"What armies are popular in the 15mm rulesets?" Topic

DBx, FOG or whatever

Much depends on whether you mean for competitions or club/home games. I have a number of armies which I would play in a club game with a matched opponent but would not want to take to a competition.

Most DBMM competitions do get a good spread of armies – in a 20-ish player competition, there are usually only a couple of duplicates so there aren't really overwhelmingly popular armies.

For competition, some armies are more effective when in themes, so that can affect their popularity. Overall, though, the ones I seem to see more often in DBMM comps are things like:
Later Assyrian, Seleucid, Marian Roman, Later Roman (_very_ popular), Hunnic, Condotta Italian, Ottomans, Later Hungarian, Wars of the Roses.

The various armies with the better types of 'light horse' are generally popular too (which includes some of the above).

If it is specifically 'Classical Asian' armies which interest, then Mongol is probably the most popular. Some of the Chinese armies of the era running from the Northern and Southern Dynasties through to the end of the Tang probably crop up more than the other periods, though I think I have seen every Chinese list get used at some point.

Khmer is reasonably common – probably due to the artillery carried on the back of the elephants.

Samurai are pretty rare. I've used them but I think I've only ever seen one other person with them. Some of the earlier Japanese armies are more popular – Khurasan's lovely figures help.

Yeah I was looking for specifically 'Classical Asian' armies.

I've never built one, thought about it this time

What does 'Classical Asian' encompass?

I could fit Assyrian through Samurai into that terminology :)

Most popular round here is just what individuals like – so if you have a penchant for something build that, what's it matter what others do?

I go for the most fun to paint for DBA.

Samurai, ever popular colourful choice.
Chinese with rocket batteries, because rockets.
Khmer with elephants, because ballista on elephants!

That final one is my #1 choice, and I do have a mix of Khmer/Cham/Burma armies for big battle, although I suppose that's Classical South East Asian.

I would suggest on an army that you like, not what you hear others like.

Tibetan's are tough to beat and it's hard to go wrong with Early Tang (at least in DBM). Tibetan's have lots of heavily armored knights. They're a tough nut to crack. Tang have excellent cavalry with solid infantry to back it up.

Don't know how popular they are but I have a soft spot for Sung Chinese. There's so many of them and stampeding oxen at your opponent is just cool.

As far as BDM goes I use the Post Mongol Samurai from the DBMM army list book, it's exactly the same as the M version except for having 0-8 ish Bw(s) in it, which makes a small difference.
I have them in both 15 and 25mm, my 25's won themselves a tournement once but I haven't run the 15's much as they need terrain to anchor at least one flank off of.
I would advise really thinking about starting to paint a Samurai army, it's difficult enough in 15 but 25's have a whole different level of dedication needed to finish it.

Shakespear,
Here's a quick link to my Samurai army, you will notice my painting changes a bit as while painting them I changed my style trying different things in order to get the job done better or easier, and just getting more practiced hopefully.

So the whole thing was a learning experience as well, I think the Cv were first ish ones I started on where I got the paint a little heavy on them but by some of the last lots of ashigaru had managed to perfect it a bit more.

link
I chose them for two reasons, one was I'd always wanted to have a samurai army and the second( more importantly I suppose ) I saw a large lot of Perry samurai figures for sale on ebay going cheaply.