A Small Teaser – Table for Tonight's game

I couldn't resist sharing these pictures with you, showing the setup for tonight's game of Dux Britanniarum. The terrain was set up by my good mate Dalauppror, who has a real talent for making beautiful tables, and this time he really outdid himself.

Buildings, markers, minis and trees by yours truly. The rest of the terrain is from the club.

The game? Well, the Saxons were out to plunder the church but had a really rough nigh. But with two newcomers commanding them and the terrain placement perhaps being a bit too tough on them, this was only to be expected. Still, I think everyone had a good time – I certainly enjoyed visiting this old favourite of mine!

A full report with pictures of the action will be posted in due time.

The Fate of Alt Clut – Parts 2–4

A long overdue report on how things stand in our Dux Britanniarum campaign "The Fate of Alt Clut".

We managed to play four games, before taking a break for the summer way back in June. And now, here in November, we're still on that break and I don't think we'll be able to continue with the campaign until some time next year.

Anyway, rather than a detailed account of each game, I'll just do a quick summary and then finish off the post with some thoughts on Dux Britanniarum and the campaign.

The first game was a Pict raid on an Angles village, which ended in a marginal victory for the raiders. You can read more about that game here.

In the second game, it was time for the Picts to test their might against of the Britons of Alt Clut proper. And what an interesting game this turned out to be – it became very clear that playing in a campaign poses and imposes certain challenges on it's own, which is exactly the thing I'm after!

The battlefield, with the church in the middle,
surrounded by fields and a garden.
The Picts arrive from the top edge, and the Britons
from the right edge.

The Picts had their eyes set on a newly erected church just outside Mygedawc, where the holy relics were said to be of much value and the church's roof clad in gold.

I took command of the raiding Picts while my good mate Dalauppror commanded the staunch Britons – suitably reinforced with some heavy cavalry to hunt down the fast raiders.

Things didn't start too well for the Picts when I rolled two ones in a row: one for my morale roll and one for how many rounds headstart I would get. It seemed I would have to press forward as much as possible to try and get to the church before the Britons could form up a solid defense with their pesky shield walls.

The Britons making a swift advance with their levy,
trying to intercept the slow moving Picts screened by
their skirmishers and horsemen.

Unfortunately, my skirmishers got a little too enthusiastic while the other troops advanced far too cautiously. This meant the skirmishers got neutralised pretty quickly, even though they managed to tie up the Briton's cavalry for a while, buying me much needed time. As I found out, the skirmishers were badly needed as a way to soften up the Britons in shield walls before going in with the regular raiders.

The Britons cavalry arrive and immediately get locked in a lengthy
chase of the Picts' skirmishers.

After a couple of rounds of slogging towards the church, with some truly abysmal rolls for movement, it was clear this was not the Picts' day and I decided to withdraw to fight another time. But not before trying one last desperate attempt to get the upper hand: the Pictish Lord lead a mad attack against the British levy in shield wall. However, the only result of this attack was an honorable wound for the Lord and, predictably, some more fleeing Picts. The Britons tried to hunt down the fleeing raiders but only managed to inflict some minor losses after all. Result: a slight win for the Britons.

The Pictish Lord leads a suicide attack on the British levy in shield wall.
With predictable result ...

The Britons closing in on the raiders.

The Britons' cavalry, finally having destroyed the last skirmishers,
makes short work of the Pictish Lord's unit.

In face of the staunch British defense, the Pictish raiders
decide to call it a day.

And once again peace is restored.
Maybe even with a little help from The Man himself?

The month after the Picts were at it again, raiding a Romano-British farm. This time we switched sides, with me commanding the Britons and Dalauppror the Picts. Once again the raiders came up short as the British cavalry proved just as effective this time – a couple of well-placed charges saw the Pictish morale crumble and they were once again forced to withdraw in humiliating defeat.

Below are some pictures from this game:

An overview of the battlefield: Picts to the north
and Britons to the south.

Pictish cavalry rushing ahead of the main force.
"Daddyyyyyyy!!!"

