Jumping into DBA

After much mulling about, I've decided to give De Bellis Antiquitatis or DBA a try. I've been reading up on Hordes of the Things and while planning my orc army, I discovered that I could make a DBA Polybian Roman army from leftovers I had after making a 2000 pt Warmaster Ancients Republican Roman army.

Don't get me wrong though, I'm a big fan of the warmaster rules and will still be making armies and gaming with them using those rules. But planning and making a warmaster army for 1/72 figures can be a bit tiring, especially since I game mostly in the field of 1500 to 2500 points -- and usually work on matched pairs of armies. My warmaster armies are made up of 40mm x 20mm bases, with 3 bases making a unit and 6 foot figures for each unit. Mounted units have 3 figures per unit. For a Republican Roman army, each 3 stand unit would cost 55 points and a minimum of ten units are needed for each 1000 point army. Doing the math, I would need 120 foot figures just to make 1100 points worth of units!  And that's not counting the amount of figures needed for cavalry, allied units and artillery. So, the twelve elements that make up a DBA army would seem easy in comparison.

This is the list I plan to work on first:

46b. Polybian Roman (275 BC to 105 BC)

Composition: 2x3Cv, 6x4Bd, 2x4Sp, 2x2P

The figure count is surprisingly small. For the whole army, I'll be needing 6 mounted cavalry figures, 24 hastati and principes, 8 triari and 4 velites -- making a total of 42 figures!

And here are the plastic toy soldiers I plan to use, all from HäT Industrie:

• 8017 Republican Romans - Princeps and Triari (48 infantry, 20 Princeps with pilum, 16 with Triari with spears and 12 infantry with swords)
• 8018 Republican Romans - Hastati and Velites (48 figures: 16 Velites, 24 Hastati with pila and 8 Hastati with swords)
• 8051 Roman Command (24 foot, 8 mounted, 68 accessories) 
• 8021 Roman Cavalry (12 mounted cavalrymen) 
  

 I can even make variant elements to represent the other soldiers recruited by the Romans such as Celtic cavalry, Spanish foot and mounted as well as other Italian soldiery. All of these I've managed to procure from HäT Industrie before while building my Warmaster armies. 

So, first things first -- time to cut the bases and select the figures. I downloaded the handy The Unofficial Guide to DBA from the Washington Area De Bellis Antiquitatis Gamers (WADBAG) website and will be using it as a guide. I currently only have a copy of Hordes of the Things and WADBAG's guide was pretty helpful in whetting my interest. You can check out their site here.

Here's the element table from their guide: