You got a lotta Gaul there...

 Or perhaps, not so much Gaul after all, certainly not by the miniature counts of many historical wargames.

15mm is probably my favourite scale of miniature, and one of the games I used to play quite a lot in this scale was De Bellus Antiquitatus (DBA for short).

DBA, by the Wargames Research Group, and Phil and Sue Barker, is a game that manages to wrap a relatively simple game system in an ineffable cloud of nigh-impenetrable language. Why make a single statement when a rambling paragraph will contain the clues required to find that statement! Despite this barrier to entry, DBA is a good, simple, and well researched game, that has a good historical feel to it. I have fond memories of playing it. There are some 300+ army lists for this game, dating from around 3000BC to about 1500AD, so plenty of options from all around the world, which is nice.

Getting back into the painting gig this year, and chatting to a guy at our local game store a month or so ago about DBA had me rummaging through my boxes of stuff for 15mm figures I had bought with the intention of painting and playing, but which instead, had sat in a box untouched for nearly seven years. My 15mm Gauls!

I had already done up a couple of bases of Gauls for a game called Sword and Spear, but since I have no intention of going back to that game (despite it being an excellent game), I decided to rebase what I had done for DBA, and paint up all the other bits and pieces I was missing.

All the following miniatures are from Baueda Miniatures, while the shield transfers are from Little Big Men Studios. The models are nicely detailed, and didn't require too much cleaning up. Probably the ones that needed the most work were the cavalry, but even so it was minor, and not really noticeable at this scale. 

The shield transfers are lovely, and really add some nice detail to the miniatures. I thoroughly recommend them, though they can be a little fiddly. One other thing to note is that the transfers worked fine, even after sitting in a box for seven years.

The bases for the Gauls I cut from some 40mm deep MDF bases I had left over from a Kings of War army. They're a little wonky on some edges, but perfectly serviceable.

The first units I finished were 8 elements of Warband. This is the core of the Gaul army. Under the latest iteration of the DBA rules I could base these either with 3 or 4 figures on each base - each representing either 'Fast' or 'Solid' troop types. But to be honest I couldn't be bothered with this. Firstly, I have a physical copy of the 2.0 rules, so if I do play DBA it will likely be with these rules. Secondly, if I do play 3.0, I'll use some tokens or something to represent the difference. I'm not painting up more than double the figures I need. Third and lastly, these figures were re-based from units I had previously painted for Sword and Spear, with some minor touch ups here and there. 

Now we're moving on to units I actually painted recently, 3 elements of Chariots, and 1 element of Psiloi, in this case slingers (and everything that follows).

The chariots were a pain in the arse to assemble, and I painted the charioteers separately, then glued them after everything had been painted and sealed. Despite being annoying to put together, I think they came out well, and look very nice!

Every army in DBA has a base, and this is my Gaulish version. A tent, some tables, a few sacks, and some camp followers, what more could an army on the march require? I think it looks really cool. Pretty happy with how this came out.

The last elements I assembled and painted were the cavalry. I ended up basing them after painting them, because I felt the proximity of the figures to one another would make it difficult to paint. I didn't enjoy doing it in this order, perhaps next time I'll try painting them already based, we'll see.

I had to modify some of the decals for these figures, as the shield sizes didn't match up very well, but the end result was solid I think. I really like how the figures came out.

And that's that, the entirety of my Gaul army. DBA is played with 12 elements (bases) per side, and most armies have some different options (Gauls can take chariots or cavalry for example). I now have all the options for the DBA Gaul army painted, based, and ready to rumble (well, all the options for the version of the rules I have).

I'm really pleased with how they've come together, and what they look like on the table. 15mm has a pleasant balance between aesthetics and scale. The bases have lots of figures, which have a great table presence, they are small enough to paint with relative ease, and still large enough to have some nice detail and definition. I'm looking forward to playing! 

Speaking of table presence, I also made a board for DBA (as seen in the last few images). I'll do a post about making it at some point in the future.