The Picts arrive first and start to swarm all over the farm,
looking for things to knick.

Eventually the Romano-Britons arrive and everything degenerates
into that familiar mosh-pit of Dark Ages fighting.

Choo! Choo! You're about to get charged by some very angry cavalry.
What do you do?

With the Picts slightly weakened, the Angles (who were now up to full strength) saw an opportunity for an easy victory. They made a quick raid into the Picts' lands and stole some cattle. On their way back they were attacked by the returning Picts, who were eager to prove themselves after the failed raid against the Briton farm. However, the slightly under-strength force – no cavalry – proved no match for the aggressive Angles and another Pictish defeat was a fact. Sadly we didn't take any pictures of this game.

And so after 4 games and 3 months "in-game time" we have 2 victories for the Romano-Britons and 1 victory each for the Angles and the Picts. As is my general experience the attackers/raiders really need a good plan and some lucky dice rolls to win. It's also obviously of importance where the objective is placed – if it's placed far from the entry point of the attacker, it's going to be a tough match for them to win even with a couple of rounds of head start.

As for the rules themselves, they work fine for the most part but suffer somewhat from under-explanation. The added/adjusted rules for cavalry in the Raiders book, and the following confusion, really highlighted this I think.

I won't blame all the problems on the text though, as some of it is us, the players, coming to the game with a pre-conception of how things should be. When things aren't very clearly spelled out, we tend to fall back on how things usually work in our interpretations, which with rules such as these – with hidden depths, and elegant interactions between the different parts – makes for a somewhat confusing experience. It's easy to miss the smaller nuances, glossing them over in a quick read-through, when you think you already know how things work.

To be fair, the author has tried very hard to try and answer any questions but I really think there should be an updated version, with better explanations, or maybe simply a compiled FAQ-document like the one for Chain of Command.

I must confess that personally, my initial excitement for Dux Britanniarum has begun to wane a bit. Maybe this break was a good thing after all, giving us time to let the excitement build again. Because eventually, I really do want to continue with this campaign. The fate of Alt Clut still hangs in the balance ...

Thank you very much for reading!

And finally a big thank you to Michael/Dalauppror for supplying me with all the pictures for this post!

Update: Hey everyone, I didn't mean for this to turn into "let's bash Dux Britanniarum" and scare anyone away from this most excellent game. We've played close to 20 games of it by now – more than any other game I've ever played! – and it's really been tremendously fun.

My comments on its shortcomings were just to say that I think a great game could be even better. I would be very happy with an updated version with some tidying up of the text, together with some more and better explanations/clarifications and examples. Failing this, I'd be satisfied with a regularly updated FAQ-document.

The Fate of Alt Clut – Part 1: Introduction

After lots of talking – and lots of painting and terrain building on my part – we finally kicked off our new Dux Britanniarum campaign last Monday.

I choose to base the campaign in Alt Clut, the northernmost kingdom of the Britons. Here they are trapped between the raiding Picts in the north, primarily from the Pictish kingdom of Fib, and the aggressively expanding Angles in the east, primarily raiding from the former British kingdom of Bernaccia.

As you can see, this is a three faction campaign and we will use the simple rules from the Raiders book to determine who has the initiative in each month, and gets first say as to what they want to do. This will be a pretty loose campaign, with whoever showing up commanding one of the forces – but in theory I suspect it will just be Michael/Dalauppror and me for the most part.

As I'm keen to try out all the factions (this being is our first campaign in Dux Britanniarum proper, rather than some sort of tweaking for another period) we'll be alternating between them, so that no one will play eg the Picts for the whole campaign.

To begin with, we plan to do one full campaign year and then we'll see about continuing. Alt Clut is a one-province kingdom, which means the total campaign shouldn't last too long. However, three forces still means quite a lot of games: 8 raiding months per year, with a possible 2 games per month makes it a maximum of 16 games for the year. Though in practice I think it'll be much fewer than that.

For the first game, rather than roll for initiative I simply decided that the Picts had the initiative and would raid an Angle village, as we were eager to test out the new Raiders' rules.

