The trials and tribulations of my Mongols are widely known. I have been a wargamer for over 25 years now and I have never had an army or unit with as dismal a record as I have with the Mongols. Of the 16 games I have played, I have won only five. Since the Mongols were one of the most successful armies in history, I was at a loss to explain why. Surely not all my losses were the result of bad tactics or rolls? Why are the Mongols so weak in DBA9 I realized that the Mongols are extremely mobile, but not the most potent force. I had assumed that the added mobility would overcome the relatively low attack values. This assumption, as my record shows, has proven false.

By profession, I am a Metallurgical Engineer and a former B-52 bombardier and staff officer. The training for both of these professions combine to make me find out why things happen as they do, good or bad. So, I decided to examine the strengths and weaknesses of the elements and the armies in DBA. That's a study that covers the interaction of 15 different elements and 220 armies. I began by examining the "average" results of individual element to element combat. I created an effectiveness rating for each element and counted the number of quick kills for each. After that was accomplished, I used the effectiveness rating and the quick kill rating to look at the armies,

I started by examining the effectiveness of the various elements in one on one combats. The possible results were P(push), AR(attacker recoil), AK(attacker killed), DR(defender recoil), and DK(defender killed). The only odd result is the Scythed Chariots vs. Scythed Chariots. It is shown as a push in the table when it is actually both elements destroyed. I felt that this was a better reflection of the effectiveness of the element. After the results were added up, I assigned a value to each. Pushes were 0, recoils were 1 and kills were 5. Below are those results.

Scythed Chariots -30
Knight +9
Warbands -25
Pikes +10
Psiloi -22
Artillery +11
Auxilia -17
Bows +13
Light Horse -13
Spears +15
Cavalry -6
War Wagons +16
Blades +5
Elephants +25
Camelry +7

As you can see, the results of the effectiveness ranged from the low of 30 for the Scythed Chariots to the high of 25 for Elephants. When I plugged these numbers into the armies, it gave me a range of 272 to 180. The Early Libyans were the cellar dwellers and the Early Spartan were on top. It made sense that the Early Libyans with an army of 11 Psiloi and I Warband would be weak. The strength of the Spartans was no surprise either. Where did my Mongols end up? Their rating was 137 and they ranked 181st out of 220 armies, The Mongols, who are heavy on Light Horse, are at a great disadvantage based on effectiveness. This explained some of the problems I had with the Mongols, but as I have said, it does not tell the whole story.

I was not completely satisfied with these results. It did not explain or even hint at why knight armies are so successful. I decided to took at quick kills for each element and army. The armies' quick kills ranged from 24 to 84 with Knights having the highest number of quick kills. Below is a list of the quick kills.

Scythed Chariots 7
Cavalry 3
Blades 2
Knights 7
Camelry 3
Pikes 2
Elephants 6
Bows 3
Artillery 2
Warband 4
Psiloi 2
Spears 2
Light Horse 4
Auxilia 2
War Wagons 2

At first glance, it would appear that Scythed Chariots are quite the weapons. When you look more closely at their weakness, namely, they either win or die it becomes apparent that the scythed chariot has a very limited usefulness in this game. The rest of the list contains only one other surprise. Blades! It seems that many believe that the Roman armies, heavy on Blades, are unbeatable. However, the numbers do not bear that out.

Now, armed with both of these measures of combat ability, I needed only to search for the best of both worlds. I rank ordered the armies based on their effectiveness, their quick kills, and then a composite of the two. Below are the top ten armies:

Rank	Quick Kills	Effectiveness	Overall
1.	African Vandals	Early Spartans	Early Burgundians
2.	Sarmatians	Early Shang Chinese	African Vandal
3.	Parthian	Old/Middle Egyptian	Sarmatians *
4.	Early Burgundians	Later Shang Chinese	Early Indian
5.	Romanian Frankish	Gepid or Lombard	Papal Italian
6.	Italian Condotta	Early Indian	Italian Condotta
7.	Feudal French	Early Hoplite Greek	Gepid or Lombard
8.	Later Serbian	Papal Italian	Feudal French
9.	Medieval French	Early Burgundian	Burgundian Ordonnance
10.	Early Crusaders	Feudal English	Norman

(Full list name is Siracae, Iazyges or Later Rhoxolani Sarmatians)

After all this, I think I may finally have the reasons for the weakness of the Mongols. Does that mean I will quit playing the Mongols? NO!!! I enjoy a challenge and the Mongols provide me with that. I hope that this short discussion is of some use to you.

(Editor's Note: Although all of Jim's number-crunching is based on DBA 1.1 rules -- and the newest edition, 2.0, has just been released -- Ifelt many of the concepts he expounds on are valid. And besides, he has promised a follow up article analyzing armies under the new edition!)

(This article originally appeared in the GDWC newsletter)