King of Kings

A Chariot Age Campaign for DBA

This campaign represents the struggle between the Egyptian, Assyrian and Hittite Empires for domination of the Near East. Campaign moves will be regulated by card play,
whilst battles will be moderated using DBA 1.1 (although in the examples, army lists are
taken from the original version).

Campaign Rules
The map is divided into twenty-four areas. All areas are either neutral, or controlled to a
greater or lesser extent by one of the competing Empires. There are three levels of control: an area can either be an Ally, a Client or a Province of the Empire. Place one control marker on each Allied area, two on each Client and three on each Province. The
winner is the first empire to control twelve or more provinces.
Each of the three players begins with an empire of four provinces under their control. In
addition, each player is dealt four cards from a standard pack of playing cards - no jokers. The playing sequence is first the Assyrian, the second the Hittite, and finally the
Egyptian.
In a turn, a player may play one card, or a single card PLUS any number of additional
Diamonds. Spades may also be played immediately before a battle to help determine
the terrain. Other players may then play cards to assist in the defence of an area being
attacked. In addition, any card that has been played may be 'trumped' by playing a higher card of the same suit. This has the effect of canceling the action, unless the new card
can be trumped by the original player.
N.B. Two players may NOT combine to contest the active player's move: once one player has either attempted to trump the active player's card, or played cards in an area's
defence, the third player may not intervene until that action has been resolved. If the
area concerned is friendly to an Empire, the third Empire may not play cards either in
favour or against the attack.
At the end of a turn, the player may discard any number of cards, and then take one or
two cards from the deck. They may not increase their hand beyond the number of Provinces in their empire. It is possible to increase a hand over this maximum, by winning
battles (see below). However, until the hand is reduced below the number of provinces,
no new cards may be drawn.

Effect of Cards

Clubs allow an army to attack another area. The target area must be a neutral or
enemy area adjacent to a friendly area. The army will be 15 bases strong, unless
modified by playing Diamonds in support.
Hearts are used to make and consolidate alliances. Playing a Heart will make a
neutral area which is adjacent to another friendly area into an Ally; if the area is
already an Ally then it will become a Client; and if the area is a Client, and adjacent to a friendly Province, it will become a Province itself. Hearts may NOT be
played against areas which are already friendly to another Empire.
Spades are used to oppose enemy moves, or tactically, to help determine the
battlefield. A Spade may be played on an enemy Ally to make it revert to neutrali-

ty, or to increase a neutral army by three bases for a single attack or defence; or
it may be used to direct a neutral area's army of twelve bases to attack any other
area. See below for the effects of Spades played on a battlefield.
Diamonds are used to increase the size of a friendly army. A single card can EITHER increase the number of bases by three, OR allow the army to attack a second area, provided that the army wins the first battle, and that the second area is
adjacent to the first. The army must carry over any casualties from the first battle
to the subsequent attack, and the card must be played BEFORE the first battle is
fought. In addition, a diamond card must be played if any army is making a sea
crossing to or from Alashiya.
Aces may be played as normal cards, or with the following specific results:

Ace of Diamonds: Allows player to continue playing cards until his hand is
empty. At the end of the move, the hand may be filled to its maximum
number.

Ace of Hearts: EITHER makes any neutral area or Ally into a Province if
adjacent to an existing province OR makes a enemy Ally or Client into a
Client of the player who played the card, providing it is adjacent to a
friendly Client or Province.

Ace of Clubs: allows an army of Eighteen bases to campaign for as long

as it wishes until it is defeated or the general killed: the first area attacked
must be adjacent to a friendly Client or Province, and each succeeding
area must be adjacent to the area previously conquered. The army may
be increased in size by playing diamonds before the first battle, but not later; and any casualties suffered in earlier battles must be carried over to
subsequent ones.

Ace of Spades: Played on any other player's province: the province immediately becomes neutral. Played on a battlefield, any one piece of terrain
may be added or removed after all other terrain has been placed and the
defender chosen sides.

Resolving Battles
Determining Armies
An attacking Imperial army will have 15 bases, plus three bases for each additional Diamond played for that purpose; an attacking Neutral army will be 12 bases strong. The
defending force will be 12 bases if the area is neutral, Allied or Client, and 15 if it is a
Province. Other players may play Spades onto a neutral area to increase the size of the
army by 3 bases per card; if the area is friendly to a player he may play diamonds in the
same way as the attacker. The maximum size of any army will be 24 bases.
The first 12 bases of an attacking army is made up of a standard DBA list of the appropriate type. Any additional bases are made up of any combination of the relevant number of bases taken from the same list. Neutral defending armies are made up in the
same way, using the list for that area. However, defending armies in an empire are
slightly more complex. The first 12 bases of a Client or Ally state should be made up
from the native army list: the remaining bases from the Imperial list. A Province will be
defended by 12 bases of the Imperial list, supported by extra bases from the native list.

