Enfilade! 2015 - There and Back Again... And Again... And Again

Enfilade! 2015 was this weekend. As I have done a few times past now, I drove there and back each day, rather than stay in the hotel. The experience makes me appreciate the wisdom of staying at the hotel. I live 82 miles north of the convention site, so every day was a 164 mile round-trip. Nevertheless, I appreciate being home every night more than I appreciate the convenience of staying onsite.

Day 1, I brought in a car-full of goodies to sell at the bring and buy. Unlike last year, however, I committed to running no games. That made round-tripping each day a little easier because I wasn't attached to a game schedule.

Day 2, I brought Phil Bardsley down with me. He and Kevin Smyth are the only founders of Enfilade! who still make appearances at the convention. This was Phil's first appearance for a few years, but Kevin is still an annual stalwart and ran three games and survived the obligatory drinking bout with the Canadians on Saturday night.

Day 3, I went to early Mass at my parish and then down again to cash out on my bring and buy sales and take home whatever I didn't sell. After lunch in the hotel bar with Kevin Smyth and Dave Schueler, I headed north. (Although I had to stop at Dairy Queen in Fife, WA to wake up, by this time I was getting pretty groggy.) Home by 5:00 PM.

Games

The games looked pretty impressive. The White Rock and North Shore Gamers from Canada put on a couple games in honor of the upcoming 200th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo (June 18, 1815/2015): the June 16 Battle of Ligny, where "Boney beat the Proo-sians (Way-aye-yah!)," and Waterloo itself.

Waterloo: The Prussians move in

Waterloo: The Frenchies mass

The Ligny/Waterloo games were impressive, but looked a bit crowded for my taste.

Chris Craft put on a game of the Battle of Agincourt (an upcoming 600-year anniversary, October 25, 1415/2015) that won best of period. Unlike the original battle, the English were run over.

Agincourt: The French before the attack

Agincourt: The French press the English line

Kevin Smyth ran the first of his two Lion Rampant games on Friday night, but I didn't stay for it. Dave Scheuler and I had "bangers and baps" (and beer) in the bar and then I headed the long way home for the day. (The title pic for this post, taken by Doug Hamm, is from Kevin's first Lion Rampant game, the raid on Agen.)

On Sunday, Kevin and Dave ran their Raid on St. Nazaire game using David Manley's Action Stations rules, with some special rules of their own for the ground action as the commandos get ashore. They won best theme game for the convention.

St. Nazaire

New Stuff

I didn't buy much. The whole idea of selling things at the bring and buy is to reduce the clutter of stagnant or dead projects. I still have plenty of irons in the fire and I didn't want to just replace new stuff for old. However, I did pick up a few things:

• More Gripping Beast/Jugula gladiators. The Game Matrix had a boxed set of Famila 1 for sale plus some single figure packs. I got the boxed set and one single-pack scissors gladiator. 
• Books. Gary Williams was selling off a chunk of books from the estate of a friend of his in the West Sound Warriors gaming group in Bremerton. The friend died with a library of more than 6000 books on military history. I think Gary and his widow sold the more valuable volumes for the best price they could get, but Gary brought several boxes to sell at the price of $2.00 per book. It took me three days to realize that the price was that low, so I gleaned through what was left on Sunday afternoon, which was still enough to make me happy. One of the nicer finds is the book Redcoats and Courtesans: The Birth of the British Army (1660-1690). I've been interested in this subject and in the Restoration period of English history for many years. I started reading the book on Labor Day and so far it's an interesting read. I recall in Churchill's Life of Marlborough that young John Churchill got a good start in life through his dalliance with Barbara Palmer, Duchess of Castlemaine and somewhat neglected mistress of Charles II.
• Paint 'n' stuff. I got a few Howard's Hues paints from Monday Knight Productions. No local retailers sell them. I can order them online from MKP, but I tend to look forward to Enfilade! as the time I replace and replenish my collection. I also bought a resin command post model for 28mm WW2 gaming. It's a model of the command posts emplaced on Tarawa by the Japanese. I knew MKP had the model and didn't find it last year, so I was happy to see one available.
• Rules. In addition to the books, Gary Williams had some old rule booklets for sale at $1.00 a piece. I picked up a copy of All for One, which is a sword-fighting game for the Three Musketeers, along with a scenario booklet for All for One. The rules and the scenarios were produced for use with the Redoubt Enterprises Three Musketeers range. I also picked up a copy of Tabletop Games' Sword and Pistol Renaissance skirmish rules. 
• More rules. Dave Schueler spoke well of Two Hour Wargames' Hell Hath No Fury rules for tank v. tank games, so I bought a copy from Ed Teixeira. Ed ran a game on Saturday morning (while I was driving there), which went well. I have a lot of unpainted 15mm WW2, so I don't have to buy any new figures for it (just paint 'em).

