What is the true fighting power of an army?

Welcome Brian!

Unfortunately you have found a (potential) weakness in DBA 3. A blade-heavy army will outmuscle an auxillia-heavy army in open terrain ("billiard table terrain"). But the Irish have the advantage of being Aggression 1 versus the Aggression 4 Vikings. So the Irish will choose terrain most of the time. Being Littoral they can narrow the battlefield with a Waterway and then place enough Bad Going to make it a fair fight.
The weakness is that there is no compulsion for the Vikings to enter the Bad Going so you may end up with a stalemate. DBA 3 doesn't have a strategic component that would force one of the combatants to attack. Campaign rules help with this problem but not in one-off battles. This also happens with Rivers, which seem too much of an obstacle for most people to bother deploying.
As for ranking armies, there are so many variables that this would be difficult, which is a good thing. If there was a tweak to have the lighter armies defend in their own terrain more often and light horse armies to out scout their enemies then armies would be even more evenly matched, making the game even better.

Cheers

Jim

If the Irish army can get the Viking blades to pursue into marshes it can even things up nicely…..if…..

Brianboru,

Luck can play a role, but as some have already suggested,
terrain selection and placement will help balance the game.

Both armies are Littoral and have the compulsory waterway, however
weigh the advantages/disadvantages each optional piece will produce for each troop type.

Terrain pieces need not be large, but enough so their presence can impede
a general’s control if troops are beyond 4BW and not seen (difficult hills, woods, dunes).

The Norse Irish can select 4 x 4Bd, more can be added with a Viking ally.
Yet much will depend on your style of game.
It took some time before my Iberian could defeat the legions of Rome.

Although originally intended to be nothing more than an April Fool joke,
you might find this useful in determining army strengths Brianboru:-
--> see ibb.co/Mks6Xng

And this could be of help in determining element v element outcomes:-
static.wikia.nocookie.net/fanaticus-dba/images/e/e7/COMBAT_EFFECTS_CHART_for_DBA_%26_HOTT.pdf/revision/latest?cb=20190204191800




Some Helpful Downloads can be found here: fanaticus-dba.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Reference_sheets_and_epitomes
And here is the latest Jan 2020 FAQ: ancientwargaming.files.wordpress.com/2020/01/dba_faq_q1_2020_final.pdf

Right now I'm pondering about my new IV/30 Teutonic Order army.
It looks splendid and quite strong. Short time ago we discussed the topic of crap armies.
Now I wonder: Are there certain armies you would describe as strongest, best, nearly invincible?
Which armies do you like best in tournaments?

In the old days we just added up combat factors. You could also have two ratings, one versus horse and another versus foot. Back then though there were no quick kills by knights to complicate the assessment by combat factor; and elephants only cost 1 pip to move.

Now I would add a third category, rough terrain versus open terrain.

There was a great article on using Mongols under the DBM rules. Mongols ,apparently, were losers. One player wrote though of his Mongol philosophy. He almost never lost. How? By refusing to attack into 'cornered armies' when the board was unfavorable. The Great Khan was too smart to launch suicidal attacks against fortified positions. He did not care if he got a 'draw.' To the Great Khan a draw was simply an invitation to fight later, on his own terms. . To reiterate, you stand more than a 50% chance of putting 3 big terrain pieces in 3 quarters of the board. Romans and knights beat Irish? Ha, try setting the Irish uphill of the Romans in wooded hills.

Again,a player is no more required to set up in clear terrain than he is in difficult going. Don't commit suicide in the name fair play. No Roman player is going to invite you to put out extra wooded hills in the name of fair play. You shouldn't make the board empty.

Or you could play Triumph, where the Irish move very quickly and are hard to pin down.

Now low aggression armies with all rough terrain troops still have problems. Alas.

In summary, not only might you assess armies by their total, anti foot and anti mounted combat factors; but also based on their open versus close terrain combat factors-perhaps normalized by their aggression to factor in how likely they are to fight in their desired terrain.