All, just happened to come across the new (primarily I guess) 15mm Ancients rules called “Field of Glory” (FoG). It is written by Richard Bodley Scott, Simon Hall, Terry Shaw and essentially it is a challenger to the currently available DBMM rules which are a replacement for the venerable DBM rules.
The rules will be published by Osprey, which essentially guarantees good quality and wide distribution – unlike DBMM which is only available through the “Slow”(well in my experience it was slow and unresponsive to email!) postal service of Caliver Books.
A bit about DBMM first, DBMM is not written for the first time gamer – a good command of English ad former knowledge of DBM is very useful, and sadly in this day and age – an over priced, small format black and white publication (apart from the cover that is!) – even the example diagrams are no more advanced than that of DBM publication. Saying that DBMM is much faster than DBM and a result is usually had in an evening – and can be quite enjoyable – but in my opinion with so many factors to remember, which change with who’s turn it is – it means that even old DBM players like me are unable to pick DBMM quickly and swapping armies as much as I did (and enjoyed) with DBM is out of the question… simply to many rules to remember! – Overall this is a poor successor to DBM which given DBMs problems I thoroughly enjoyed playing!
Just browsing the link below shows me that FoG will be a high quality (as expected form Osprey) colour publication, with some nice explanatory drawings to show you what’s going own, additionally it would appear from first glance FoG is going down the route of WAB – namely a fairly hefty tome for the rules (with a hefty price $50!) – followed by themed supplements for the army lists ($25.99) – although the army lists for FoG seem to cover larger swathes of history than WAB – good for those who focus on one area of history bad for those who must buy all the supplements and have an army to go with each!
I for one am looking forward to these rules in February 08 and will also be buying one or two of the supplements – finally will get a chance to use my old DBM armies – (hoping those I have do not require to much re basing or else EBAY here I come!) – also will give FoG a go using some of my WAB 28mm armies as it seems written for both scales!
Take a look here:
http://www.slitherine.com/games/field_of_glory
and here:
Regards
Andy