The following is an analysis of 76 (about 90%) of the 84 Book II De Bellis Multidtudinus (DBM) armies designed to help a gamer who is not familiar with all the armies in Book 2 either assess his opponents army or consider a new army acquisition. For each of these armies I compiled at least one army list. The remaining 8 armies await some one else's efforts as I got tired of making lists. For comparison purposes, all lists assume a 300 pt army with 3 commands. No Boats/ships are included. No allied contingents are included that require a cross reference to their own list.

These armies are listed sequentially in the attached table. Each army has a value for the CINC type, minimum required points, number of combat elements, and demoralization level, along notes on the majority troop types and some comments. Armies 5 and 36 are essentially two lists combined onto one and so appear twice.

CINC: Armies are initially characterized as regular and irregular based an the C-IN-C element. There are 29 Regular armies, 7 "mixed" armies (Reg or Irreg) and 41 Irregular armies. Note that 15, Later Hoplite Greek, appears as both regular and irregular. The type of CINC in DBN determines the command dice allocation. The seven mixed armies can have a choice of the type of CINC. This can change the nature of the army considerably.

For example, the Bithyian army with an Irregular vice regular CINC adds some 20 elements to the fielded force for the same point total. Two other armies allow both CINC types, the aforementioned Hoplites and the Macedonian Early Successors who have an interesting twist in that you may "upgrade" the CINC by mounting him on an Elephant, thus becoming IRR. Why anyone would do this one in beyond me.

MIN PTS: This column is the minimum number of required points. This is independent of the Army size in points, but does depend on the year, location, and choice of troop types. For example, many armies offer the choice of IRR BW (I) @ 3 pts or IRR PS(O) at 2 pts for the same minimum elements. In compiling these lists I made choices based on my opinion of what mix of troop types made the "best" army.

There are only three armies which have more than 220 required points. These are the Mountain Indians at 240 points which can be reduced to under 200 by trading Bw(O) for PS, the Spartan variant of the later Hoplites, and the most extreme example the early Galatians who have 284 required points since the WB must be S.

The later Galatians with WB(O) only have 200 required pts. These lower minimums are noted in the comments. The Scots Irish (154) require the least (only 120) points if you don't buy any chariots. The runners up for least points are (in the 140 to 149 range) Jewish Revolt (145), Nobades/Blemye/Beja (147) and Later Carthaginian (144) armies. The average minimum points is 191, somewhat less than the advertised 200. There is no significant difference in the average minimum required troop points between regular and irregular armies.

CBT ELE: This is the number of combat elements in a 300 point army excluding camp elements but counting PS(), Hd and Exp as one element. This is based on my choices for troop types for a 300 pt army. For example, you can pump up element numbers by trading a Sassanid CV & LH for HD(O)s for an increase of 10 elements over what I have listed for that army. This number is a useful indicator since you can (1) estimate if you will be outnumbered or vice versa on the table and (2) get an idea of how many troops you need to paint.

For example, if you are a Middle imperial Roman, you expect to field about 43 elements. The average army out there is 56 elements, so you can expect to be outnumbered more often than not. The Pike armies will field about 44 elements, so they are an even fight in terms of number of elements. However, the warband armies will be fielding an avg of 74 elements, for close to a 2:1 superiority. The extremes in this category are the Palmyrans with lots of costly Reg KN(X) fielding only 29 elements and the WB(), HD() and PS() armies like the Jewish Revolt (110 elements) who field better than three times the Palmyran total.

DEM LVL: The demoralization level is, as per the rules, half the equivalent elements in the army. This includes camps (6 elements) and counts Psiloi, Hordes and Expendables as a half element. The higher this number means is the more elements must be killed or demoralized to defeat that army. This level ranges from 17 (the Palmyrans again) to 48 (Jewish Revolt). The average is 29.

MAJOR TROOP TYPES lists those element types preceded by the number of that type of element which comprise at least 10% of the combat element count. Again, this is based on my choice of a 300 point army. COMMENTS are just that, with notes as to which sublist, date or variation was used to get the actual list.

In putting together this list a few armies stood out as somewhat unique for the classical period. These are:

1. Classical Indian: Only list with Bw (S) and KN (S).
47 Early German: Only army which allows a substantial number of all three warband types.
84 Patrician Roman: Allows 14+ WB(S) with regular generals.

In comparison with WRG 7th lists it appears 300 DBM points is about 1200 WRG 7th points, 400 DBM points is about 1600 etc. when making the transition from WRG to DBM for a given army you will likely find you have too many light troops and not enough standard types like legionnaries and hoplites.

TO DBM Book 2 Comparative Chart