DBM De Bellis Multitudinis

De Bellis Multitudinis (DBM) (English: Of the Wars of the Multitude) is a ruleset for table-top miniatures wargames for the period 3000 BC to 1485 AD. It is the big battle development of De Bellis Antiquitatis. As its name implies, it is aimed primarily at simulating large battles. The rules allow armies to be chosen from published Army Lists (in 4 books, with about 250 different army lists in total - but many more once all the in-list variants are taken into account) using a points system to select roughly equal armies if required.

DBM was written by the UK based Wargames Research Group (WRG) team of Phil Barker, Richard Bodley Scott and Sue Laflin Barker. (DBMM is Phil Barker's intended successor to DBM). First published in 1993, it went through a number of formal revisions with the last published version, DBM 3.0, coming out in 2000. Two unpublished, minor revisions have since been made, with the latest, DBM 3.2, coming into use in 2011 and available through WRG's website.

DBM evolved from the earlier De Bellis Antiquitatis (DBA) rule set, adapted to play larger games with more figures, comparable in size to games played using the then popular 7th Edition WRG Ancient rules.

DBM expanded on DBA's definition troop types by function and level of training - defining troops as regular bladesmen rather than Roman legionaries for example - by adding grades for each and rating them as Regular or Irregular. Grades such as Superior, Ordinary and Inferior troops are designed to reflect relative efficiency compared to contemporary opponents, and reflect morale, equipment, mounts, and training.

The armies are usually played in 15mm or 25mm scale, though 6mm and 54mm are used. Ground scale is in paces, and the number of inches to a pace varies according to the figure scale - 1" to 50 paces in 15mm, 40mm to 50 paces in 25mm. The frontage width of one stand of troops, called an element, is standardised for all troop types, the depth and number of troop models on it varies by formation type (skirmishers - or psiloi in DBM terminology - have 2 men per base, cavalry 3, heavy infantry 4 etc.)

Troop scale is not stated specifically, but as the number of troops represented by an element ranges from 128 to 256, and the number of figures used to represent them ranges from 2 to 4, an assumed scale of c 1 : 60 is not way off the mark. Elephants, Chariots, Artillery and Naval are 1 model per element, representing varying numbers of that type - for example 16 elephants or 25 chariots.

...
Wikipedia