Pity Those Ancient Spanish in DBA – The Army Points Say It All

I’ve always felt the 12 element army size of DBA doesn’t give balanced games. Some folks have come up with points systems to deal with this. I thought I’d tally the points total for a few armies to see how they compare under a couple of the points systems. I’ve focussed on the Macedonian and Punic Wars and not too surprisingly the Ancient Spanish are the poor relatives.

The two point systems I looked at are:

Philip’s system is simpler than David’s. David does quite a granular analysis of the different troop types to come up with his element value. He also adds in a factor for the Troop Type of the General – not too interesting for the period I looked at – and the Aggression of the army – seen as a negative presumarly because the defender sets up the terrain. Despite these differences the two systems give very similar results, relatively speaking. If fact you you divide David’s score by 3 you get, roughly, Philip’s score.

The the Macedonian and Punic Wars armies I looked at were:

The DBA II/19c Seleucid army list scores the top in both point systems and DBA II/39 Ancient Spanish scores lowest. You have to add three elements of Scutarii (AX) to the Spanish to get close to a “balanced” game against the Seleucids.

Philip Woutat
Troop Type Points DBA II/19c
Seleucid
DBA II/33
Polybian Roman
Revised
Polybian Roman
DBA II/32
Later Carthaginian
Revised
Ancient Spanish
DBA II/39
Ancient Spanish
Elephants 14 1
Knights & Heavy Chariots 11 2
War Wagons 10
Cavalry, Light Chariots, & Scythed Chariots (Expendables) 9 2 2 1 2 2 1
Camelry & Blades 8 6 7
Light Horse if they are given QK vs. Sp & Pk 8 2 1
Light Horse if they are not given QK vs. Sp & Pk 7
Spear & Artillery 7 2 1 3
Pike, Warband, & Auxilia 6 5 4 7 6
Bows 5
Psiloi 4 2 2 3 1 3 4
Hordes 3
Camp Followers 2
Elements 12 12 12 12 12 12
Points 92 88 84 83 72 69
David Lawrence
Troop Type Points DBA II/19c
Seleucid
DBA II/33
Polybian Roman
Revised
Polybian Roman
DBA II/32
Later Carthaginian
Revised
Ancient Spanish
DBA II/39
Ancient Spanish
Aggression -2 2 4 4 3 0 0
Group 1: General with any of these: 4 1 1 1 1 1 1
  Elephants (EL) 36 1
  Knights (Kn) 31 2
  Cavalry (Cv) 25 1 2 1 2 2 1
  Blades (Bd) 23 6 7
  Spears (Sp) 22 2 1 3
  War Wagons (WWg) 22
Group 2: General with any of these: 2
  Camelry (Cm) 22
  Light Horse (LH) 21 2 1
  Bows (Bw) 21
  Scythed Chariots (SCh) 21 1
  Pikes (Pk) 20 4
  Warband (Wb) 19 1 3 1
Group 3: General with any of these: 0
  Auxilia (Ax) 18 1 6 6
  Psiloi (Ps) 13 2 2 3 1 3 4
  Artillery (Art) 10
  Hordes (Hd) 8
Elements 12 12 12 12 12 12
Points 269 254 243 244 220 210
Ratio David / Philip 2.9 2.9 2.9 2.9 3.1 3.0

2 thoughts on “Pity Those Ancient Spanish in DBA – The Army Points Say It All”

  1. Oh no! I have just ordered Celtiberians from Corvus Belli! I have been assured that they are not so rubbish under DBA 3.0 – but until the rules come out we will never know…

    Reply
    • The Celtiberian option is stronger because of the warband. Anyway the figures will be great so don’t worry. 🙂

      Reply

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