It's DBA Jim, but not as we know it.

Many years ago I was a big fan of DBA, I built up several armies and played using 24 elements per side with some rule changes to facilitate the larger armies.

With my old first edition rulebook tatty and worn I decided to upgrade when the latest edition was published a couple of years ago. I didn't really get on with it however, I adapted it to squares to make it less fiddly here but still struggled to find any enthusiasm for it.

Today I had a bit of a brainwave and decided to draw up a new gridded board. I gave it big 100mm squares so that I could fit units inside and treat the grid square as the element base.

I could only fit 12 squares by 9 onto my 4x3 foot board but it is enough to deploy and manoeuvre 12 element armies like so...

 Gauls on the left and Camillan Romans on the right.

 The rules.

 I gridded the board with small brown crosses to make the grid less obvious.

  View from the Roman lines.

 Some of the hairy Gauls.

The battle gets underway.

And the infantry come to blows quickly due to the shallow board.

The warbands in the second row count as support for the first row.

 A bit of a scrap on the flank. The Roman Generals element was destroyed soon after with a 6-1 roll.

 Some of the Gauls breakthrough while the others get pushed back.

It's down to the Triarii. Who repel the warriors smartly.

But the Hastati and Princeps break and the battle is lost for the Romans.

Not bad, I will play some more of this. I can also use the gridded board to play Hordes of the things without rebasing anything as long as I can fit them in the square.

I may invest in Simon Millers To the Strongest rules which would suit the grid and my collection.

I wonder what else I could use this board for, any ideas are very welcome.