After a break from tabletop wargaming of several years I came back to Ancients at the time of the issue of DBM v3.0.  I was impressed.  I had previously drifted away from the Accountancy manuals of other wargame rules and returned to find exactly what I was looking for:  a simple, book-keeping-free system that looked and felt about right and gave me the historical results I hoped for.  If you do what the ancient generals are described as doing then you are likely to enjoy the same rewards as they received.  So far, so good.  Since then I have tried several other sets of rules.  Most were quickly filed on the shelf for inclusion o the next bring and buy sale at the club.  One of them has stood the test of time:  Vis Bellica by Rob Avery.  It has not replaced DBM and I run the two systems quite happily but for different reasons and different games.  Why?

Firstly, for those who are not familiar with either system, a précis.

DBM is a high level bird’s eye view of the battlefield from a general's perspective.  There is no nitty-gritty casualty report or bookkeeping.  You see your troops advance, engage and either triumph or get rolled back.  Emphasis is on the overall command and control of the army.  The mechanics arte simple, and are based around an opposed d6 dice roll with modifiers.  The rules are comprehensive, almost exhaustive in their closure of loopholes and I consider them the most robust set of rules for competition play.  Unfortunately there is a certain element in the Gaming Community that have a certain rulesmanship approach to the system, which has given the game an undeservedly bad image over recent years.  However, when played amongst Men of Good Will, it is still a fine system that works well and gives a tight, competitive game that is fun.

Vis Bellica is completely different, in some ways almost a throwback to the older style of game rules.  Troops are classed by drill, weapon and experience.  Each unit has strength points, which are whittled away as casualties are suffered.  There is a little book-keeping (okay there is a piece of paper you have to keep track of the unit's current strength on:  hardly taxing now, is it?) and the game flows smoothly once you're familiar with the mechanics.  There is a table of modifiers to strength but nothing too onerous.  If my 13 and 12 year old sons can work out combat factors in seconds, you seasoned diehards should have no trouble.  To be honest, most of the mechanics should be familiar to any experienced gamer, very familiar.  At first reading this felt a little bit like a manual for creating Frankenstein's monster, but it works.  Rob Avery has used the best bits from different systems, put them together and breathed life into them.  Someone should have done it years ago.

Command and control uses PIPs, err, Command Points, err, Action Points, oh, what the hell, you roll a dice for each commander and that's the number of things you can do!  Superior officers can pass their PIPs down to subordinates.  Units that are only allied rather than regular cost more to control, and units that are a long way away are more difficult to control as well.  It's fine.  It works.  Actually it works rather well.  The commanders' figures are virtual and cannot be attacked directly.  If they get close in to the combat, then they have a major impact on the melee they've joined.  However, they're also likely to die since you roll each turn for officer casualties depending on how near they got to the action.  You can keep them safe in the rear in a camouflaged concrete bunker disguised as a gypsy fortune teller's wagon and they're unlikely to suffer any harm, but they won't really be able to affect the battle all that much.

The acid test is what happens when you try it out.  Well, it works and it's enjoyable.  The game rewards historical tactics and rewards them well.  The games are fast flowing and easy to teach and understand.  It's a lighter, fluffier approach to wargaming and, By Jingo, it's a fun set of rules.  I can heartily recommend them.  Hey give a good and easy way of restaging historical scenarios and doing the slightly wackier things that might be frowned upon under the clinical eye of DBM purists.

So what the down side?  Well, they're written in normal English and therefore could be misinterpreted with ease by those so minded to do so (you know who you are and, if you don't, the rest of us do!).  They would probably not survive the rigours of competition play.  I've no idea if there are secret super troops that are a bargain under the current costing system and frankly don't care.  They are still evolving with amendments being posted to the website.  Some people don't like their rules to evolve under them.  However, all good rule systems do in my humble opinion.

There is one bizarre thing about VB which put me off buying it for a long time.  The basing structure.  For reasons unfathomable to man, Rob Avery set a 15mm scale unit base width as 60mm.  Not 80mm (for two DBM elements) but 60mm.  All those with DBM armies, are you really going to rebase your troops down to 60mm?  No.  Of course not.  Nor was I.  There is now an alternative basing cadre who use four DBM infantry elements or two DBM cavalry elements to represent a unit.  It works just as well and we'll beat Rob over the head with a baseball bat until he includes it in version 2.  However, base width doesn't really matter all that much. (pause).  Yes, I did say that.  I'll repeat it.  Base width doesn't really matter all that much.  How you react to that comment will probably determine how much you'll enjoy Vis Bellica.  If you feel that you are in the presence of an heretic that should be scourged for suggesting such a thing, then don't bother spending your cash.  If you have your interest piqued by it, then you might enjoy.

My shelf has two sets of rules now.  For giving someone a damn good thrashing on a Thursday night down at the club, with a few beers and much shouting of ancient war cries, I would always pick DBM.  For a chill-out game with some friends or a little unusual scenario or for a quick battle before dinner with the boys, then I’d reach for Vis Bellica.  It all depends on your state of mind.

Michael  Tittensor

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