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Post by kaiphranos on Aug 20, 2023 17:19:05 GMT
I've seen a lot of electrons spent lately in arguments that the current rules handicap certain armies that were "good" historically. This implies that there were also armies that were "bad" historically - the total losers who got the snot beat out of them by all their neighbors. I'm just curious which one folks think those should be - and what rules modifications are necessary to make those armies lose like they deserve to?
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Post by paddy649 on Aug 20, 2023 18:14:18 GMT
“Bad” armies is possibly a bit of a pejorative phrase. However, if you are looking at armies that perform better under DBA than they did historically then you should start by looking at the smaller, rebel armies than had only had temporary success. I’d say Zanj Revolt, Slave Revolts, Palmyrans or Lambert Simnel fit this description. Then you should look at armies from small nations; Polynesian armies, Bosphorans and Tupi lead the way here. Then look for quirky armies with special abilities like Quaramita, Early Swiss or Lithuanian. Finally look for armies that don’t quite fit any description such as Other Scandinavians. Another thought is that generally later armies play better than earlier armies and there is probably a slight western bias against eastern armies.
Anyway plenty of exceptions that prove these rules and no doubt many contradictory opinions! Let the debate rage!
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Post by stevie on Aug 20, 2023 18:20:53 GMT
One that springs to mind is the II/25 Bosporans… …Knights & Spears, Artillery & Bows, and Littoral as well. This tiny little nation that had almost no effect on history is far too powerful.
I once went to a tournament where out of a dozen of us four (yep, 4) of the other players brought bloody Bosporans.
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Post by paulisper on Aug 20, 2023 18:36:59 GMT
One that springs to mind is the II/25 Bosporans… …Knights & Spears, Artillery & Bows, and Littoral as well. This tiny little nation that had almost no effect on history is far too powerful. I once went to a tournament where out of a dozen of us four (yep, 4) of the other players brought bloody Bosporans. Interestingly, Bosporan were fielded four times at Britcon last weekend - 2x in Paint it Black and 2x in Littoral Nightmare. They came 2nd & 6th and 3rd & 9th (out of 10), so a mixed bag of a performer overall… not exactly a killer, but not a dog either - I wouldn’t say on this evidence that they are ‘too powerful’ P
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Post by hodsopa on Aug 20, 2023 19:03:57 GMT
I agree that this is a good question. Athenian hoplite armies are probably overrated, I would argue.
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Post by Ken Gordon on Aug 20, 2023 19:06:23 GMT
One that springs to mind is the II/25 Bosporans… …Knights & Spears, Artillery & Bows, and Littoral as well. This tiny little nation that had almost no effect on history is far too powerful. I once went to a tournament where out of a dozen of us four (yep, 4) of the other players brought bloody Bosporans. And don’t forget agression zero! But like paulisper says the opposing general and the dice will have a lot to say.
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Post by timurilank on Aug 20, 2023 19:23:07 GMT
“Bad” armies is possibly a bit of a pejorative phrase. However, if you are looking at armies that perform better under DBA than they did historically then you should start by looking at the smaller, rebel armies than had only had temporary success. I’d say Zanj Revolt, Slave Revolts, Palmyrans or Lambert Simnel fit this description. Then you should look at armies from small nations; Polynesian armies, Bosphorans and Tupi lead the way here. Then look for quirky armies with special abilities like Quaramita, Early Swiss or Lithuanian. Finally look for armies that don’t quite fit any description such as Other Scandinavians. Another thought is that generally later armies play better than earlier armies and there is probably a slight western bias against eastern armies. Anyway plenty of exceptions that prove these rules and no doubt many contradictory opinions! Let the debate rage! Paddy, Not much of a discussion, but funny you should mention “Other Scandinavian”, as we have next week the Union (Danish) versus the Swedes. One list represent the royal army while “Other” are the provincial forces outside Sweden proper. The Medieval German list should be treated similarly, but then that is another topic.
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Post by kaiphranos on Aug 20, 2023 19:50:23 GMT
A few points to consider (in no particular order) when determining who should be regarded as the "winners" and "losers" among army lists: - The battles of recorded history (on which DBA is based, at some level) are only a subset of all the battles of history. Lots of battles happened without surviving records from either side. They say that winners write history, but maybe it would be more accurate to say that writers win history.
- DBA army lists range from the hyper-specific (IV/43b Hungarian Army for the Crusade of Nicopolis 1396 AD?) to the very broad (I/6a Early Bedouin claims to cover a 2,000-year range!) In the former case, presumably it would be very easy to determine the army's "win rate." In the latter, it would nigh-impossible (and presumably close to 50% over the long haul?)
- Not all battles are equally impactful, and battlefield success isn't everything! Carthage racked up quite the impressive string of wins under Hannibal before getting utterly annihilated by the Romans.
- Battlefield success relies on more than just tactics. Not to open the horse-archer/light horse can of worms any wider, but how much of Mongol success is attributable to factors like better logistics which may not be reflected in a tabletop wargame? Or the Romans - did they beat Hannibal because 4Bd are great, or because they could afford to raise an entire new army every time the last one got smashed? Obviously one could come up with mechanisms to simulate this in a campaign, but in a head-to-head game of DBA, how do you represent the fact that one army is much more "replaceable" than the other?
