Who Played What? - the 2024 Edition

 

With Storm Darragh having been battering the country, what better time to crack open an early bottle of egg-nog and play with some spreadsheets to churn out another edition of my reasonably regular end of year update on competition attendances across a number of widely played Ancients rulesets in the UK!

As usual I'll start with (repeating) the ground rules and caveats. 

The only thing these numbers measure is attendances at UK “competition” events held during 2024 for which results (or runners and riders) have been published online that I've been able to find and make sense of.

Every ruleset in this list is very good at doing this with most also producing their own annual rankings as an additional reference point to double-check the data. The odd player might be missed (or included) at an individual event, especially where nicknames have been used, but other than that unless any events have somehow been publicised, organised, played and concluded during 2024 without leaving an online footprint of any kind on any of the mainstream forums used by the players of the rulesets concerned (I mean, really...?) it’s a fair bet that every competition that has happened should have been included. 

Whilst some players appear in the stats twice because they played two rulesets over the course of the past year this is discounted for the analysis as numbers are too low to impact the main trends. And it's too much work to de-dupe them by name as well !

The final thing to bear in mind is that for most of the rulesets in this analysis the total number of players falls between 30-80, so a car not starting, or the designated driver's daughter getting married on the weekend that 4 clubmates would otherwise have done their “once a year” competition will generate a 5-10% swing in overall player numbers for almost all of these 7 rulesets - so please don't read too much into any single digit, single year variation. Instead it’s the bigger trends and swings that count, capturing moments in time and adding them together to form a broad-brush picture over the longer term - which is why I have similar stats from the end of 2022, 2019, 2018, and 2017. 

So with those qualifications out of the way, onto the 2024 data.

Total Player Numbers 

(UK based players / UK+Overseas players): 

1. ADLG    172 / 184       (2023: 178/186)     (L'Art de la Guerre)
2. MeG       77 / 82           (2023: 78/87)         (Mortem et Gloriam)
3. DBA       65 / 67          (2023: 64/64)         (De Bellis Antiquarius)
4. DBMM   57 / 71          (2023  : 59/73)       (De Bellis Magister Militum)
5. TTS!      55 / 55         (2023: 52/52)      (To The Strongest!)
6. FoGAM  41 /41           (2023: 35/39)         (Field of Glory Ancient & Medieval)
7. DBM      37 / 38           (2023: 40/41)         (De Bellis Militarium)

ADLG has again comfortably retained the top spot in terms of popularity, seeing almost 20% more UK-based competition players than the next two sets combined. MeG has retained second place, and a resurgent DBA has laid claim to third place, moving ahead of what is now a fairly static DBMM figure, with TTS! now only a gnats todger behind.

At the other end of the scale the two "free" sets, FoG and DBM are still locked together with around 40 players per year each - less players than attend some of the larger individual events in the calendar for other sets.

This gives an on-trend total of 504 UK-based players across these 7 rulesets, almost bang-on the 2023 total of 496.  This rises to 538 including overseas entrants, compared to 532 in 2023.   

Total number of entries made 

1. ADLG      729    (2023: 727)
2. MEG        326    (381)
3. DBMM    226    (263)
4. DBA         241   (220)
5. FOG         240    (204)
6. TTS          171     (100) 
7. DBM        164    (166)

These figures count the total number of entries across all competitions for each set, and are therefore indicative of a number of factors - average attendance, number of events held - and also reflect to a degree the number of active players on each circuit. As such, some of the rulesets figures in this table show quite marked year on year variances, both negative and positive. 

Of the fallers, the MeG circuit lost a handful of smallish 1-day events from its calendar this year, with 19 events running in 2024 compared to 22 last year. Likewise DBMM's decline in participation coincided with the calendar being shortened by 2 events compared to 2023. 

TTS! in comparison added 4 new competitions this year, going from 8 to 12 at the same time as seeing participation increase at their existing events too.  FoG delivered a fairly steep rise in aggregate participation off the back of an unchanged calendar, and DBA actually managed to record a solid increase in numbers while running 1 less event than in 2023!  

New to Each Circuit this year

(UK based players / UK+Overseas players):

1. TTS!        19 / 19
2. MeG        16 / 16
3. ADLG     15 / 20
4. DBA        15 / 17
5. DBM        3 / 3
6. DBMM     3 / 3
7. FoGAM    2 / 2 

A very marked split can be seen between "active" and "legacy" rulesets in terms of ability to attract new players to the competition circuit this year, with the newest set on the list, TTS! heading the leaderboard in terms oof new UK-based recruits this year.

The new-player count for TTS! was however matched by the number of non-returnees, generating almost 40% churn among the player base year on year. Both DBA & MeG also saw a similar outcome, with churn levels in the region of 20-25% of what were essentially flat player numbers across 2023-24.  Conversely DBM, DBMM, FoG and ADLG all saw their churn levels running at 10% or less, although across rather differently scaled baselines. 

Ruleset-specific commentary

ADLG (L'Art de la Guerre)

ADLG remained the most widely played Ancients competition ruleset across the UK in 2024, even after losing 2 competitions (and 6 players) from the circuit compared to the previous year. Taking the Covid-affected years out of the equation, ADLG has now been competitively played by 170-180 UK-based players every year since 2019. 

