What should be the "bad" armies in DBA?

“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!

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

And don’t forget agression zero!

But like paulisper says the opposing general and the dice will have a lot to say.

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. 

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, 

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

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?