Fanaticus

Fanaticus.org

From its creation on 17 May 1998 until I officially retired the site on 1 Sept. 2016, it was my great pleasure and privilege to administer and moderate the Fanaticus website (aka “The DBA Resource Page”).  Fanaticus  was (and is) an on-line community promoting ancient and medieval wargaming using the De Bellis Antiquitatis (DBA) and the DBx-family of rules.   It never had the official imprimatur of the rules authors/publishers Phil Barker, Sue Laflin Barker, Richard Bodley Scott or any of the folks at Wargames Research Group associated with the publication of this rules set, although I was pleased to see Fanaticus referenced as a useful “fan site” in several editions of the DBA rules.   Fanaticus started as a way to help other newbie gamers like myself understand the DBA rules.  From those humble beginnings, it became the principal archive and host of DBA content on-line and connected hundreds of ancient and medieval wargamers all around the world.

With the advent of free blog and photosharing sites, Fanaticus gradually became less important as a content site, but retained an outstanding community of DBA gamers (aka “The Fanatici”), who used the Fanaticus Forum to share their creativity, discuss the rules, army lists and figures, reference historical resources, and collaborate in various ways to enhance their appreciation of the game.  No “dawg-houses” required; I’m pleased to say that in 18 years as “Imperator,” I only had to remove one participant’s posting privileges.   The Fanatici are an extraordinary group of people, from countries all around the globe, and it is my great privilege to know them and to call many of them my friends.

For a variety of reasons, not the least of which was the decision of my webhost to phase out support for the content management system I was using to maintain the site, it was time for me to step down as “Imperator,” close down shop, and move on.

But that is not the end of the story.  A new Fanaticus bulletin board site was set up by several “Fanatici” and can be accessed at http://fanaticus.boards.net.   Also an archive of the original Fanaticus site content (as of August 2016) was captured at fanaticus.website.