The 12 international players who came to the UK to play ADLG last year were again within the now-normal range, which has seen anywhere between 8-23 overseas visitors coming to the UK in any given year since ADLG first started being played here. This year 20 first-timers appeared on the UK ADLG circuit, with 5 of these also being overseas-based.

58 players (33% of the total pool) played in only 1 event this year, with a further 25 only appearing twice to put an aggregate total of 45% of the UK ADLG circuit in the "casual competitor" category this year - including all of the overseas visitors. Looking just at  UK players nudges these percentages down a little to 28% and 42% respectively.

15 players accounted for 25% of all of the 729 competition entries made in 2024 (a total essentially unchanged from the 727 recorded across 2023), with 39 players making up half of the aggregate annual field.

The 36 events held included some competitions some taking place in parallel (in different scales) at the same venue, and with date clashes as well the most events anyone could theoretically have entered in 2024 was 30 - still more than 50% greater than any other circuit. Only 2 players managed to make it to even half of this total, giving ADLG players potentially the most diverse mix of potential opponents at any given event compared to any other ruleset.

10 of the 36 ADLG competitions were held in the 25mm/28mm scale, the rest being 15mm events. Were these 10 larger scale tournaments to be treated as a circuit in their own right, 28mm ADLG would be a bigger circuit than both FoG and DBM, with 55 ADLG players (52 UK based) wheeling out their big toys at least once per year.

Three competitions this year drew in 40 or more competitors playing ADLG, each of these running parallel events in both scales, with Warfare hitting an impressive 50 across 15mm & 28mm this past November - also exceeding the full-year UK-wide pools of players for at least 2 other sets. 

DBMM

The size of the DBMM player universe across all UK events is essentially unchanged between 23-24, leaving the UK-based total a little short of 60, locking-in a recent fall in numbers that coincided broadly with the Covid break, before which annual turnout was usually in the 70's-80's.

With 14 overseas players in 2024 DBMM also sneaked ahead of ADLG to record the most international competitors of any ruleset last year - although it is possible that some of the players listed as "international" on the DBMM.org rankings site are in fact now UK based.

Of the 17 DBMM events to take place, 7 failed to reach double figures of attendees (although combining the two parallel periods at Roll Call changes this to 6 events out of 16), which contributed to an overall 14% tailing off in the total number of entries across the year, from 263 last year down to 226 in 2024.

6 players made up 25% of all entries, with 16 making up half of the aggregate field. 26 players (37%) only entered one tournament, and 53% only entering one or two events this year, although this was skewed by the large number of overseas players. Taking all overseas players out of the equation changes these figures to 30% and 47% respectively, marking very little actual change from prior years.

3 new players joined the MM-playing ranks this year, joined by a number of returnees - one who had previously last entered a competition way back in 2011!

DBA

DBA has really picked up the pace in the last couple of years, and with 67 players across 14 events is enjoying having the biggest pool of players since I started looking at competition results back in 2016.

DBA always seems to be able to draw in new players, and 2024 has been no exception with 17 new faces appearing on the circuit for the first time (including 2 visitors from Australia - presumably packing their DBA armies in hand luggage!) to a calendar of events where the average attendance was also a healthy 17.

26 players (39% of the pool) entered only 1 event during the year, with well over half of the UK's DBA players (41 players, 61%) only entering 1 or 2 competitions this year - the highest proportion for any ruleset in this survey. 

With all bar one of the DBA events in the calendar being one-day affairs, the logistics of "how far will I travel to play in a one-day event (and then drive home)?" is probably behind some of this particular stat's relatively high score for the UK DBA community - the two antipodean tourists excepted of course - as other circuits which run mostly with 2-day events might expect more of their attehndees to stay overnight.   

7 players made up 25% of all entries, with 16 making up half of the aggregate field across the year, with closest anyone came to entering all 14 events being the 4 players who all made it to 10 events each.

TTS! (To The Strongest!)

TTS! greatly expanded the number of events held this year, with a number of "non-competition" events also taking place (which are excluded from these stats to ensure consistency of data sources across all 7 sets).

The 12 events held this year averaged just over 14 participants each, with the calendar-opener in Cardiff topping the list with 22. No-one (quite) managed to attend all 12, but three players got into double figures of attendance, contributing to the 6 most active players contributing 25% of the overall entries and 13 contributing more than half that annual total.

19 players (34%) only entered one event, with 30 (54%) only entering one or two, meaning that the 5 most enthusiastic players between them appeared as many times as the "lest enthusiastic" 30. 

The engagement levels of the 19 new TTS! competitors varied substantially, with more than half of them turning out to at least 2 events, and three of them entering enough comps to make it into the "top 10" of most active TTS! players in the calendar year - quite an unusual pattern compared to the other sets in this survey, where almost all "new" players only make it to one or (at best) two events in their first year.

The 12 event circuit is currently rather "M4/M3 Corridor-ish" focused, with events from London via Bristol and through to Cardiff making up the majority of the calendar. Britcon in Nottingham (now Leicester from 2024) beiing the most northerly destination by quite some margin. 

