Who is playing what rules - shared by Bruce Ferguson, 29 August 2022

 

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It's now been over two years since I last posted a full-year update on who was playing what on the UK Ancients Competition scene - which is of course hardly surprising given that no-one was able to play anything face to face for much of that time, with various grades of Lockdown running from the start of 2020 until around mid-June 2021.

Ancients competition wargaming in the UK did however stutter (or in some cases "roar") back to life again in the middle of last year, and so with over 12 months of events to look back on it's probably as good a time as any to start once again having a look at Who's Playing What.

This set of "post-Lockdown" stats cover the UK "player universe" numbers for competition players across 7 of the most popular Ancients mass-battle rulesets for all events held in the UK in since things started up again at the end of June 2021 that I can find results for.

Some headlines:

Total Unique Player Numbers

ADLG 177 (180)

MeG 66 (62)

DBMM 61 (72)

DBA 55 (67)

DBM 40 (44)

FoGAM 35 (48)

TTS! 28 (64)

(2019 calendar year in brackets)

This shows how many different, UK-based players have taken part in an competition since Lockdown restrictions were eased in summer 2021.

The upshot is that post-Lockdown, total player numbers across all sets still compare very favourably with the 2019 totals - and (as I'll go into in the commentary on each set) even the more notable shortfalls can usually be explained by event scheduling or other issues unrelated to any loss of enthusiasm for face to face gaming in general post-Lockdown

The full thing, with more stats and ruleset-by-ruleset commentary is online to dive into at:

https://madaxemandotcom.blogspot.com/.../whos-playing...

https://www.facebook.com/groups/824840264342234/posts/2148157855343795/

• Vincent Cholewa

  Admin

  Group expert

  The three DBx systems together are more than 150 players. The reason they are there at all is the rules are good and, in no small part, because of the efforts of players to support and promote them. For a bunch of reasons WRG does little to promote itself and its own, excellent rules.

  

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• Bruce Ferguson

  Author

  Good points Vince. I can't help but think that ADLG must be worth a try though. I also note despite excellent marketing and production values FOG has all but fizzled out.

  

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    Nick Buckby

    Bruce Ferguson hard-earned experience tells us that the ancients scene works way, way better for the majority if there is only one set of rules commonly used.

    I say that with great regret as a huge fan of ADLG.

    

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    • Bruce Ferguson

      Author

      Nick Buckby That's a ringing endorsement for ADLG though, most people talk about DBMM like someone suffering from battered wife syndrome

      

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  • Kelly Gay

    Bruce Ferguson I suspect many FOG players would have gone over to ADLG. There are some similar mechanisms. Right now it seems that ADLG is played in 15mm, while generally DBMM is played in 25mm. This might be an interesting NZ compromise. Having said that, I do agree with Nick Buckby - this is such a small hobby that too many rules sets might be quite damaging overall.

    

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