Dalauppror set up the table in his usual excellent way and away we went. We had another guy from the club, Jesper, joining us and he got to command the Picts while Dalauppror took the Angles and I acted as game master/referee. I got so caught up in the game, I forgot to take pictures, but luckily Dalauppror managed some snaps so a big thank you to him for letting me use these in this post!

The Picts had a whole four rounds headstart, but some not too great rolls for movement meant they had just reached the outskirts of the village before the Angles turned up and the fighting began.

The table at the start of the game: the Picts have arrived from the top-most edge
and made their way to the village, while the Angles have just arrived,
ready to drive the raiders away.

A group of Picts managed to enter one building and quickly found all the loot they wanted (the raider's special rules for looting paid off nicely), while their comrades outside managed to hold their ground against the on-coming Angles.

The Picts are getting ready to plunder the barn,
while the Angles are getting ready to attack the intruders.

The Angle's elites arrive, to try to even out the odds a bit.

The Picts proved to be tough fighters and drove some of the Angles off, much thanks to some well-placed flank charges (nice use of Carpe Diem cards). However, they were now pretty badly beaten up and hard pressed from the Angles who had managed to reform their forces before it was too late.

The battle seesawing: while the Angle's elites press forward
to the left in the picture, the Picts have pushed back the other
Angels (to the right) and set them up for a charge by the cavalry.

We had to call the game off early due to running out of time and looking at the situation, we decided the Picts dropped the loot and made a hasty retreat while the Angles stood their ground not really being in any shape to pursue them. Counting up the casualties, we were a little surprised to see the Picts coming out on top with just 6 men lost while the Angles had lost a total of 13 men. A slight victory for the raiders then.

The Picts would replace their casualties and be ready to raid in the next month (April). The Angles in turn, would need to 2 months before they were up to full strength (May). As a result we decided that the Angles would not raid this month and as the Britons could not do anything (they can only initiate actions when they have lost lands) this meant the first month/round of the campaign was over.

In the next round the Angles will again not raid, preferring to wait until all their losses are replaced, and the Picts will therefore be free to act however they want. Rather than raid the now weakened Angles, we thought it would be more fun to pit them against the Britons. So the next game will be Picts against Britons.

It was great to finally start up the campaign, and to return to Dux Britanniarum – it's still by far my favourite game and campaign system, even though it's not without its faults (mainly in the presentation/text).

It's been a while since we last played the game, and I'm not sure Jesper had actually played it before, so we were a bit rusty. We spent some time flicking through the rules (which, let's face it, could be better presented and explained) which was only expected. We also made a couple of mistakes, but nothing too game changing I think. Overall, a great start to the campaign and I'm really looking forward to continuing.

Thanks for reading – have a nice weekend everyone!

First Game of Chain of Command – AAR and some thoughts

We had our first game of Chain of Command on Sunday. Dalauppror commanded a platoon of US Armoured Rifles while I took my German Panzergrenadiers. As it was a test-game and we were a bit short on space, we played it using 15 mm models on a small table (approximately 90x60 cm) using cm instead of inches. The models were multi-based, which isn't optimal as you need to be able to remove individual casualties, as well as split off teams from sections any way you might need. But with some common sense it worked without any problems.

We decided beforehand to play the Patrol scenario and to simplify things we ruled that both would get a 2 on the roll for support, which meant that the US force would get 2 points of support, while the Germans would get 5 points. I thought long and hard about what to choose, but in the end decided on an off-table 81 mm mortar battery with a Forward Observer, as I thought it would help me to pin down those large US squads, and an Adjutant to help me deploy my troops on the table (senior leaders being in short supply for the Germans). Dalauppror choose two jeeps as rides for one of his squads.

We got so caught up in the game that we didn't take too many pictures, but between us we managed to cover most of the action. So thanks to Dalauppror for most of the photos below!

Here is the table before the game started:

The battlefield from the American side.

