Revised El Cid DBA Army List – III/35b Feudal Spanish 951-1200AD

With my new “El Cid” army about to hit the table. I thought I’d have a look at the army list – III/35b Feudal Spanish 951-1200AD. The DBA 3.0 list has changed from the DBA 2.2 version. The changes are generally good but I thought I’d revise it to align more with the related Field of Glory army lists. These changes give more flexibility in the list. Personally I think flexibility is good because, really, we don’t know what any of the armies were really like.

Comparison of DBA 2.2 Feudal Spanish with DBA 3.0

Here is the official DBA 2.2 army list with troop types identified but in the DBA3.0 style:

The official DBA 3.0 army list is:

Much is unchanged. The general, hidalgos, caballeros villanos, and javelin light horse.

There are, however, some changes. There is now an option to replace the javelin light horse with foreign crusaders. The number of spearmen has increased from two to three with an associated reduction in skirmishers (Ps). Of the three remaining skirmishers (Ps) one can be replaced by a massed crossbow element (Cb)

Revised Feudal Spanish Army List

Generally I find the DBA army lists overly prescriptive because, in reality, there is more that we do not know about historical armies than we do actually know. The Field of Glory lists are less prescriptive so I thought I’d use them as a basis for revising the DBA list. This DBA list corresponds to three FoG army lists:

• Feudal Catalan and Early Crown of Aragon 988-1336 (Oath of Fealty)
• Feudal Navarrese 1035-1328 and Aragonese 1035-1147 (Oath of Fealty)
• Feudal Castilian or Leonese 1037-1350, or Portuguese 1139-1357 (Oath of Fealty)

To align with these FoG lists I have changed the DBA list in several ways: (i) added a Kn option for the caballeros villanos; (ii) increased the massed missile options (Bw and CB); (iii) decreased the compulsory javelinmen; (iv) introduced the option for massed javelinmen (particularly relevant to Feudal Navarrese and Aragonese). I have given the option to mass either crossbowmen or archers, but not both.

The resulting revised DBA Feudal Spanish list is:

I assume the DBA lists (both 2.2 and 3.0) has the caballeros villanos as cavalry (CV) because they were more lightly equipped than the hidalgos and could fight separately. However, the Spanish were egalitarian in their attitude to cavalry (if you had a horse you were cavalry), knight (Kn) is more about attitude than equipment and there is no evidence the caballeros villanos lacked attitude, and the caballeros villanos were often brigaded with the hidalgos. All of which, in my mind, justifies giving the cavalleros villanos a knight (Kn) option.

The DBA 3.0 list has two compulsory javelinmen skirmishers (Ps). The FoG lists make them optional. The exception is for Feudal Navarrese and Aragonese who have more javelinmen (Ps or Ax) than spearmen (Sp).

The DBA 3.0 list has an option of massed crossbowmen. The FoG lists also has options for massed bowmen. I’ve chosen to restrict the total number of massed missile men, although FoG does not do this.

The DBA lists (both 2.2 and 3.0) only have skirmishing javelinmen (Ps). However, the FoG lists also have options to make the javelinmen massed (Ax).

On balance this makes for a much more flexible army list.