25mm DBA in the US

Hello all,

My local DBM group will be trying out DBA this spring, and we will be using the "Man's Scale" - 25mm. We were wondering if any of you old grognards had any specific suggestions regarding gaming DBA in this scale - preferences for non-standard board sizes, etc.

Also, will there be any 25mm DBA at Cold Wars this year? DBA and 25mm seem to be an ideal match, given the small scale of the armies. It's a shame there aren't more 25mm gamers out there.

Other Dave

Our group plays almost exclusively 25mm. Mostly scenario games, not simple 1-0n-1's. See here
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~beattie/bobs.html

Cold Wars will have the 25mm open, as it has for last 10 years, on Saturday night, 7-11pm. There will also be a 25mm HOTT tournament (15mm figs can also be used on 25mm temp bases).

Any comments from players on whether the tournament should use the old 4 foot battlefields or the 2.1 3 foot recommendation?

When DBA first hit the market, I thought that DBM armies would remain mainly 15mm and DBA would cause a resurgence in 25mm Ancients. It just has not increased the popularity of 25mm as much as I thought it would. Most of the DBA events that I see in the South are still 15mm. In the 25mm venue, I think that in some nationalities there may be more variety than in 25mm such as native nations. Good luck and have fun.

[Chris Brantley]

For what's it worth, I see DBV, it is is published and proves popular, to be the best venue for promoting 25/28mm figures. People could collect "warbands" of 20-48 figures in different periods (e.g. Vikings, Trojans, Celts, etc.) much like they currently collect 15mm DBA armies.

[ January 26, 2004, 13:56: Message edited by: Chris Brantley ]

I think Chris is right, if DBV gets published properly it has real potential. I know it is the only way I will even think about doing anything with 25mm!

20-48 figures - isn't that DBA? It's very manageable IMO...

Other Dave

Use the 48" square board, the downsize to 36 should never have happened!

25mm is the way to go for DBA.

Recently I moved to an small town in the Pacific Northwest where historical miniatures players have been hard to find unless I travel two and a half to three hours drive away. So I visited a shop in a slightly bigger town twenty minutes drive from where I now live. The shop owner has a large Games Workshop crowd and asked if I would be willing to teach DBA to some of his older customers who he is fairly confident would invest in a few armies. I plan on running the first few initial(demo)games in 25mm. Then a few more in 15mm.

To me 25mm is the more visually eye catching scale for DBA. Especially when teaching new players. Currently I am in the process of making 4'x4' terrain boards for 25mm Medieval Armies that I have. Hopefully with a little extra effort, this will draw in new interest among the customers that frequent the shop and over time word will spread in this area. There is more than enough space in the back section of this shop to one day sponsor tournaments and events. The shop's owner is more than willing to open up this unused space to the historical crowd. Time will tell...

[ January 27, 2004, 00:50: Message edited by: Robert of Port Angeles ]

Originally posted by Robert of Port Angeles:
25mm is the way to go for DBA.

25mm is nice for demos and skirmish games, but 15mm is where my heart lies for DBA. There are a billion ranges of figures available, the figures are much cheaper, and they paint up faster. This makes it much more likely I'll achieve my goal of painting up every single DBA army (with all options). And since the ratio of 15mm players to 25mm is something like 9:1, I'll have a lot more opponents, too!

I have plastic figures mounted as 25mm armies in the ranges that were available to me: Medieval Europeans, mostly. Also Samurais and other rule sets, ACW, AWI, Napoleonics.

Metal 25mm is too expensive for me.