We started off the Patrol Phase, trying to figure out the best tactics to use. I think we both quickly realized that most of the time you'd be better off advancing slowly to get a more flexible movement – if you advance too fast with one or two patrol markers, you'll be more limited in your choice of movement paths – before rushing ahead to lock down your opponent's markers.

Patrol markers and Jump-off Points.

Above is the table at the end of the Patrol Phase. As you can see we have started to place our Jump-off Points: the US have pretty much consolidated them in the centre of the board, in or around the village, while the Germans' are a bit more spread out with only one in the village itself, one just outside the village, and one a long way off to the left. I thought it would be a good place to deploy a flanking force, or maybe to stop the US troops from flanking me.

The action started with the US deploying a rifle squad in the building in the middle of the town. The Germans deployed one of their squads in cover of the hedges just outside the village and opened fire on the soldiers in the building, killing one man and applying some shock.

German Panzergrenadiers putting up a hard fight.

The US squad returned the fire, and also managed to kill one man and apply some shock. They continued by deploying a mortar team on the outskirts of the village, and using the rifle squad as spotters, targeted the Germans, who took another couple of points of shock.

Over the next couple of phases the Germans were content to sit back and continue to fire on the US soldiers in the building, slowly picking them off. After a while, it became apparent that the US rifles weren't going to win the shooting match with the two MG42s. And so while a new rifle squad was deployed in the village and sent out to try and outflank the Germans, the first squad retreated from the building and instead the .50 cals MMGs were brought into place.

US Mortar team, a badly beaten rife team and a fresh squad
sent on a flanking maneuver.

Now the Germans sent in their second team, a Forward Observer in the building on their right. He immediately put the call in for a barrage – the German mortars (off table) adjusted their sights to their new target ...

And they were going to be needed as the US MMGs began their work of taking out the German team. But still, the Panzergrenadiers held their ground.

In their next phase, the German FO called down a barrage on the amassed US troops in the village. As my troops weren't in the immediate area, I decided to call a full barrage from the start – and rolled a direct hit! That really hurt the US troops, as all of the units in the village were pinned, and the crews for the MMGs were severely decimated.

Meanwhile, the US flanking force advanced cautiously out of the village along the bocage. At the same time, US reinforcements arrived by the road in the two jeeps.

US Reinforcements arrive.

Despite being being hard pressed, the US MMGs managed to wound the German squad leader, putting him out of action for the rest of the Turn. Coupled with some more shock from the US mortars, the German squad was now in danger of being pinned and later broken.

So when it was my turn, another barrage was called down (I got lucky on the "availability" roll), and the FO moved the aiming point a bit to also cover the US mortar team, with the result of them being pinned. This would at least give me some time to try and rally the nearly broken squad.

The US jeeps turned off the road and continued on their way to try and flank the German squad outside the village.

The lurking German FO who called down some heavy mortar fire
on the US forces in the village.

The German answer was to deploy another squad in the same building as the FO, waiting for a chance to attack the jeeps. Yet another mortar barrage (and another lucky "availability roll") and things were beginning to look bleak indeed for the US troops in the village.

The US squad on a flanking mission continued the advance, but the Germans had a surprise in store for them – they deployed from their Jump Off Point and immediately opened fire on the squad. However, despite catching the enemy in the open the German fire proved ineffective and the result was limited to one US soldier down and a single point of Shock.

And there we called it a night. While the US platoon was shaken and slightly pressed at the moment, none of the forces had taken any hits on their Morale, and the game could have gone either way. For example, we both held a CoC dice each. In the next phase the US could have ended the turn and removed the pinned status from most of their troops, which would have given them time to consolidate their forces in the village, and pour some serious fire onto the Germans. Also, the two US flanking forces were going to cause some serious problems for the Germans.

On the other hand, with my CoC dice I could have kept the mortar barrage going through the next turn, which would once again pin most of the US centre, and give me time to concentrate on the threats of the flanking forces.

We had been playing for about three hours. There was some flipping back-and-forth in the rulebook, as is expected during the first game. The offical QRS, while not perfect (it's a WIP I think), was a great help though. 

