Warlords 2000 Armies and Enemies of Rome DBM 15mm Competition

- Run by Peter Dunn

Over the first four months of 2000, the Warlords held a 15mm DBM competition based on the theme 'Armies and Enemies of Ancient Rome'. The competition was open to local members (both Warlords and the Hutt Regiment) with army choice restricted to those Roman armies and their foes between 275BC and 500AD.

The field comprised sixteen entrants split evenly between Rome and her adversaries. A near full gambit of Romans was represented from Polybian (in the days of the Republic) right through to the fall of the empire when the armies were staffed largely by germanic foederati. Seleucids were a very popular choice for the 'enemies', three armies being fielded. Others included Bosphorans, Palmyrans and Sassinids.

The competition was dominated by the Romans (only right since it was their competition) with the two latest Romans, Patricians fighting a civil war in the last round to decide the competition. Phil Malthus prevailed with his Western mob after his Alan allies completed an elaborate flanking manourve through a gully to tie up Peter Dunn's Eastern army. In the other top of the table clash of the final round, Greg Jennings' Polybians finally overcame rob cameron's Late Romans in a topsy turvey game that both described as one of the best they had played in.

Overall the competition was a great success with the participants happy to field their armies in a constrained historical period. The competition was devoid of Bw(S) and Kn(S) troop types which can dominate open tournaments and apart from the Sassinids, there was no Cv(S).

Congratulations to Phil on his conclusive win and to all the participants for their contribution. Only two draws occurred in the 32 games, probably due to the 5 hour time limit to complete games. Special mention to Rhys Batchelor for being the highest placed non-Roman. I'd also like to thank Luke Ueda-Sarson for his time and efforts in vetting the lists.

The final table was as follows: