DBA / DBM versus Warhammer Ancients

This is bizarre;

When I first decided to start an ancients army, I scoured the net for free rules and picked one essentially at random for two reasons; it differentiated between the different troop types I wanted to use, and, the main one, it gave actual base sizes rather than the others I looked at which had phrases like "base all figures on the same size base". The game angle was secondary, I just wanted to paint and base some figures, but thought it would be useful to have them on suitable bases in case I ever did get round to playing a game with them.

These rules used imperial measurements for basing, and were quite exact, things like 1 and 3/16" for light horse or some such (I'm making that figure up, I can't remember the actual details). It also suggested basing figures in multiples for ease of movement. Depth wasn't important, so long as your figures fitted comfortably on the bases.

I wanted to keep as close to the original scheme as possible, but with my preference for the decimal number system (I've never found it natural to count in multiples of 8, 16, 32 or whatever) I spent a while converting the figures to metric, and fudging them slightly to keep round numbers, keeping in mind how I would eventually base the figures. This fudging was very, very minor, and I settled on the following frontages;

Light foot - 20mm
Medium and heavy foot - 12mm
Light horse - 30mm
Medium, heavy and super heavy horse - 20mm
(I had no intention of using chariots, elephants or anything like that)

Depth worked out quite well using 20mm plastics, which have fairly consistent bases; 20mm for foot, 40mm for horse.

This worked out quite nicely, particularly if I based my foot two ranks deep. Two ranks of five heavy infantry, two ranks of three skirmishers, two light horse or three heavy horse all ended up on a base 60mm wide by 40mm deep. They look good like this too; a base of heavy infantry is a dense mass of ten figures, shield to shield in two ranks, light infantry is six figures loosely spread around, heavy horse is three in a tight row, light horse two more loosely arranged.

Lo and behold all my units are 60mm wide, 40mm deep elements. On further investigation, it looks like these rules I picked at random are the precursors to DBA, written by wargames research group.


I see what you mean about not wanting too much info in case it inspires you into buying new armies I was amazed to see DBM covers nearly 5000 years! I can at last put together a force of historically accurate border reivers, for which I've got a well known soft spot, instead of somehow shoehorning the reiver mentality into whatever period I'm currently into (like my almost soon to be nearly complete fow rifle company, which I've already named The Border Reivers in a flash of originality - haven't quite worked out how to work them into my afrika korps though - yet) I've already got some skirmish rules for reiver cattle raiding (one of their favourite pastimes) but I'm very tempted to put together a set to play the battle of Flodden, 1513, using the wars of the roses list.

…and then there's the set of agincourt era british I've got because my mate got sent them in error with an order of other stuff.

… and I quite fancy a bit of northumbrian Saxons vs Vikings, fighting around bamburgh castle and lindisfarne

…and Ahh enough!!! %20:

That's the whole army?!?!?!

That's it, I'm getting into this! that looks like one afternoons work! Also, looking at what i've already got in 20mm, I've got a complete army already I reckon, so I can start branching right away. I really like my 20mm for ancients, but those figures do look good, would never have guessed they were 15mm. and without all the annoying drawbacks of polythene too.

Come to think of it, I've already played this game before i think, at least the units and army size look familiar. That was about, damn, fifteen year ago if I remember rightly.

I like the way they've made dba and dbm totally compatible too. A lot of games companies could learn from that idea!

It would have been 90/91 when I played this game, my first year at college. I can only ever remember that because just after I left school I went to see New Model Army (the band, not the army) and got a T-shirt that had "summer 1990" printed on the back. That T shirt (or rather the memory of it, it has long since dissolved) is still my only reference point for dates in the distant past.

So anyway, if you fancy a trip down to petone anytime, there should be a good range of 20mm ancients armies to have a barnie with.

I haven't had a good read of dbm yet, but I will be swinging toward it cos dba armies just don't have enough figures!

Heh. Olympian Games have pretty good service too, I've placed two large orders with them in 2006 with no problems at all. Tell Dean I recommended them to you

You don't have to pay Aussie GST either which is nice.

Yup, 10% less. Bloody Aussies! Even their sales tax is lower than ours ....

Why the hell do I still live in NZ?

Well that was easy! My first dba army is just about complete. Admittedly it didn't take long as I already had them all painted and just needed to rebase the infantry. Just ordered the "knights" from canterbury miniature group; when they get here we're done. First enemy for these sub-roman britons is going to be saxons. I like that army list; 11 x warband and a psiloi!

After reading the bit about "big battle dba" I've realised I don't even need to bother to dbm, stick with the simple one. That should be an interesting game, triple the amount of britons against thirty odd warbands! Felt good today buying plastic ancients again, but I reckon I might still swing for a few 15mm armies too.