All in all, a great game and a very entertaining session! During your phase, there are lots of decisions to make, and it feels like all of them matter, which leads to a very tense game. There was a lot to digest after our first session, and it's certainly a game that rewards the use of good (period) tactics. Which I personally find very interesting but it means I need to read up on some WW2 combat!

Some random thoughts:

We used the official Patrol markers but they are too big for our taste. As you measure from the centre of the marker and no LOS is applied, it means they could be any size. Using smaller markers will make them easier to place and they won't wobble or slide around on terrain features.

While being more "tightly" written than previous rules from TooFatLardies, there are still areas that could be more clearly explained and/or expanded. There is an FAQ/Errata posted but I think some stuff should have been in the rulebook, eg how to handle splitting off and re-joining teams/squads in more detail.

My overall tactics were rather successful, I think: keep my forces off the table for as long a possible, sit back and let the twin MG42s do their work (and my, those are nasty). Only deploy when necessary to avoid being flanked or overrun. Though, perhaps I should have kept my JoPs a little tighter together.

So, as I said, a lot to digest. Fun stuff indeed!

We both liked the game a lot, and will definitely play more in the future but using 28 mm miniatures. We will use Dalauppror's LW Germans and US Airborne, while I try to decide what I want to paint up: I have an unpainted Soviet platoon from Black Tree Design (bought in of their very nice 50% off sales) but after this game I'm seriously considering doing some LW Germans myself – they certainly are and interesting challenge to play.

Thanks for reading, have a great weekend everyone!

Muskets&Tomahawks Second Game – AAR

We had our second game of Muskets&Tomahawks on Monday. Once again it was my French against Dalauppror's Mohawks and we used the same forces as last time. The Indians got the Raid mission while the French had another go at Scouting.

This time we added in side plots to maybe even out the game a bit, as our last game was fairly one-sided. Dalauppror rolled "I'll prove my worth" – his Sachem had to charge an enemy unit of at least 3 models, and survive the melee. I got "Usurpation", which meant none of my units could move within 4 inches of my Officer. Tricky stuff indeed.

The board seen from the French side.

Just like last time we both started with all of our units on blinds, which led to some tentative first activations. The Mohawks moved with the majority of their units on their left flank, towards the buildings, and a small detachment was sent to stop the coming French advance on their right flank.

Meanwhile the French more or less mirrored the Mohawks by splitting their forces between both flanks.

The Mohawks set up a couple of units in the deep wood to try to halt the French coming their way, while two units moved out of the woods towards the settlement. The French didn't want to risk anything by revealing themselves before they had a good opportunity to shoot and so stayed in the woods. This meant the Indians arrived unopposed at the settlement and could set fire to the first building.

The Mohawks set fire to the first building ...

... while the Canadian militia opens fire on them.

With the Indians now in the open, the Canadian militia swept round the settlement and traded shots with the Mohawks who had set fire to the building. However, the shooting proved ineffective for both sides.

The compagnie franches de la marine advancing cautiously,
spying some Mohawks (or is it?) up ahead.

Meanwhile the compagnie franches de la marine advanced cautiously on the left flank – they had seen something in the woods up ahead that made them wary to get too close. Finally they decided to move up only to find it had been a bird or an animal (eg it was a dummy blind). Instead they fired off a few shots at the Mohawks near the second building, across the field, but as usual the French shooting was ineffective.

The compagnie franches de la marine true to form – no hits this time either.

The Mohawks now set fire to the second building, which spurred the compagnie franches de la marine to speed up their advance against the fourth and final sector to scout. However, they were keen to stay in cover and so choose the longer way, going around the deep woods.

Back on the other flank the French officer together with the Huron Indians (fashionably late to the party) moved back and forth, scouting the third sector while trying to get a good shot at the Mohawk forces camped in the woods. Some uncoordinated movement while retreating saw the Indians getting too close to the officer, which unfortunately meant the French side plot was spoilt. After some more, largely ineffective shooting by the French, the Mohawks saw their chance and charged their enemies, cutting down most of them.