I hoped to find some Warlord Games' Beyond the Gates of Antares figures, but no luck. Not a big problem; John Kennedy carries them at The Panzer Depot.

Other than that, I stayed pretty good. There was nothing tempting me at the bring and buy. I might have picked up some Pulp Figures from Bob Murch on Sunday. He came down from Canada to sell his figures, but he appears to have left Saturday night.

Ex Stuff

I finally sold my 28mm 3rd c. Romans. Thus passes on a project started a decade back. I also sold my unpainted Romans and Sassanids. A lot of what I thought were bits and pieces sold as well. In the end, I did quite well and cleared a lot of shelf and closet space.

I also sold off my Field of Glory Ancients and Renaissance rules and all my army lists. I sold the two painted armies I had last year. They took a lot of shelf space.

Divesting myself of old projects and unwanted toys, books, games is cathartic. So far, no pangs of regret. One thing I didn't manage to sell was my copy of Terry Gore's Medieval Warfare rules. I bought them years ago for a small fortune and never managed to play a game with them. There was another copy for sale at the bring and buy and Kevin mentioned that he almost brought his copy to sell. There is apparently no market for these rules.

Serendipitous Encounters

Ed Teixeira of Two Hour Wargames was at the convention. He used to be one of our stalwarts up here until he moved to Arizona. I have been looking for some betting rules to use with my gladiators and faux Roman coins (the best damn faux Roman coins ever). I was discussing it with Dave Schueler when Ed walks in. He has something. I'll have to email him to get it...

Lost Tribes Update

The fabled lost tribesmen of NHMGS gathered at The Panzer Depot in Kirkland on Saturday. Eschewing Enfilade!, they played an 1814 Napoleonic War scenario instead, using the Black Powder rules. John posted an account of it on his blog.

And Beyonder...

I finished my first Algoryn AI squad for Beyond the Gates of Antares (BTGOA) last night. I dallied on them for some time, but finished them quickly. A lot of the dallying was really dithering about what colors to paint them, etc. Now, having completed a squad, the color choices are pretty much baked. I hope that productivity will increase.

Body armor	Vallejo Game Color Steel Grey (72102)
Chest, Shoulder, Knees	Vallejo Model Color Brass (801)
Weapons	Vallejo Model Color Gunmetal Grey (70863)
Weapons Detail	Vallejo Game Color Hammered Copper (72059)
Body Armor Cables	Vallejo Model Color Oily Steel (865)

I dry-brushed two shades of highlight on the body armor and then dry-brushed a slight bit of silver to give the effect of wear. Once the main painting and shading was done, I applied an overall glaze of approximately one part of Vallejo Game Ink Black (72094) mixed with 10 parts of Liquitex Matte Medium and thinned with maybe 3 parts water. (Honestly, I just guessed about the glaze mix and was happy to see it turn out so well.)

