DBM Army Book Two #40

Numidians

The arrival on my door of some HaT Carthaginian and then some ancient cavalry samples set me to thinking...how about a DBM Numidian army.

I had (very) briefly considered it using Revel Romans...but then I had a closer look, and thought "Get real! These guys are way too well dressed to be Numidians!" so the whole idea got put on the back burner.

But lo, and behold, someone has actually produced some genuine Numidian figures! Great! Hordes of light horse flying around the table, the odd elephant upsetting everyone (and distracting them from what's really going on!) - sounds like a whole lot of fun!

Ah, but how to do it, and still have it cost less than a comparitive 15mm lead army? Well...

I made some quick calculations based on what are in the HaT boxes and what you need for 350AP of Numidians from the appropriate DBM list, and I decided to go with Juba's army (around 50 odd BC)

CiC Juba I	Irr Cv(O)	@17AP	1
2iC Sub	Irr LH(O)	@15AP	1
3iC Sub	Irr LH(O)	@15AP	1
Ally Gen	Irr LH(O)	@10AP	1
Cavalry	Irr LH(O)	@5AP	32
Javelinmen	Irr Ps(S)	@3AP	18
Slingers	Irr Ps(O)	@2AP	1
Elephants	Irr El(I)	@14AP	2
Immitation Legionaries	Irr Bd(I)	@5AP	6
Spanish Cavalry	Irr Cv(O)	@7AP	1

Basically, you need 6 packs of Numidian Light Horse (HaT #8024), 1 of Celtic Cavalry (HaT #8023), 3 of Carthaginian African Infantry (HaT #8020) and a couple of elephants. This'll give you enough for the minimum 18 Numidian infantry (Ps(S) - if you want them as Ax(I) you'll need another 1½ packs of the Carthaginian African Infantry HaT #8020) and up to 9 Immitation Blades (using the African Carthaginian Light Infantry) plus 35 Light Horse and up to 4 Cv elements. Juba needs at least one elephant, I've given him two, though you could replace the second elephant with the additional 2 Spanish cav you get from the box of Celtic cav that you already have. The CiC Cv(0) element should have a Numidian Prince flanked by a couple of Spainards, an Italeri mounted Saracen figure should do the job nicely.

If you figure on about $14 (NZ) a box (recommended retail price?), that'd be about $140 (NZ) ($70 US, about 45-50 pounds UK), which sounds a lot, but don't forget you get just under 100 AP of Sp(O) as well, which would make a very nice Later Hoplite army for my Mini DBM supplement. So you could look at it as getting just under 1½ 25mm DBM armies for under the price of a corresponding 15mm army.

For a more in depth look at a Numidian DBM army, have a look at Richard Bodley Scott's article on his Wargaming with Numidians.

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