Scenery for DBA 3.0

DBA is played on 24" x 24" battlefield... and various bits of scenery are needed... I've been making various bits over the last few months. I've made two MDF boards - one for Desert, and one for all other battles.

 

24 x 24 MDF Board... covered with PVA glue and sand... and dry brushed with cheap tester pots of house paint...

PLOUGHED FIELDS... house filler on MDF boards covered in PVA and sand, then painted...

MARSH... polystyrene pizza base, PVA and sand... plus some resin water effect and a few basing tufts...

ROAD.... 3 x 8" straight pieces of thin MDF, PVA and sand... and painted to look like roads..

RIVER... 3 x 8" pieces of thin MDF... sand and PVA just along the edges and painted to look like a river...

A RIVER / ROAD crossing place - I made one of these 8" x 8" sections with a bridge from Leven miniatures...

WATERWAY - 2 x 12" pieces of thin MDF, with PVA and sand beach/edge...

A selection of HILLS - Pizza bases with PVA and Sand...

I made a few plain one level bases like the hills -
to put different removable items on to represent different things -
here we have a stone circle EDIFACE for the Ancient British.

WOODS with removable trees..

SCRUB - small pieces of green scouring pads chopped up and covered in PVA before painting...

A FORT for the Ancient British. Huts from Leven Miniatures... fencing from coffee stirrers.

A CITY for the Romans. Buildings from Leven Miniatures... wall and gatehouse made from thick cardboard.

A FORT for the Romans. Tents from Leven Miniatures. Coffee stirrer fences...

The Roman CAMP.

The Ancient British CAMP.

An example of the board set up and ready to play..
 

24" x 24" MDF Desert board

Desert CITY - a couple of bits from Leven Miniatures - the rest made from cardboard...

OASIS with removable trees...

ROCKY ground...

DUNES / DIFFICULT HILLS made from polystyrene pizza bases...covered in sand and PVA...

6mm Ancient British for DBA 3.0

Here is my Ancient British Army for DBA 3.0... with all the various options...

II/53 Ancient British 55BC - 75AD

 

1 x General in Chariot (LCh)

1 x General on foot (3Wb)

2 x Light Horse (LH)

3 x chariots (LCh)

4 x slingers (Ps)

9 x Warband (3Wb)

1 x Sacrificing Druids (7Hd)

 

They are all Rapier miniatures apart from 2 of the chariots which are from Baccus 6mm... as I'm typing this I've just realised I need to base up 2 more units of slingers.... (they're already painted anyway!)

So now I've got 2 full armies for DBA... Romans vs Ancient British... I want to do some armies with camels and elephants next....

 

6mm EARLY IMPERIAL ROMANS for DBA

And so here is my first 6mm Army for DBA 3.0 (That's De Bellis Antiquitatis version 3.0).

Early Imperial Romans 25 BC - 197 AD (II/56 in the rule book).

 

They are metal 6mm figures all from Rapier Miniatures (apart from the bolt-shooters which are from Baccus Miniatures). The Rapier miniatures took about 6 weeks to arrive, but they were worth the wait, they seem slightly nicer models than the Baccus ones in my opinion, and they are also more reasonably priced. I ordered these Romans and also an army of Ancient British/Celts which I am half way through painting....

 

I decided to go for white tunics on the Romans, red shields, and white plumes on any helmets. The Numidians have blue and beige shields. The General has a white cloak and white horse to help him stand out on the battlefield.

 

In DBA the army you field always has 12 bases of troops, but you can choose from various options, so I have made bases for all of those apart from the Gladiators and Roman Light Camels (which I'm not going to need for battles in Ancient Britain!)...

 

1 x General on horseback (Cv)

1 x General on foot (4Bd)

2 x Equites (Cv)

4 x Legionaries (4Bd)

4 x Auxiliary Pedites (4Ax)

1 x Archers (4Bw)

1 x Slingers (Ps)

2 x Numidians (LH)

1 x symmachiarii (3Wb)

1 x Lancers (3Kn)

1 x Bolt Shooters (Art)

 

 

28mm Perry Miniature for scale comparison!

Day trip to the Royal Armouries...

Today was the last day of the school holidays (and my last day off work for my 2 week summer holiday)... so for a final day trip I took my son to the Royal Armouries museum in Leeds - It was a great day out - very interesting indeed. They have a huge collection of arms and armour from ancient times up to modern. There really is a lot to see. Personally I found the Ancient and Medieval bits the most interesting.. the more modern stuff not so much, although it was good to see the collection of screen printed CND and Anti-War posters they had from the 1980's.

 

Roman Swords

 

This was the highlight for me - a huge diorama of the Battle of Agincourt using 28mm miniatures (they looked like they might be Perry Miniatures - but not 100% sure on that) - the black rectangles around the edge are periscopes that let you see the battlefield from the miniatures eye level... very cool!!

Some inspiration for a future DBA army??

Big Battle D.B.A.

   Nick and some of the guys at C.O.G.S. invited me over to join in on a four player game of De Bellis Antiquitatis last night. It was Late Persians vs Greeks in 15mm... We played a scaled up version (Big Battle) of D.B.A. on a double sized board with the equivalent of 3 standard D.B.A. armies per side.  The Big Battle rules introduce the demoralisation rule, which was a very interesting addition. Nick and I were the Greeks. It was close, but in the end the Persians won.