The boys in steel gray

The bases are 1 1/4" metal washers. I used plastic sheet cut into 1" diameter pieces to cover the hole in the washer, then glued the figures on that. I applied Elmer's wood putty over that. After it dried, I sanded and smoothed it, then I applied some glue and sprinkled some model railroad ballast on it. I did all this before primering the figures so I'd have the same white substrate. I applied a heavy wash of Vallejo Model Air Mud Brown (71037). The texture of the base is perfect for this kind of thing. There's no highlighting or dry-brushing needed to finish it. I applied some splotchy bits of Woodland Scenics Earth blended turf and finished off with some tufts of Army Painter Battlefields Wasteland Tufts.

Basic bases

The left shoulder plate has a raised symbol thingy on it. I figure this will make for a good squad designation. At first I thought I'd paint the shoulder plates a different color for each squad, but the symbol thingy works as well and is less obtrusive. For this squad, I used the same Hammered Copper as the weapons highlights. Future squads will have silver, gold, metallic blue, metallic green, etc.

First squaddies

The detail on the figures is pretty crisp and rewards a wash technique. The figures looked pretty good before the wash, but the detail really popped afterwards.

Back of Beyond the Gates of Antares

I'm pretty chuffed with how this first squad turned out. The figures are very nice, even though I did have one with some casting flaws, it's hard to tell after it's been painted. The AI squad figures come as solid castings with just the heads separate. Two of them are bare-headed (no helmet) so you can see the genetically mutated heads of the Algoryns. I figure that the race is evolved from a 20th/21st c. politician named Algor.

Progenitor of his race

I stopped by The Panzer Depot after mass and breakfast today and picked up another AI squad, a command team, and a light mag weapon (basically a BTGOA version of a MMG). I hope ("hope" being the operative word here) to get these new figures done quickly. The prep takes a while, but once started, the colors go on pretty fast and furious. As soon as they're done, we'll get a game going at The Panzer Depot.

Pike and Shot: The Video Game

While breakfasting with my friend Rick at BJ's Brewhouse in Redmond, WA a Saturday or so back, he alerted me to a new video game for IOS (and PC) called Pike and Shot produced by Slitherine Ltd. in the UK, the same people who brought us the miniatures rules Field of Glory: Renaissance, as well as the Field of Glory ancients miniatures rules (and the video game also for IOS, PC, Android, and Mac). What could I do? I went to the App Store and bought it for $19.95.

I'm instantly hooked. I've mentioned before, I think, that the pike and shot era was one of my first loves as a wargamer. Even though I've always been an indifferent video gamer, Pike and Shot is fun and beautiful. The game is turn-based/alternate move, you playing against the AI. There is also a PBEM server you can use to play against friends. There are five difficulty levels. The default is level 2, but even at that, the AI is kicking my hiney.

The graphics are fairly nice, though not stunning. On the iPad, you can use the standard IOS pinch/spread finger resize to zoom in and out of detail. You can also maneuver around to get different perspectives, so you can see your troops from every angle. Getting around the action is pretty easy after a bit of practice (or with no practice at all if you were born after 1990 and video gaming is like breathing).

The tercios advance

The options for play cover most the pike & shot era from the Italian Wars at the end of the 15th c. to the English Civil War. There are historical scenarios and skirmish games. The skirmish games typically provide options for buying variable troop types.

Swedes vs. the Empire 30 Years War

There are a few tutorial games to get you into the play. These are heavy on providing tips about play and explaining everything going on. For later play, there is an option to minimize the amount of messaging on screen.

ECW Royalists

The skirmish games give you a lot of variety for play. You can choose the type of action (defense, attack, open battle, waiting reinforcements, flank attack), the terrain type, size of action, width of battlefield, etc.

30 Years War

You can also alternate to map view, which give you an overhead perspective. It's a lot easier to keep track of the whole scope of the battle in map view (IMO).

Dutch vs. Imperialists Map View

You can alter the speed of the play. So far, my games last about 30 minutes to an hour. The bigger historical scenarios can be quite involved. Each unit has to be moved separately. There's a unit roster that you can toggle to view so you can more easily keep track of which units have moved or fired.

Let's see, I think I'll move my gend'armes...