I now had made a series of mistakes which would cost me the game. Up until now I had had the victory, not within grasp, but certainly within sight. My mistake was not being aggressive enough with my compagnie franches de la marine, while being too aggressive with my other forces. Had I advanced faster up the left flank (although I couldn't know the blind was a dummy, I had superiority in numbers and morale and probably could have stood up well in a fight) and then taken the shorter route in the open it was very likely I would have reached the final quarter of the board to scout. Meanwhile, the Indians and the Officer should have stayed in the safety of the woods and then begun to retreat, together with the militia, to the edge of the board were they could exit when the compagnie franches de la marine had done their scouting work.

It probably wouldn't have been that easy, of course the Mohawks would put up a hard fight and chase my retreating forces, but maybe I could have pulled it off!

Look out boys, the Indians are coming!

Well, it was too late now and instead the Mohawks could hunt the retreating French unopposed – cutting down both the French officer and the last Huron, before closing in on the militia – and also move up to block the advance of the Compagnie Franches de la marine. We had to end the game earlier as the time was up, but it was clear the Mohawks were the winners and the French once again had failed.

The goal in sight!
But those pesky Mohawks will soon thwart the French plans.

This game was much more uncertain than the first, and as such much more fun. Still, there certainly are some things to mull over ... After the game we discussed my force composition. We both felt the Mohawks, who had 2 more units than the French, were a more flexible force. It's possible I could take better advantage of the large 10 man squad of the compagnie franches de la marine, but I'm now looking at alternative forces which would give me more but smaller units. I haven't cracked that one yet though ...

We will take a break from Muskets&Tomahawks for a while now – our next scheduled game will be another playtest of Lion Rampant. Dan has done some significant revisions of the rules, and I'm looking forward to see how they change the game.

Finally, a warm welcome to the new followers Dave B and Rodger. I hope you'll like my blog!

Muskets&Tomahawks First Game – AAR and Some Thoughts

So I played my first game of Muskets&Tomahawks against Dalauppror's Mohawks on Monday night. It was both a fun and a little frustrating experience. This is a short AAR, unfortunately with just one picture as I was too busy playing the game to remember taking photos, and some general thoughts on the game at the end.

We started by setting up the terrain according to the rules. After some discussion we decided that all areas – except some which we clearly defined – not covered by terrain were "light wood" and counted as difficult terrain. This would have no effect on the movement of our troops as all units had the Scout trait, but they would of course still benefit from the cover.

We then rolled for Missions: the Mohawks got the Slaughter mission and the French a Scouting mission. This meant we had to scour up some civilians for me to defend. I then made a stupid mistake when choosing which table edge to deploy on (or rather enter from) and this more or less cost me the game. The civilians were deployed behind one of the buildings, as far away from the indians' edge as possible. Unfortunately, this meant I had to place them on the edge of the forest with the only clear area on the other side of the building (nearer the indians).

As this was our first game, and we were concentrating on learning the basics, we didn't include weather or side plots.

All units started on blinds which lead to a very tentative first activations. The only unit without a blind were the civilians who tried to flee into the forest. Well, that didn't go too well as the -2 penalty to movement in difficult terrain meant they could move just 1 inch each activation.

Here is picture of the board after a few activations. The French entered from the left and the Mohawks deployed on the right table edge. The civilians started just to left of the building in the center. The inside of the area marked in red counted as open (except of course the field and the buildings), everything else was either light or dense wood, or difficult terrain. Instead of blinds markers we used single models and put stickers under the bases to show if they were units or dummys.

The battlefield. Click on the picture for a larger view.

The indians in the bottom of the picture moved silently and swiftly through the woods, charged the slow moving civilians and slaughtered every last one of them before the French could stop the Mohawks. Here we struggled a bit with the rules, as it's not very clear how you handle the end of a melee with troops still alive on both sides.

Looking at the remaining number of cards it was now clear that the French had no chance of winning the game, but we played on anyway. I was keen to at least get my troops into some action, as they effectively had yet done nothing but move.

