DBA is amongst that rare breed of wargaming
rules; it has been enduring and popular for over twenty five years. Written by
a team effort of Phil Barker, Sue Laflin-Barker and Richard Bodley Scott, it
was a radical shift from the wargames that had gone before. The interesting
story of the DBA rules was included
in the book DBA 2.2 Simple Ancient and
Medieval Wargaming Rules (also published by the History of Wargaming Project). DBA
has developed from the first edition of the rules presented at the Conference of Wargamers and the Society of Ancients Conference in 1989 and
now, in 2014, the rules are version 3.0.
When
the WRG Ancient Rules were first published in 1969, they were soon very popular
amongst the tiny number of wargamers in the world. As the hobby of wargaming expanded,
there were new players who were keen to start, but who needed a guide to help
them get started in ancient wargaming. There were calls for a book about
ancient wargaming to accompany the WRG rules. In 1975, Phil Barker answered
this call and wrote The Airfix Guide to
Ancient Wargaming; this so called 'The Purple Primer' provided such a guide
and was sought after second hand long after it was out of print.
The
aim of this new book by Sue Laflin-Barker is to provide a new 'Purple Primer'
for those starting the hobby of ancient and medieval wargaming with the DBA rules. It covers a range of topics
from choosing and assembling an army, to a discussion of the rules and sample
army lists with explanations. This guide has been written for the current
version of the DBA rules, version 3.0
and it is hoped this book will be of equal utility as its predecessor, The original
‘Purple Primer'.