Dutch vs. Imperialists Battle View

One of the things that irks me is that the AI always chooses the superior force or better position. For some reason, I always seem to be outnumbered, outgunned, and attacking an entrenched enemy. My armies seem to lose heart too easily (or I just stink at this).

Well, darn.

I think, however, that I can choose either side, so I might revisit some of my past defeats to see if the odds really are stacked one way or the other, or to see if it's me. Some scenarios you expect to be losing causes. I played the Biccoca scenario. I recall the battle narrative well from Oman's The Art of War in the Sixteenth Century. The Swiss mercenaries, "inspired by blind pugnacity and self-confidence" (in Oman's words), charge an impregnable position and get their butts handed to them.

Biccoca: The Swiss Attack

Only in the game, you're able as the French player to bring up your reserves to support the Swiss, something the French commanders failed to do historically. In the game the Swiss are on autopilot; you can only command the non-Swiss forces. I managed to cause some trouble on the Imperial flank with my gend'armes and stradiots, but not much—and certainly not enough to offset the slaughter of the Swiss at the entrenchments.

The system includes one add-on (so far) called Tercio to Salvo, which covers the period from the end of the Italian Wars to the start of the Thirty Years War. It costs $9.95. I've played the Battle of Dreux scenario from it. It's another one of those where my side (the Huguenots) were man-for-man a bit better than their opponents (but just a bit); however, they were outnumbered considerably.

The French Catholics had a lot of raw pike and shot, but a couple ringers in blocks of elite Swiss pikemen. My average pike and shot could deal pretty well with their raw opponents, but I had to gang up 3:1 on the Swiss to no avail. I'm looking forward to (a) getting better so I don't constantly lose, or (b) finding scenarios where the numbers and entrenchments are on my side.

Overall, Pike and Shot is a good game. I'm looking forward to more modules, such as late 17th century (Dutch War, Scanian War, Nine Years War).

To Infinity and Beyond (the Gates of Antares)!

I have a soft spot for Sci-Fi gaming, though I don't know why. I've never played Warhammer 40K, nor had an interest in doing so (although I kind of like the figures and the flame-throwing gattling gun fully-automatic self-propelled chainsaw of doom kind of weapons they use). I have been a big fan of Silent Death and painted a huge amount of models, sold them off, and then restarted painting another collection after a hiatus of several years.

When Warlord Games came out with Beyond the Gates of Antares (BTGA) last year, I wasn't sure what to think of it. I saw a lot of hoopla about the system, but for the longest time there was no product of any kind. Eventually, you could start buying a few blister packs here and there. Last October, they released a beta copy of the rules as a PDF download.

John Kennedy has played a few games of BTGA at The Panzer Depot and gives it rave reviews. He thinks that it has a lot of features that Bolt Action should have. As a dealer, John got a few sample packs of the figures. I was happy to see that they're quite nice.

Typically, I haven't really liked the figures that come from Warlord. Their resin and metal AFVs for Bolt Action are great, but the 28mm minis have never gotten me excited. They seem small compared to other 28mm ranges. I admit I like a chunkier figure (perhaps being well-fed myself, I have a natural affinity) and Warlord lack chunk. I'm also strongly averse to plastic figures (just say NO, people!) and Warlord seems to be moving plasticwards.

The sample figures that John had grabbed me right off. They have chunk (or heft, they're often the same) and they're metal—glorious, glorious metal.

In the last few months, retail figures have been available and John carries them at the shop. I browsed them a few weeks ago, but balked at buying because of the price tag. A box set containing a squad of five figures runs $32.00 USD—that $6.40 a figure!

Just today, however, I stopped by the store and bit. I picked up a box of the Algoryn Armored Infantry (AI). The box contains a single blister and five round plastic bases. You also get a command die for the squad. (The command dice are the same used for Bolt Action.)

A whole lotta package

I wonder whether less packaging, no dice, and no plastic bases would lower the price a bit. I have buckets of command dice from playing Bolt Action and I won't use the plastic bases. Probably not. Some items, like command packs, come as three figures in a blister only with no dice or bases. The price point per figure is the same.

