Slitherine

I know this is a FoG forum, but I would really appreciate some input, from this forum.

I help with coaching the club a Pretoria Boys High (still play DBM, not my call), the idea came up to get 6 club owned training armies.

Which set of armies do you think would be best for introducing beginners?

I would say it's probably best to select six armies from the same period in history that all did fight each other or at least could have done. Rules work better in a single period.

If the school teaches any pre-1500 history periods that would be a good start. Alternatively, recent films can be a decent start.

Wow! How exciting! To have 6 people who ALL want to dip their toe into the game at the same time and all who are interested in sticking to a single era! If you have the DBA book, then I might recommend looking at the campaign recommendations; there are tons of suggested eras where you can field 6 appropriate armies to square off.

For example, the 100 Year War campaign suggests Scotland, 100 Year War Continental (English), Medieval French, Low Countries, Burgundy, and Medieval Spanish (Crown of Aragon).

Another cool era could be the conquest of England: Normans, Anglo-Danish, Vikings, Early Welsh, Scots (Early Scots Isles and Highlands), and Feudal French.

...Or you could do the Diadochi (the 50+ years that followed Alexander the Great's death).
...Or pick any era from Rome's long empire (hey, if you pick the right period, you could even have different types of Romans, fighting each other, ala Julius Cesar's rise to power).


...OR, or, or, or... Oh the choices!

Later Ottoman
Later Hungarian
Serbian
Catalan Company
Mameluke or Timurid
Late Medieval Geman.

A variety of styles, common period, basically opponents, generally above average armies.

>A variety of styles, common period, basically opponents, generally above average armies.

Agreed that's the principle to go for, although it doesn't matter so much (in the short term at least) whether they are all above average armies or not, as long as they give reasonably competitive games amongst themselves.

And a good list of armies too.

Another possible list (for the historical period I personally find most interesting):
Late Imperial Rome - a bit of everything, balanced army, and most importantly of all - pretty shield patterns!
Goths (Tervingi) - mostly heavy warband type foot
Picts - mostly lighter warband type foot, terrain becomes a factor
Huns - mostly light shooty mounted
Sarmatians - mostly heavy shock cavalry
Sassanids - mostly heavy shooty cavalry plus a few gimmicks e.g. nellies

Or substitute Post-Roman Brits for the Picts, decide that "Arthur" was indeed "Riothamus" so can be fielded in this timeframe, and cater for the true romantics.

In FoG some of those armies would be real dogs, true, but in DBMM I think they would all play reasonably friendly together. Can't quite remember DBM now but I think I would have been happy to give any of them a punt in those days.

The "in period" idea is an example of a good idea that never would have crossed my mind.

Seeing as the armies are for an unknown number of unknown people, maybe 3 sets of 2 historical opponents would cater for more interests?

Emu, tell Carl I have a Welsh army of upwards of 70 Elements, A Pictish army with Saxon Allies of over 100 and a medieval English army of Free Company size. Between the 3 of them we can make almost any dark age army and a fair bunch of early through late medieval. I'll give you a call in the new year and you can have a look at what I have .

lonehorseman wrote:Emu, tell Carl

Is this a bit like Broadsword calling Danny Boy

Anyway I would have thought armies with as much mix and match as possible. As above a lot of armies can be made from the core of 1 or 2. Arabs are reasonably generic, Chinese are little known about here so can morph, etc.

Thanks for the input.

For the same reason I'm looking for the "stereotypical" Roman army.

I was thinking Middle Republican, but the DBM equivalent (Polybian) doesn't seem right.
Any suggestions?

Fluffy wrote:I know this is a FoG forum, but I would really appreciate some input, from this forum.

I help with coaching the club a Pretoria Boys High (still play DBM, not my call), the idea came up to get 6 club owned training armies.

Which set of armies do you think would be best for introducing beginners?

Try asking on here if you haven't already: http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/DBM ... ssages?o=1