The actual composition of armies should be written down secretly, but revealed before
the terrain is determined.
Whatever the size and composition of an army, it only ever has one general, with 1D6
Command points.

Determining the Battlefield

The table is 3' by 3', giving plenty of scope for on table flanking manoeuvres, although if
limited command PIPS are available, these may not arrive before the battle has been
decided.
The number of pieces of terrain is dependent on the area in which the battle takes
place. Before the terrain is laid out, the defender may choose to add or remove one
piece of terrain. At the defender's option, up to half the areas may be large, and up to
half may be rough terrain. Once these decisions have been made, either player can
play Spades to alter the effects as follows: one card may change a large terrain piece to
a small one, or vice versa; add or remove a small low hill or a river; change a piece of
rough terrain to a low hill or vice versa.
The terrain is then randomly distributed on the table. Split the table into a grid of
squares 6 by 6, and roll two dice to determine in which square the terrain piece will sit.
For a river, roll dice to determine the sides which it enters and exits the table, then roll a
die to determine exactly where it crosses each table edge. After all pieces have been located, the defender chooses which side he will defend; then either player may play additional cards - a single spade will allow ONE location die for a particular piece of terrain
to be re-rolled.
The defender sets up first, and the attacker moves first. Both sides may set up within 9"
of their respective friendly table edge.

Victory and Defeat

Victory is determined as normal under the rules. If an attacking Empire wins, the area
will become a Client of that empire. If the attacker is a neutral, and wins, the area will
become neutral. In battles between two empires, the winner will take one card from the
loser (selected at random). If an empire is fighting a neutral, he will take a card from the
pack if he wins, and discard a card at random if he loses.
If the winner inflicts at least twice as many casualties as he suffers, or if he defeats a
larger army, he has won a major victory, and may take an additional card, either from
the pack or from his opponent as appropriate. A Phyrric victory is won if the victor suffers casualties equal to one third of the opponent's original number of bases, or loses a
general. No cards are gained by the player who gains such a victory.

Examples
It is near the start of the game: Assyria has made Babylon a Province, and Egypt has
made a Province of Megiddo. The Hittites have made Aleppo into a Client.
1) The Assyrian player plays 4 Hearts on Amurru: no-one attempts to trump it, so it becomes an Assyrian Ally
2)The Egyptian now plays 10 Clubs supported by 6 Diamonds, and declares an 18 base
attack on Byblos. The Assyrian player plays 6 Spades to increase the defending force to
15 bases. A battle is fought, which the Egyptian player wins, and so picks an extra card
from the pack, and Byblos becomes an Egyptian Client.

3)The Hittite player plays 6 Hearts on Aleppo, intending to make it a Province, but the
Assyrian player trumps him with the King, so Aleppo remains a Hittite Client.
4)The Assyrian now plays the 3 Clubs supported by the 8 Diamonds to send an 18 base
army to Carchemish. Aggrieved by the previous move, the Hittite plays 9 Diamonds to
trump the Assyrian card (reducing the force to fifteen bases) and also plays the 6 and
Queen of Spades to increase the size of the defending army to eighteen; the Assyrian
plays the 7 Spades to trump the 6 Spades and so the end result is that each army has
15 bases. Assyria wins the hard fought battle, and Carchemish becomes an Assyrian
Client, and Assyria picks up an extra card for winning the battle.
5)The Egyptian player now plays 2 Hearts to convert Byblos to a Province. When Assyria trumps this with the 4 Hearts, Egypt trumps that with the King, and so Byblos does indeed become Egypt's fifth province.
6)The Hittite, continuing the battle against Assyria, plays the Jack of Spades on the neutral Qadesh province, sending the 12 base army of Qadesh to attack Carchemish. Since
no other cards are played, the Assyrian must defend with 12 bases (Carchemish is a
Client). Losing this battle, Carchemish becomes neutral, and Assyria must discard a
card.
7) Egypt (now with a maximum hand of six cards, as he has six provinces) decides to
conquer Alashiya, so plays the Jack of Clubs, supported by the Queen of Diamonds (as
the army is crossing the sea). 15 Egyptian bases now attack 12 in Alashiya...
8) Determining armies: it is later in the game. Byblos, a Hittite Client, is defending with
15 bases against an 18 base Egyptian army. Pharaoh takes the standard list (4 LCh, 2
Bw, 4 Sp, 1 Bd, 1 Ps). Knowing they face a warband based army, they choose to increase it with another 4 LCh, 1 Bd and 1 Ps. The Hittites are defending a Client, so take
a standard army of the appropriate type: in this case, Sea People (1 HCh, 2 WW, 8 Wb,
1 Ps) but get to supplement it with three bases from the Hittite list. This is where it gets
difficult: do you choose heavy chariots to counter the Egyptian mounted arm, or hope to
neutralize it with terrain, and take auxiliaries? Whatever the choice, a variety of different
armies can be constructed with this method, giving varied games.