The good news is that squads are five figures and an army is only about three or four squads. In fact, you can get starter sets with two squads, a command group, and two heavy weapons groups for just over $100.00. In short, you don't need a lot of figures at $6.40 to make a game.

I'm sitting down this afternoon to clean and prep the figures. They come with separate heads, but are otherwise easy on assembly. I'll likely mount them on metal washers 1" round. I'm not sure yet what color scheme I'll use for them. Maybe something metallic...

Faux Lucre

More bread cast on the water has returned to me after many (many) days. Way back in September of '13, I caught sight of a Kickstarter campaign for metal gaming coins—not just any metal gaming coins—these were the best damn metal gaming coins ever! I kicked in at the $100.00 level, which gave me 500 coins. I was duly notified on 9/1/13 that I was in the club.

The campaign was fully funded soon after that at the fullest level. This unlocked a lot of new coin options. Among them all, I went for the Roman coins because my idea was to use them for betting in gladiator games. I chose eight of the standard sets and one each of a set that included just one coin type. For reasons I'm still unsure of, I chose to get a set of 20 of the "Caesar" coins and a set of 70 of the "Constantine" coins. I had the option of adding additional sets for $10.00, but close to stick with my $100.00 funding. I wish now I might have kicked in another $20.00 or $30.00.

The making, sorting, shipping of the coins took some time. Months. 18 months, in fact. All the while, we kept getting progress reports good and bad (mostly bad): Production delays, production problems, shipping issues, etc. But fulfillment drew inexorably nearer. Finally, last Thursday, a very heavy and well-wrapped priority mail package appeared in my mailbox.

Little plastic packages filled with the best damn metal gaming joy ever!

Each set contains 4 of the large gold "Caesar" coins, 6 of the silver "Augustus" coins, 10 of the bronze "Constantine" coins, 16 of the nickel-ish "Antoninus" coins, and 24 of the wee bronze "Trajan" coins. It turns out that one set didn't contain any "Augusti" but I got an extra set of "Caesari" instead. I could complain, but I'm too happy to have the coins to whinge. I can manage to do with six fewer of one and four more of another.

It makes sense for valuation to assign them Roman numerals from smallest to largest: I=1, V=5, X=10, L=50, C=100. All told, including the mis-sort, I have the following:

"Caesar" coins (value C): 56
"Augustus" coins (value L): 42
"Constantine" coins (value X): 150
"Antoninus" coins (value V): 128
"Trajan" coins (value I): 192

"Caesar" coin

"Augustus" coin

"Constantine" coin

"Antoninus" coin

Wee "Trajan" coin

I have my 35mm (closer to 40mm) Gripping Beast gladiators in the works. Now that I have the coins, I think there's nothing stopping me from finishing the project (other than myself, of course).

I do need to figure out a betting system for the games, however...

These wounds I had on Crispian's day...

Chris Craft ran a 100 Years War game on Saturday using Warlord Games' Hail Caesar rules. The scenario was a hypothetical action just after Henry V and his wee army cross the Somme: Harry and the lads have an advanced guard set up behind stakes with plenty o' arrows. Coming on to their left are another English division and, farther off, a small Gascon division. The French facing them consist of a division of mounted men at arms, two divisions of dismounted French men at arms with a few crossbowmen, and a third division of militia.

The English advance guard well-positioned with cannon

John Kennedy, Ken Kissling, and I were the French; Chris and Steve Puffenberger were les Anglais. All the figures were painted by Chris.

The serried ranks of French chivalry à cheval et à pied

The second English division forms up

The French attack started somewhat disastrously. Three of the five mounted men at arms units went forward against Chris' position; the other two went right against the second English division with the right-hand dismounted men at arms in support.

Les chevaux advance into the withering bow-fire

Unfortunate command die rolls kept the units going against Chris from contacting right away. They got plastered by bow-fire and two of the three were driven back.