The Compagnies Franches de la marine were forced off their blind and then opened fire on the indians. However, a rather disorganized placement meant the shooting was quite ineffective – and made worse by my bad dice rolling.

The Mohawks answered by charging the nearby militia unit and again cutting down all of their enemies without getting so much as a scratch in return. My bad dice rolling continued, and this was beginning to get very frustrating.

The saviours of the French honour came in form of the allied Hurons. On the left flank (top left in the picture above) they had crept up silently and now opened fire on their hated foe the Mohawks, a group of which was lurking in the forest ahead of them. And at last the dice were with me – one Mohawk fell down dead.

And that was the end of the game.

So in summary, an interesting game but very frustrating – first the misstake in deployment and then the very bad dice rolling. Still, some good lessons to ponder for future games, and some questions about the rules.

• Deployment! Think carefully about how you deploy and if you can choose which side to deploy on, choose wisely.
• Do not get into melee with indians. Better to stand back and shoot as they will break rather easily when shot at.
• Placement within the unit is very important as friendly miniatures block line of fire. Or so was our understanding of the rules anyway. Can anyone please confirm this?
• The 180 degree "seeing arc" means it's pretty easy to spot and get a line of sight to the enemy and therefore (or so it was in this game at least) facing is less important than placement within the unit.
• Despite re-reading the rules, it's still not clear how you handle the end of melees when there are miniatures left on both sides. The general view on the M&T forum seems to be that the melee ends if the side forced to take a reaction test gets a Flight or Recoil result.
• One other thing which isn't clear in the rules is if Officers are a blind on their own or if they "hang on" to another unit. As they normally count as unit by themselves this would indicate they are on their own blind (this is how we played it), but a confirmation would be nice.

After some reading on the forum, it seems this particular combination of missions (Slaughter vs Scouting) can lead to some very one-sided games, just as we experienced.

Anyway, we have our next game planned for tomorrow and hopefully it will be a more even match this time. And I'll try to take some more pictures this time.

Finally, a warm welcome to the new followers David and Monty. I hope you'll like my blog!

Dux Viking Age AARs

As I'm sure many of you are aware, Dalauppror and I have been playing a mini campaign in the Viking Age using the excellent Dux Britanniarum from Too Fat Lardies. The original game pits the invading Saxons against the defending (Romano-)British, but in our campaign we just swapped them for Vikings, commanded by Dalauppror, and Anglo-Saxons, commanded by me, respectively.

Second game: The Vikings, set on plundering the Saxon village,
are repelled by the Saxon Lord and his elite thegns.

The changes to the rules were kept to a minimum – in fact we only changed one thing: In battles, but not in raids, the Vikings were allowed to form a shieldwall. Of course, we could have spent some time to develop new rules for berserkers and what not, and make period flavoured Fate cards etc, but I think the game worked fine more or less out of the box. Also, our relaxed approach allowed us to get gaming straight away, with minimal hassle, which is always a good thing in my book.

Third game: The Saxon archers keep watch in the old Roman fortress,
as the great fyrd is standing by ready to crush any Vikings who dare show themselves.

Anyway, I won't post any lengthy AARs here, as Michael has already done such a smashing job over on his blog. (Even though the reports are to be regarded as Viking propaganda!) Instead, I wanted to collect the direct links to all the different AARs in one place for easier reference for myself in the future:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

Fourth game: The brave greater fyrd make a um ... "retreat" back into the fortress
as the Viking horde tries in vain to capture any of the Saxon nobles.

Oh, and if I were you, I'd keep my eye out for the upcoming Too Fat Lardies' Christmas Special ...

Testing out the Duxes

On Saturday I had the great pleasure of being invited by Michael (aka Dalauppror) to try out not only Dux Bellorum, but also Dux Britanniarum. As I'm usually the host for my regular gaming opponent(s), it was a rare luxury indeed to just show up at Michael's club without having to bother with any painting or even setting up.

The brave Saxon warriors desperately trying
to hold back the British cavalry.