- I gather the consensus is that DBA generally favors the defender, or at least that a low aggression rating is regarded as preferable. Historically, this was balanced by the tendency not to invade your neighbor unless you thought you had a good chance of winning.
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Post by paulhannah on Aug 20, 2023 22:29:25 GMT
Dunno about which armies SHOULD be bad, but here are statistical results of the records of those armies with the worst won-loss records in our local group's games, all faithfully recorded since 2002.
- I/7 Early Libyan: 79-116 (.405)
- III/20 Sui and Early T’ang Chinese: 34-50 (.404)
- II/32 Later Carthaginian: 123-182 (.403)
- III/28 Carolingian Frankish: 47-71 (.398)
- I/48 Thracian: 40-64 (.384)
- III/16 Khazar: 47-76 (.382)
- III/47 Early German: 56-91 (.380)
- II/80 Hunnic: 50-87 (.364)
- III/1 Early Slavs: 41-74 (.356)
- I/19 Mitanni: 36-65 (.356)
- III/71 Anglo-Danish: 35-65 (.350)
- IV/6 Syrian: 30–64 (.319)
But, as they say on the financial pages, "Your individual results may vary."
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Post by gregorius on Aug 20, 2023 23:41:13 GMT
Dunno about which armies SHOULD be bad, but here are statistical results of the records of those armies with the worst won-loss records in our local group's games, all faithfully recorded since 2002.
- I/7 Early Libyan: 79-116 (.405)
- III/20 Sui and Early T’ang Chinese: 34-50 (.404)
- II/32 Later Carthaginian: 123-182 (.403)
- III/28 Carolingian Frankish: 47-71 (.398)
- I/48 Thracian: 40-64 (.384)
- III/16 Khazar: 47-76 (.382)
- III/47 Early German: 56-91 (.380)
- II/80 Hunnic: 50-87 (.364)
- III/1 Early Slavs: 41-74 (.356)
- I/19 Mitanni: 36-65 (.356)
- III/71 Anglo-Danish: 35-65 (.350)
- IV/6 Syrian: 30–64 (.319)
But, as they say on the financial pages, "Your individual results may vary."
Paul, is that the loss win ratio or the number of losses compared to the number of games played? And what do the figures in parentheses represent? As you can see I'm no statistician. Cheers,
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Post by macbeth on Aug 21, 2023 2:28:24 GMT
For me I can't get past III/76 Konstantinian Byzantine This beautiful monster got me the Cancon Win a few years back with a solid core of foot that is almost impossible to crack open and two mounted wings where you can decide whether it is best to deliver a hefty haymaker (2x3Kn and 1xLH) or to slap the enemy repetitively around the face until they just fall over (4xCv). I won 5 from 6 that day and carried the comp. The blurb for the army includes the line "This list covers their armies from the military economies of Konstantinios IX ..." After putting it on the field I couldn't help but think - they should have economised earlier The list I used was 1xCP(Gen), 4xCv, 2xKn, 1xLH, 2xSp, 1x8Bw, 1xArt Love this army but am embarrassed to use it competitively ever again. Cheers
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Post by davidjconstable on Aug 21, 2023 3:21:02 GMT
Purley based on my die throwing ability, I would say a good army was one that survives an above average number of one (1) thrown. A bad army the opposite, one that does not survive an above average number of one (1) thrown.
David Constable
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Post by Spitzicles on Aug 21, 2023 6:32:33 GMT
“Bad” armies is possibly a bit of a pejorative phrase. However, if you are looking at armies that perform better under DBA than they did historically then ... Zanj Revolt ...Palmyrans As regards the Zanj Revolt, I plead guilty m'lord. When I plonk down a near max sized fortified city and garrison it with some Bd, its damn hard to lose. On the other hand, it is easy to draw with. As regards the Palmyrans, at MacBeth's recent Collision Course we had 2 x Palmyrans. One finished first and the other dead last. So its not just the army, but how it is commanded and wielded.
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Post by Haardrada on Aug 21, 2023 6:59:41 GMT
Maybe a "bad" army should be looked at in a different perspective,as a lot of "good" armies performed very badly on the battlefield.This can be attributed sometimes to supply,morale,weather,etc.But often it was the Commander who was not quite up to the job....Varus at Teutoberg Wald and Paullus & Varro at Cannae for instance.Or one of the Commanders even with a not particularly good army managed to pull off a lightning stroke victory when the odds were heaped heavily against them.We usually leave this the dice gods to determine in DBA but in some game systems the ability of the General(s) can often "influence" the performance of the army.ie.Bold,Average or Cautious in some rule sets or complicated ratings as in Empire Napoleinic rules....all of which have varying influence on the game. Maybe something similar (as a house rule) could be considered?
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Post by sheffmark on Aug 21, 2023 8:13:19 GMT
I know the original question was about historical armies being bad, but at the Steel Warriors event earlier this year, where people were encouraged to bring what they thought were the worst performing DBA armies, the results at the end, from worst performing to best, were:
Paionians Moorish Welsh + Saxon allies Macedonian E Successor Aitolian Paionian Libyan Nubian Sabir Huns Later Achaemenid Persian (I think this was from a limited supply of DBA armies)
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