Atomic Ancients & Miniature Medievals

DBA in 2mm

Danielle Varelli's review of the Irregular Miniatures 2mm Ancients (on the SoA website) prompted me to re-work a leaflet that I produced some time ago to support demonstrations that I did at some shows here in the North of England during the past few years.

Unlike Danielle, I had never seen (and still haven't) anyone else using 2mm figures (which is quite surprising as Irregular tell me that they continue to sell very well). I was fascinated by them; whole armies in the palm of your hand, 'real' looking bodies of troops instead of a few representative figures and a tiny storage space needed.

I started with buying a lot of ACW stuff and a few samples from other ranges, the ACW never came to much as I got bogged down developing Corps level rules to go with them but the Ancient/Medieval seemed to offer some scope. I was beginning to get back into DBA with some 15mm 'Dark Ages' armies and didn't fancy DBM but a local group were experimenting with a 'big battle' version of DBA and I wanted to try out their ideas (plus a few of my own) but had nowhere near enough figures. The 2mm blocks seemed a likely answer so I started thinking .....

Elephants with Howdahs [ABG21]

De Bellis Minisculis

Indian Elephant with crew astride [ABG15]

The standard base sizes and scales for 2mm suggested in the DBA rules are 30mm frontage by 10mm depth using a battlefield the same size (600mm) as for most other sizes. This needs up to four 2mm blocks (those made by Irregular) per base and requires cutting many blocks to fit. If we assume that a 2mm block represents a unit, why not use them as such and use a base size that will fit the blocks and modify the ground scale and playing area to suit.

Elephant with Light Infantry

ABG1 (above) - Blades - ABG2 (below)

Changes to the DBA rules

Basing

Basing at such small sizes is best done directly onto a magnetic base. The thicker type, available in sheets or strips, is rigid enough once the block has been fixed to it. Using a magnetic base makes the elements easy to store and carry, place them in tins or on small boxes lined with steel paper or thin tinplate. I have nearly 500 DBA elements stored in a box only 250mm by 270mm and 60mm deep. This stuff is fairly expensive but it makes the job of basing and storing such small items so much easier that it is worth the extra expense.

If you use the self adhesive magnetic strip then cut the required number of bases to size first. Remove the backing paper and press the block base firmly onto the sticky side. If the base doesn’t stick or if you are putting individual figures on a base I wouldn’t risk the self-adhesive. Use super glue if there is any doubt it will stick

Put the textured blocks in a tray and sprinkle fine scatter or fine, dry sand over the lot. Shake or lightly brush off of the excess scatter. I find it best to seal this texturing to the base by overpainting up to the edges of the block with textured paint that is a bit thinner than normal. If you use coloured textured paint it also acts as the base colour and you can finish off the base after painting by dry-brushing with a darker or lighter shade.

Don’t be tempted to try basing too many at once. It is more fiddly and frustrating than it looks and if you leave the adhesive too long the scatter doesn’t stick as well.

Painting Tips

At the risk of trying to teach my Grandmother to suck eggs (my 15mm figures never won a painting competition and nor will my 2mm) the following seem to work for me.

General’s Elements

In most scales it is possible to use figures with standards etc. to indicate a general’s element but 2mm is too small to do this easily. You could add a large standard of appropriate type to an element with thin wire, a small drill and some foil.

Because my units are generic (i.e. I don't have Roman, Greek or Hunnic Cv I just have Cv) I have made separate standards based on steel paper so that they can go under a based element and be moved with it. This means any element can be converted to a general. The diagram shows how this is done.

Terrain

You need a fairly smooth surface as a playing area. I started by using carpet tiles with very little ‘nap’ but I haven’t seen them in the shops for ages. A cloth or an MDF board given some texture with masonry paint does just as well.

Terrain features can be bought with the figure blocks and some are OK. Walls, hedges, bridges and buildings & settlements are all available but of variable quality, the woods look good but are too small. The ‘Road & Tree pack’ paints up very well as either roads or rivers but needs a lot of preparation as it is poorly cast.

There is a list of Irregular's 2mm terrain range here and some scans of them here.

Woods can be carved out of cork tiles, coated liberally with PVA and then sprinkled with scatter. Fields of crops can be made by painting thin lines of PVA onto brown card and sprinkling bright green scatter on them. For bad going stick a few small stones and tiny bits of moss onto card. Hills are best made with a smooth surface and less steep than normal as the bases won’t stay on a steep textured surface, I use 2 layers of 6mm MDF filed and sanded to shape and then painted with only a bit of texturing.

Distinguishing troop types

Telling one type of element from another or even which way an element is facing can be difficult during a battle and so I paint a coloured dot on the two front corners of the base. The colour is used to distinguish between different elements with similar appearance (e.g. Sp, Bd & Bw are all close order foot).

 

	El, Ar, Pk, WWg & SC don’t need dots as it is obvious what they are.
	Hd are the only 2 deep element.
	CF have no dots, they are made obvious by their position.

Conclusions

Danielle makes it quite clear in his review that he considers this scale only suitable for the manic or the obsessed and I can't fault him on that. Surely anyone who plays wargames fits pretty well into that category.

2mm won't suit the 25mm brigade (but surely VIKINGS should have BLUE eyes !!!) and the owner of a 2mm horde will suffer from a certain amount of derision and be the butt of eternal 'small' jokes so a good sense of humour is called for.

Taken as a serious proposition, accepting their limitations (lack of detail, fiddly to make and play) but also recognising their advantages (cheap, small, portable and quick to produce), 2mm armies are viable and fun. The figures may be tiny but the armies look HUGE.