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!

Dark Ages Saxons 7

May I present to you the commanders of the Saxon warband: the ætheling Æescwine and his champion Ceowulf, accompanied by the adlings Eadric and Eadbald.

Noble, Lord, Champion and Noble.

These are the final miniatures for my Saxon warband for Dux Britanniarum. The models are all from Gripping Beast and may actually be off by a hundred years or so, more suitable for the 6th century than the 5th. However, I didn't like the look of the ones in the West Wind Miniatures command set, and the characters from Musketeer, while excellent sculpts, look a little too meek for my taste. So I went with these miniatures from good old Gripping Beast – they had just the right look of cold-blooded murderers I was going for, coupled with some excellent arrogant poses. And the Penda model is just so over the top, I had to use it for my warlord.

For the shields, I've used a new approach: the noble's shield is hand painted while the bird on the champion's shield is an overpainted transfer from Little Big Men Studios. It's not perfect by any means (most notably, I didn't manage to blend the edge of the transfer), but I'm pretty happy with how it turned out – especially for a first try – and I definitely plan on using this technique more in the future.

With these miniatures done, the whole warband is now finished. It's always a nice feeling completing a project, but I'm particularly pleased with this one as it took longer than planned. I will do a photo shoot with the whole force when I get the time. Hopefully, I will get to field them in a game soon too, as I think they're eager to steal some cattle and gold – and kick some Briton behind of course.

Thanks for looking!

Dark Ages Saxons 6

This week I have finished the second unit of gedrihts for my Saxon warband for Dux Britanniarum.

The miniatures are mainly from Musketeer Miniatures with one model from West Wind mixed in for a bit of variety (the miniature with the blue cloak in the pictures).

Shield transfers, as usual, from the great Little Big Men Studios. The shields are in the same style as the other unit's to set them both apart as elites.

This is the final regular unit for this warband, and all that's left to paint now are a couple of characters.

Thanks for reading, have a great weekend everyone!

Dark Ages Saxons 5

After almost two months I can at last post another update to my Saxon project. I had just begun painting this unit when work hit me hard and this project was completely halted. But during the Christmas vacation I finally had the time to continue with these miniatures and here they are at last – the first unit of gedrihts, the elite warriors of the Saxons. As such they are suitably armoured up and clad in the some of the brightest coloured and finest patterned clothing this side of the Mare Germanicum.

The second miniature from the right is from West Wind,
the rest are from Musketeer Miniatures. 

The miniatures are from Musketeer and West Wind. To be honest, when it comes to these particular miniatures, the quality of the sculpts of former is leagues above the latter, but it's always nice with some variety in a skirimish warband.

Not a sight you are likely to see very often!

The shield transfers are from Little Big Men Studios. I went for a sort of unified look with the shields, to try and tie the warriors together as a unit.

Tough guys spoiling for a fight. And a good look
at the lovely shield transfers from LBMS.

The second unit of gedrihts is on the painting table at the moment, and should be ready next week.

Thanks for looking! Have a great week everyone!

Dark Ages Saxons 4

Here is the final group of warriors for my Saxon warband for Dux Britanniarum.

The miniatures are from Musketeer and West Wind (the second mini from the right, in the picture above), and the shield transfers are from Little Big Men Studios.

And a final look at these hairy fellas.

With the rabble done, I can now concentrate on the elite gedriht and the characters. My plan is to use a bit more colour on these, and with more patterns on their clothes, to make them stand out against the muted palette of the skirmishers and common warriors.

Thanks for looking!

Dark Ages Saxons 3

This past week has been crazy busy at work and as a consequence I've come home most nights feeling utterly knackered. Despite this I've still found the time and energy to press on with the Saxon horde through sheer force of will (well, almost!), and here is the result of that feat: another unit of warriors.

L to R: Musketeer, West Wind, WW, M, M, M

The miniatures are the usual mix of Musketeer and West Wind, with shield transfers from Little Big Men Studios.

As you can see, I'm still experimenting with my photo setup. I think the daylight bulbs I'm using may be a bit too bright, as they kill some of the more subtle tones. It's most noticeable on the blue cloak in the picture above – it doesn't look quite as flat in reality!

Unfortunately, it looks like the situation at work will continue for a couple of more weeks, maybe even as long a until Christmas, and I'm not sure if I'll able to keep up the desired pace in this project during this time. We shall have to see I guess ...

Thanks for reading and have a great week everyone!

Dark Ages Saxons 2

The Saxon horde continues to grow this week with the addition of the first group of warriors. These are a mix of duguth (older and more experienced warriors) and geoguth (younger up and comers). This bunch of hairy raiders is little more colourful than the skirmishers – but not by much and mainly thanks to their shields!

L to R: Musketeer Miniatures (MM), MM, MM, West Wind, MM, MM

The miniatures are from West Wind and Musketeer and the shield transfers are from Little Big Men Studios. The Musketeer models are quite nice, but I would have liked some even more menacing looking types. Also, there were quite a bit of flash and mold lines on the miniatures, which made cleaning them up a bit of a chore. I really don't like cleaning up models ...

I've been experimenting with my new daylight bulbs and an improvised lightbox. It think the photos came out all right for a first try, but it will take some more trial and error before I'm satisfied.

Finally, a warm welcome to the new followers Panzer Kaput and Legion Games (do you have a blog, I couldn't see one linked from your profile?).

Thanks for looking everyone, there will be more Saxons in a week or so!

Dark Ages Saxons 1

By now I think most of you know that despite occasional detours into other periods, my real passion lies in the so called "dark ages" and especially the British Isles during the 5-7th centuries. So unsurprisingly, for my next trick ... ahem, I mean project I will paint up a force of everyone's favourite Germanic raiders for Dux Britanniarum: yes, finally it's Saxon time!

This is the standard starting-force straight out of the rulebook and consists of:

1 Lord
1 Champion
2 Nobles
12 Elites
18 Warriors
4 Skirmishers with bows

The miniatures will be a mix of Musketeer and West Wind, as well as a couple from Gripping Beast.

I have decided to forego the smaller bucklers and instead use regular-sized shields as I just think it looks much better. Also, I've read somewhere that the historical evidence for bucklers is somewhat ambiguous. But mainly, as I said, I just think the large shields look better.

Anyway, here is the first unit to be finished – the skirmishers.

I've gone for a very muted palette on these, as I like to do for my skirmishers. It makes their job of hiding in the bushes to surprise the enemy easier.

The miniatures are from West Wind, and very nice they are too.

Have a nice week everyone, and thanks for reading!