA is taken by Kenneth again Ted's army is destroyed.  If Ted doesn't get a six to arrive as an ally it will go wonky on the campaign because he is trapped in the city with Psiloi as his only garrison eligible piece.  Fascinating stuff to adjudicate in a solo/randomly decided battle result.

And the battle commences.

Black Raven advances across a general front.  Baron Kenneth turns to take the BUA.  Allied contingent turn and what should occur.  A six on the first roll.  So we alleviate the trapped army outcome but what would Baron Ted do? 

I diced a fifty fifty outcome with attack or survive as choices and Baron Ted move to join his overlord and quite wisely I feel.  YMMV.

The BUA falls in a future turn. So we are down three elements - a psiloi and the 2 for the BUA.

At this point things go poorly for Baron Kenneth.  The KnG and his two Kn elements get stuck in and fall to impetuous follow ups on the left flank.  The bow close the door as well as spear on the other end of the attack and so we are KnG killed and I thought the battle was over with a win for the Black banner.  But we are three to three in elements lost.

On the tipping turn we have a 6 rolled for Baron Kenneth's pips and the sacking unit comes out of the BUA and hits Baron Ted in a closed door move.  Combat rolls kill Ted's Kn ending the game 4 lost to 3.

After the battle.

I have posted on TMP in the DBX discussion board an opinion thread on how this could be played out.  I believe this comment is best so far so look for more to come on the Angevin front.

Miniatures Page discussion.

Decebalus

24 Mar 2016 4:15 a.m. PST

If your campaign is based on the DBA campaign in DBA 2.2, i would play as follows: - Using the BUA as the city doesnt make any sense. So you play the BUA as village outside or you put some wall with a gate on one of the sides. - I would play C as attacker against the besieger B. Army A can come as an ally with only 3 bases, using the normal ally rule (you can come on the battlefield with a PIP roll of 6).