MeG  (Mortem et Gloriam)

MeG moved away from using a PSC-produced hardback rulebook to a print on demand/PDF distribution model early in 2023, which coincided with UK player numbers rising from 71 to a record 78, and that total was almost matched again in 2024 with 77 UK-based players being seen in the MeG circuit of 19 competitions. A fall in the number of overseas players heading to these shores however meant that overall player numbers fell fractionally from 87 last year to 82 in 2024. 

16 players entered a UK MeG event for the first time in 2024, again almost exactly matching the 15 who debuted in 2023. Last year however 5 of the 15 new players were from overseas, whereas all of the new faces in 16 hailed from these shores, 9 making their first appearances at a single event (one would presume hosted at their local club?).

32 players entered only one event (including 15 of the 16 new faces and ), with a further 16 entering two these 48 ‘least committed’ attendees make up (at 59%) a clear majority of the total pool of UK MeG players this year.  Excluding the 5 overseas players, 43 of 77 UK-based players (56%) still end up in this "casual" category this year.

At the other end of the scale the keenest 4 MeG players on the circuit managed between them make more appearances than the least-active 48 combined, with 7 players making up 1/4 of the aggregate entries this year, and 15 players chipping in with over 50% of  entries across the entire calendar.

The polarization into “uber-keen” and “casual” players on the MeG circuit seems to have increased over the last few years, with “single event” player numbers being just 20 in 2022, 25 last year, and now 32 in 2024. Considering just the UK-based players (as overseas players are more likely to attend just one event) this trend becomes even more pronounced, with “one event” player numbers increasing by more than 2/3, up from 17 in 2022 to the 29 recorded in the last 12 months.

Almost all of MeG's events are held in 15mm, with two competitions in 2024 featuring the 28mm MAGNA format (one as part of a team event where 1 player per 3-person team played 28mm MAGNA). In total 12 different players used a MAGNA 28mm army in competitive play this year, with all bar one of these dozen also playing in at least one other 15mm event elsewhere as well.

FOGAM  (Field of Glory Ancient & Medieval)

2024 has witnessed a bit of a renewal for the UK FoGAM circuit, with the 41, all-UK participants marking the highest annual turnout in some years (following on from the rules moving to a free, PDF distribution model in 2022) as this year 2 new players and 4 returnees (who had not played in 2023) more than made up for the absence of any foreign competitors visiting UK shores this year.

Average attendances were also up by a whopping 17%, with a total aggregate entry across the year of 240 (compared to 204 in 2023) boosting turnout from 17 to 20 at each event, with the FiB Teams event again weighing in with the biggest attendance of the year of 31 different players. .  

The UK calendar was stable again with 12 events taking place, and while no-one this year managed a full sweep of attendance, 7 players did turn up at 11/12 of the possible tournaments. Unsurprisingly then, any 6 of these would make up more than 1/4 of all entries to the UK FoG circuit, with 12 players making up 50% of the aggregate field across the year and 21 players (more than half the total pool) attending at least half of the available events.

7 players only attended 1 event (17%), with 10 (24%) attending 1 or 2, the lowest percentage of "casual" participation of any ruleset in this year's survey.

This low "casual player" percentage in part may be due to the increasing geographic concentration of FoG events, with only two of the dozen FoG competitions across the UK now taking place north of Watford.  This Southern bias also no doubt helps the cadre of FoG players who's other main hobby is being "Professional Northerners" to get in some very consistent and top quality whingeing about the "shocking price of a pint" in almost every month of the FoG year.

DBM

Numbers for DBM again barely moved year on year, with 38 players making an appearance in 2024 compared to 41 the year before - as always, unsurprising for a circuit strongly centered around a smallish handful of clubs.  The total number of entries was also unchanged also, at 164, compared to 166 across 2023.

7 DBM players only attended one event this year (18% of the UK pool), with 13 (34%) only making it to 1 or 2 of the regular schedule of 10 competitions. With 164 entries across the year, the busiest 5 players again made up 25% of the total entry, with 11 contributing half of the aggregate field.

One player managed a clean sweep, appearing at every single event in the year, with 17 (almost half the field) managing to grasp at least half of the opportunities to play competitive DBM during 2024.

DBM is played in both 15mm and 28mm, with 3 of the 10 events being  held using bigger figures, which saw 18 of the 38 UK circuit players taking part.

 The Conclusion (FWIW!)

In summary as 2024 draws to a close these 7 popular Ancients rulesets have continued to see around 500 UK-based players taking part in at least one UK Ancients competition in the last 12 months. That total remains down by around 75 on pre-Covid numbers.

There have been no really seismic shifts in relative popularity between any of the rulesets in 2024, and very few changes in any other metric either, meaning that we now seem to be in a very stable period with all of these sets being well into their 2nd, 3rd, 4th (or even further!) iterations and editions. With nothing new really coming along to make a mark on the Ancients competition scene in the best part of a decade either, perhaps next year I can just do a straight cut-and-paste! 

(If there's anything I've missed that you are better sighted on than me, please don't hesitate to get in touch with the data and I'll do my best to add it back into the stats and update this post)