In the first game, Dux Bellorum, I took command of the defending Saxons against the raiding Romano-British. A misunderstanding on my part saw me deploying all my best troops, including the leader, on the "wrong" side of the battlefield inside a village. This consequently led to them having very little impact on the overall battle apart from killing three skirmish units. Not very glorious!

Instead it was my regular, but mighty brave, warriors who took the brunt of the British onslaught. The three units managed to tie up the enemy's four cavalry units in some heavy fighting for the better part of the game. In the end though, as the Saxon lord and his nobles struggled to reach the main battle in the centre of the board, they couldn't hold up against the British might and were run down. This led to me hitting the 50% of the starting units lost cap, which forces each unit to take a Morale test to see if they rout. With my usual luck I managed to fail two tests, and so 75% of my starting units were lost and not just these two units routed, but the whole army decided enough was enough and ran for the hills.

Despite this defeat it was a very fun game, and I will definitely play Dux Bellorum again. As with any new game it takes a bit of getting used to, despite the core mechanics being pretty easy to understad. It took some reading and reasoning before we got a grip on combats between groups for example (which is usually the most complex part in any rules set I guess, so nothing against Dux Bellorum there). When we've had a few games I expect this will flow very naturally however. Also, I think we will use Leadership Points to interrupt the movement order to better effect than in the first game. There were some points in the battle were this would have given me a slight edge I could have exploited.

Michael has posted a short review of the rules on his blog, and it pretty much sums up my feelings about the game too.

On to Dux Britanniarum then. This time I got to play the Romano-British, and Michael took command of the raiding Saxons. We started by rolling up our Lords, which is very fun RPG-like method to personalize your campaign. (You're supposed to roll for your two Nobles as well but to save some time we skipped this.) After this we rolled to see which scenario to play and got a raid on a village. We set up the table according to the rules, with a river dividing the battlefield in half. We rolled to decide the depth of the river and the result was ... "Impassable". The only way to cross it was at a single ford. We then rolled to see were the village would be placed and to my luck, it was placed on the opposite side of the river seen from the table edge were the Saxons entered. Finally we rolled to see how many rounds headstart the Saxons would have (three), deployed the Saxons accordingly and then the actual game began.

The Saxons are out to raid the village to the left
but get stuck at the ford.

In the picture to the right is the table after the first "real" round, were the British appeared. As you can see the Saxons are pretty much stuck in a jam at the ford, but one group has managed to reach the village. The British forces are preparing to cross the enclosed fields just outside the village.

The jam at the ford would continue for the remainder of the battle, with only two other Saxon groups reaching the village. The first group entered a house but only got to take one Loot test, before my Lord and his comanipulares stormed in and cut them down. Meanwhile, the second Saxon group arrived, only to get attacked by the two groups of milites. Heavy fighting ensued, until the Saxons, having suffered heavy losses, routed.

The third Saxon unit to clear the ford and reach the village was no other than one of the gedridhts, accompanied by a Noble. They now clashed with the Romano-British Lord and his elite comanipulares. The fierce Saxons inflicted heavy casualties on the British, nearly taking down their Lord, but the Champion stepped in instead and saved his Lord. The British fought well however, and in the end both sides had lost too many men to keep fighting and routed.

As we were running out of time, and both sides were in pretty bad shape, the Saxons performed an unchallenged withdrawal and the battle was over. Rules wise the British counted as the winners, but morally I think it was a draw.

We spent some time afterwards chatting about the games and both agreed that while both Dux Bellorum and Dux Britanniarum are great games, the latter were a bit more fun. The only downside to Dux Brit is the fact that some very important things are not spelled out in the rules! I would recommend everyone interested in the game to check out the players notes on Too Fat Lardies' blog.

Michael will post more detailed AARs on his blog in a day or so, with more and better pictures. There you can also find pictures of the splendid forcces used for these games.

Hopefully we will be able to get some more gaming going in the future, and I'm very much looking forward to fielding my Welsh in both games.

Thanks for reading!

Update: Michael has posted an AAR for the Dux Bellorum fight on his blog.