The view from the English side

The French right prepares to go into the fray

Undaunted, the third unit smacked right into a well-supported longbow unit, where it got beaten to a pulp and broken.

while all the world wondered (sorry, wrong war)

Cry, "God for Harry, England, and St. George!"

At this point, some of the units from the left-hand French dismounted men at arms (who were commanded by Constable D'Albret) began lurching forward. They hadn't fared well in their early command rolls and were going in piece-meal.

The dismounted men at arms push forward

The two mounted men at arms that were pushed back by bow-fire earlier, returned to the fight and smacked into the English line, only to be repulsed.

Twice the punch as before, but the same fizzle

Over on my side of the world, my crossbowmen managed to inflict some pain on one of Steve's men at arms units. Two turns worth of flinging quarrels at him caused him to withdraw disordered into the cow-pen beyond. In turn, Steve's bowmen obliterated my crossbows.

Trying to just move forward and menace them, I sent a unit of men at arms forward and wound up blundering to glory. I rolled box-cars on my command dice and the blunder roll forced me forward three moves, just enough to smack into Steve's bowmen.

Furia Francese in a very small space

The ensuing melee was hard-fought, but I forced him back and kept pushing. The end result was my unit becoming shaken, with one of his bowmen shaken and another bloodied. I stayed in place, not sure of whether I really wanted to.

After the dust cleared from the second French mounted attack, John sent in his dismounted men at arms and contacted along most of Chris' line.

Foot sloggers forward!

On English left, the Gascon division finally made its presence felt. Steve moved the mounted men at arms against one of my dismounted men at arms units. I managed to bring another unit into support and the Gascon charge fell flat.

Before the charge

Gascons stymied

I followed up and in my next turn, I charged Steve's men at arms. This was a tie that left us both shaken.

Back in John's part of the field, his attack met the massed closing bow-fire of Chris' with aplomb. In a spectacular bit of bad luck, Chris inflicted no casualties on John. In the ensuing fight, John wiped out the English cannon, and pushed back their supporting bowmen.

The Frenchies keep pushing

From here it was all downhill for Chris. In the next turn, John broke four of the bowmen units and the dismounted men at arms. King Harry was wounded and sought shelter with the only remaining bow unit on Chris' side. The Constable of France was also wounded in the fray, but the prospects for his survival looked better than Harry's.

Back on my side of the world, Ken tried for several turns to get his cavalry stuck into Steve's bowmen. One of the unit's broke after a desultory bow-shot caused a break test in which Ken rolled snake-eyes. However, the remaining unit came to blows and drove the bowmen back. My shaken men at arms just happened to play a part by remaining where they stopped a few turns back, but were in just the right place to support Ken's victorious attack.

The Irish make trouble

The Gascon's were a spent force, though my men at arms were as well. Steve now brought up his Irish skirmishers to harass me. He got only a single ineffective shot before we called the game. The English had taken a beating, most of their loss coming from the collapse of Chris' flank. The French were pretty hurt as well, but the fourth division of militia was fresh and uncommitted. They were no great force, but had three units of crossbowmen and three units of men at arms.

It was great playing Hail Caesar again. I played it a few months ago commanding some Gallic/barbarian hordes against well-disciplined and better-armed Romans. That didn't end well for the semi-naked savages.

The game has me re-thinking (or is it re-re-re-thinking) about what to do with my Early Bronze Age/Biblicals from Cutting Edge (Warlord Games). I would need to get a lot more figures to get even moderate opposing forces, but I'm heading that way. Four-stand units, which is what Chris uses for his 100 Years War armies, would be the way to go. "Heavy" infantry would be four figures on a 40mm x 40mm base, light infantry would be three figures, skirmishers would be two. Chariots would be one model on a 40mm x 60mm deep base (for two-horse or two-equid chariots/war-carts) and, I think twice the width for the four-equid battle carts.

At this point, I should just start painting the figures...

