12-Element DBA Army Assessments

Most of us have seen the excellent Big Battle DBA Army Assessments put together by The Two Davids.

A while ago on the Yahoo Group I offered to co-ordinate a similar document for 12-Element DBA and got a positive response.

As a less than skilled general I'm not competent to do this without input, so this is to ask whether anyone else would be willing to help
by providing inputs in due course when I've got the format sorted, and/or suggestions as to where it could be hosted?

Also, I am grateful for David Kuijt for allowing me to use the same format he has used for the BBDBA document.

Andrew

Andrew,

I am also an "inexperienced" DBA player, but would like to help out maybe reviewing the lists putting them together etc. The BBDBA assesment is excellent and would be nice to have a similar tool for DBA.

Talk about a near impossible task!

Are you planing to rate each army as a candidate in an OPEN event as well as the rating for each army within its own NASAMW Theme group?

Good luck!

Martin

Originally posted by Martian:
Talk about a near impossible task!

Are you planing to rate each army as a candidate in an OPEN event as well as the rating for each army within its own NASAMW Theme group?

Worse than that, Marty -0- it might also be interesting to consider the rating of each army within its own circle of enemies (a much tighter group than a single Theme).

Note, however, that some armies cross Theme boundaries and participate in two or three of the six Themes. Just to add a little more complication in there! :

How about some public discussion here on the process, starting with a small group of mutual foes as DK has brought up.

Let's say I want to rate II/10 Camillan Romans and their enemies.

I/36 Italian Hill Tribes
I/55d Latin
I/55e Umbrian
I/57b Etruscan
II/5g Italiot
II/8a Bruttian
II/8b Campanian
II/8c Apulian
II/11 Gallic
II/13 Samnite
II/27b Pyrrhic
II/28b Armenian

Okay, how do we rate these within this little group? Who gets an A,B,C,D and F?

Okay, let me start by showing my bad thinking so smarter people, in correcting me, will demonstrate clear thinking.

I was thinking the first thing to do would be to classify these into groups as a stating pass.

Camillan -- Ps-supported spear with some Bd. Ag. 1

Italian Hill tribes -- Warband (or Aux). Monotype. Ag 3.

Latin -- Camillan with more Ps.

Umbrian -- Bad going army, some spear and Cv. Ag. 2

Etruscan -- Camillan -1 Sp +1 Bd with Ag. 3

Italiot -- Sp with limited Ps. LH Ag. 2

Bruttian -- Aux army Ag. 1

Campaninan -- Sp and Aux army Ag. 1

Apulian -- Aux with strong Cv. Ag. 1

Gallic -- Warband with up to 3 Cv. Ag. 3

Samnite -- Aux monotype. Ag. 1

Pyrrhic -- Multi-tasker with Pk. Ag. 4

Armenian -- Kn, LH, Aux Ag. 1

So a couple observations.

First, in this grouping, the relative value of Ps-supported spear is not as great as it would be in an open setting -- only two armies with Kn of any kind.

Second, there are some match ups that seem set for draw situations based on terrain. The Camillan Roman would not be wise, for instance, to go into the woods to chase the Samnites. Can anyone say Caudine Forks?

Even at Ag. 3, I'm inclined to see Gallic as a strong army in this group. Most enemies have something that fears Wb and the Gauls have enough Cv to offset most opposing mounted. Armenian or Pyrrhic would hurt, though.

Hill tribes as Wb are a less flexible Gaul-type.

Etruscan, Latin, and Camillan are all variations on a theme, but with significant differences.

Likewise, Umbrian, Bruttian, Campanian and Samnite are different flavors of Aux armies.

Italiot is an interesting Sp army with that LH contingent. The heavy infantry is going to not like all the Wb and Bd running around in this group though.

So here's my take on the grades:

A -- Pyrrhic
B -- Gallic, Etruscan, Camillan, Armenian
C -- Campanian, Apulian, Latin
D -- Italiot, Hill Tribes, Bruttian, Samnite, Umbrian

Good post John. I think what this shows is that this may be a time-consuming exercise to do via Fanaticus, but if someone is up for the challenge of marshalling enough threads and recording the outcomes, we might get somewhere. At least it could be fun to try.

