Consider 100 points as the equivalent of one DBA element of troops. When working out at army list, ignore any odd points in the army value. An 1800+ point army will give you 1: elements. The odd points will come in handy when working out losses.

When selecting elements from an army list you start at the left of the list and work (town When you come to the end of the list, which should have given you 12 elements if you had .1 least 1200 points to spend, you start moving back up the list until you have spent your extra points. You may have observed that the knights tend to be at the start of the list and the peasants at the end. This method means that you have to take all the infantry before you get ; double helping of cavalry. I think this is right and proper, and I'm the umpire. If you don't like it, then elect a pope and emperor who will modify the rules to suit you. Where the list give: you a choice of element types, you can mike a different choice the second time through providing it is not an ahistorical choice in terms of the campaign situation.

THE BATTLEFIELD

Where each side has less than 20 elements, use the normal two foot square battlefield. If there are more elements, use a two by three. The extra dice points when working out base edge: must be allocated to the longer edges. The player with the lowest charisma deploys first. I there is more than one player on a side then the player with the highest charisma is the senior commander.

If there is more than one army per side, and both belong to the same player, only roll one die( for movement, etc. If there is more than one player on both sides then you must chose whether both sides roll one die per army, or one die per side. I prefer rolling one die per side regardless of size and numbers. If there are two players on a side the senior player gets the odd numbers and the junior the even numbers--on a roll of one, the senior player gets one point, on a two both get a point, on a three the senior gets two points and the junior one, an( so on. A player can give his point to his partner if he doesn't want to use it, and if units of both players are in alignment then both can move together for just the one point. If it Is multi-player game with each player rolling a die, then I suggest charging two points for moving single elements.

AFTER THE BATTLE

Each element eliminated during battle counts as 100 points lost. For each element of the losing side in contact with a hostile element at the end of the battle roll a 10 sided die: multiply the result by 10 and this is the number of points lost for that element.

For each element on the losing side that is within the movement distance of a hostile elements of the same speed or faster that is not busy as above, roll an average (lice and multiply by 11 for the points lost for that element. These represent losses due to pursuit. Note that a pursuit element can only inflict losses on one element, i.e. a mounted unit has three enemy foot elements within its movement distance only one of them will stiffer losses.

For each element, including camp guards, on the winning side that does not have an enemy element within its own movement distance roll a a 10 sided (lie. This represents the number of crowns paid in to your Treasury as ransom, plunder etc., that you have been able to recover.

The winning player may chose to continue the battle for one extra round. If the battle was won in his turn then the opposing player gets an extra turn, if won in the loser's turn the winner gets in extra turn. If he so chooses however, he forfeits the pursuit casualties inflicted of unengaged units, but still gets the ransom and plunder.

If the winner declines the above option, the loser can choose to continue the battle for one round. The winner can veto this, but at the cost of forfeiting the pursuit casualties, but keeping the plunder, as above.

If as a result of an extra turn the victory conditions are not longer met, then the battle continues until a victor is again established. In such a case the extended play option can not be used again. My First DBM Game by John Mumby

Since I have won only 4 of my last 22 DBA games, I was looking forward to something new--ANYTHING NEW!! Darryl Harvey (who loaned us the troops but couldn't make the game), Bill McHarg, Terry Shockey, and I decided to give DBM a try. Terry took the allied Greek general and the Greek center while Bill took the Greek left. Fortunately, I put a small Macedonian left wing against Terry because the allied general proved to be unreliable for most of the game. Terry's center and my pikes had a major slug fest which lasted most of the game until I rolled a 6 against his 1, and he lost his general which also demoralized his center. My center became demoralized the very next turn ... whew!

My right flank was where I had the most fun. I took the Companions with Alexander around Bill's flank, looted his baggage, and eventually demoralized his wing. I scored 8 out of a possible 10 points. The next DBM game I watched was Darryl's Romant, vs the Seleucid as played by Rob Myers. Rob's pikes slowly chewed up Darryl's legions. At one point in the game, Darryl's command dice rolls for 4 out of 5 times had a 1 on one of the dies. Yet, he was finally able to demoralize Rob's left wing and plow into the flank of the phalanx. That won him the game.

Now I am starting to paint up a Ptolemaic army and do some big games. Give DBM a try--it's great!!!