Prodigious, Purple, Pricey: DBA 3.0

Well, I just had to do it. Even though I sold my DBA armies a few years back with the thought that I would never play DBA again (which may still be true), I couldn't resist the allure of the new DBA 3.0 rules.

I balked at the idea of purchasing them after I looked online for them from the sole US reseller and discovered the price was $47.00(!). The slick, glorious, glossy rules from Warlord Games are cheaper than that. My balking at the price of things doesn't tend to last long, however. I have every edition of DBA from 1.0 on, so I thought I should get it just in case.

I heard that The Game Matrix in Tacoma, WA had them in stock and I set out to get a copy this Saturday. After morning mass in Bothell, I made a stop at Eltana Bagels in Seattle for a breakfast nosh, then down to Tacoma. Traffic was good and I got to the Game Matrix much quicker than I thought, arriving just a bit after opening hours. I didn't see any of the South Sound stalwarts around—in fact, almost no one was there. (I might have intuited that right off by the fact that I could park within 100 yards of the door.)

I trotted back to the section where historical rules can be found, wondering if they'd have any left. I might have called first, but needn't have bothered anyhow. There were two stacks of them dominating the rules shelf. They're big. It looks like A4 format (210mm x 297mm), though I haven't measured. They're also hardcover. Both size and binding are big departures from past editions of DBA.

Oh, they're also very purple (which is, appropriately, the liturgical color for Lent, but I don't think the Barker's had that in mind.)

And, they're $47.00, which is three times what DBA 2.2 cost.

I had a browse through them when I got home to stately Chez Dave in bucolic Lynnwood, WA. Unlike most of the people on the Fanaticus forum, I don't have DBA memorized, so I can't spot offhand how much they've changed. However, from the look of it, 3.0 is not a major revision. What they have done is:

• Add diagrams for some of the more opaque rules situations (as an alternative to just writing the rules in Standard Modern English?).
• Expand the army descriptions, so you don't have to go to Wikipedia to look up what Blemmyes are (in which case you might think they were an army of headless people).
• Change the army compositions, which must cause a few groans from people who have 100 DBA armies that they need to change in order to be valid.
• Tweak a the rules regarding rear and side support.
• Changed some of the combat outcomes.
• Change the measuring system to be multiples of the base width.
• Revise the terrain setup rules.
• Change the army deployment rules.

That's all that I can see from what I've browsed. There may be a bit more that I don't notice yet; I'm a bit obtuse sometimes, so I expect I've missed a lot.

These aren't the Blemmyes you're looking for.

I have, I think, some 15mm DBA armies in a box in the garage. Unpainted, of course. I'm not likely to paint them any time soon. I have, however, a bunch of the 28mm Cutting Edge Bronze Age minis from Warlord Games. I bought these last year because I couldn't resist. As a recovering ANE student, I'm pretty jazzed about having accurate figures available for the period. From Akkadians to Amorites, they've got it all. But I've been wondering what to do with them.

Maybe a 28mm DBA project...

My last 15mm DBA project was painting the armies and enemies of  Old Kingdom and Middle Kingdom Egypt. I could do a similar project for the Age of Hammurabi (ca. 18th c. BC). The figures aren't bulky, so I could easily fit them on the official base sizes (60mm wide) for larger scales.

Mounted on the standard bases, I might also be able to repurpose anything for DBA to be used with the old Al Margolis Legion rules published by Fantasy Games Unlimited in 1976.

Postscript: Eltana Bagels

Eltana is a new favorite spot for me. It's on the edge of Seattle's Wallingford district and not far from where I used to work when I was at Adobe and later Sakson & Taylor. It's also just up the street from the Pacific Inn Pub. The best dive bar in Seattle with the best fish & chips in the world.

Eltana makes their bagels Montreal style in a wood fire stove. They're chewy and slightly sweet. The only comparable bagels are Siegel's Bagels from Vancouver, BC, but that's too far to drive.

When I was in between jobs last summer, I went down to get a bagel on several mornings. A toasted bagel with schmeer and lox is the best way to start a day. I wish they'd open a shop up north by me.