I think you over-rate the strength of warband against Ps-supported Sp and Bd. Both Gallic and Hill Tribes are therefore, to my mind, over-rated.

I don't really understand your reasoning in rating the Italiots so poorly. That doesn't seem to be justified by the commentary which reports one strength and one weakness. Speaking personally, I'd be fairly confident in taking on hill tribes or Samnites with an army like that.

Andrew

Originally posted by John Meunier:

So here's my take on the grades:

A -- Pyrrhic
B -- Gallic, Etruscan, Camillan, Armenian
C -- Campanian, Apulian, Latin
D -- Italiot, Hill Tribes, Bruttian, Samnite, Umbrian

Normally, a successor combined arms army would be an A army, but we are judging within this group. The weakness of Pike armies are the flanks. With an aggression of 4 the Pyrrhic army is most likely not going to set terrain. Therefore it must face many enemies with far superior bad going troops on their terrain. The flanks will not hold. Pyrrhic might be downgraded to a B, for this reason.

The Camillan with an Agg of 1 seems to be slightly ahead of the Etruscans and Gauls with Aggressions of 3 and therefor more likely to fight on the Camillan's choice of field of battle.
I would consider bumping them up a grade. The Armenians could make an arguement with their low aggression and best of both mounted and bad going troops that they would be an A in this group, but I think I would leave them at B.

The rest I more or less agree with, with the exception of the monotype bad going and aggression 3 Italian Hill Tribes. While at first glance having 10 Wb in a group with a lot of spear seems to be an advantage. There are also a number of Aux armies and they are going to kick Wb butt in bad going, especially with Psi support. In the open the Wb are going to be victimized by the Kn, Cv, and even LH and Ps can be very disconcerting for an all Wb army. If they choose all Aux then they will face Sp, Bd, mounted, and other Aux in the open. I would downgrade them to an F.

So my (decidedly subjective)recommendations for this would be:

A -- Camillan, (Armenian)
B -- Pyrrhic, Gallic, Etruscan,(Armenian)
C -- Campanian, Apulian, Latin
D -- Italiot, Bruttian, Samnite
F -- Hill Tribes

[ May 04, 2005, 09:55: Message edited by: Pthomas ]

The problem with any closed system is the rock-scissors-paper phenomenon. The Camillans can probably beat Armenians most of the time; the Armenians will do well against Gauls; the Gauls can beat Camillans (well, OK, go 50/50 against Camillans). There is also the issue of where the system begins and ends -- the Armenians only fight like one army in this group (Camillans) -- should they really be included?

Pthomas -- when you say that Aux are going to kick Wb butt in bad going, are you thinking of v2.0? Wb is no longer -2 in BGo.

I'd be putting the armies sorta like this:

A: Camillan, Pyrrhic, Armenian
B: Gallic, Etruscan, Campanian (is that the army with the significant Cav component? I haven't got my book with me)
C: everything else except Aux-choice Hill Tribes
D: Aux-choice Hill Tribes

With that said, though, Pyrrhos will have lots of trouble if they lose terrain against anything but Camillans and Etruscans and the spear armies.

So I'm not sure that I wouldn't just have three buckets, and lump A and B together. So the only "dog" army is the Auxilia-only Hill Tribes. The other monotype armies go in "C", and any non-monotype army in this group is a "B". I don't see Camillans as having enough of an advantage (especially against Gauls, Pyrrhos, Armenians) to upgrade them higher than the other guys.

Originally posted by David Kuijt:
B: Gallic, Etruscan, Campanian (is that the army with the significant Cav component? I haven't got my book with me)

David,

I think it was a great analysis but the Italian army with 3Cv elements is the Apulians, the Campanians only have 2Cv. The Campanians have 2Cv (Gen), 4Sp, 4Ax, and 2Ps. The Apulians have 3Cv (Gen), 7Ax, and 2Ps.

Bill