Dux Bellorum - The re-match

On Tuesday evening Martin (TableTopMog) and I had another crack at Dux Bellorum.

Deployments

I used the same Saxon force as the previous game we had: Foot Commitatus, 2 Noble Warriors, 4 Ordinary Warriors, 1 Skirmisher with javelins and 2 extra Leadership Points.

Martin went for a slight change in his Twilight of Brittania force, dropping a Ordinary Riders for the Hurled Weapons upgrade: Mounted Comitatus, 1 Noble Rider, 1 Ordinary Riders, 4 Ordinary Shieldwall, 2 Skirmishers with bows and 1 extra Leadership Point, Hurled Weapons.

This time I would be the aggressor, so Martin set the table up with an impassable area on one flank, a haunted ruin only populated by goats, and a low hill on the other flank.

British centre

The Britons deployed with their infantry in the centre with a unit of riders and bowmen on his right flank and his Comitatus, nobles and bowmen on the other flank. I deployed three blocks of Noble and Ordinary Warriors weighted towards my right with the skirmishers on the extreme right.

I did intend to take a photo after each turn, but that fell apart after a few turns.

We were soon advancing towards the Britons, I split my force to clear the centre and concentrate on the flanks. After some desultory bow fire the British horse crashed into the Saxons almost wiping out one of the Warriors before withdrawing.

The lines close

The Saxon advance continued and soon my troops on the right were engaged with the Comitatus and Noble cavalry in a prolonged fight that drew two units of spearmen from the British centre. The British left was looking exposed, the Riders were soon despatched along with the bowmen, but my reduced warriors on that flank were struggling against the solid blocks of infantry.

On my right we made the breakthrough we needed, having dealt with the British archers, my skirmishers moved around the flank while my warriors saw off the Nobles, the Comitatus were looking quite exposed and were eventually charged in the flank while I positioned the javelinmen behind them.

Casualties start to tell

Of course the British Comitatus won the ensuing round of melee but we maintained contact and were soon grinding them down especially as the skirmishers prevented them from falling back and therefore taking additional cohesion points.

As we drew to a close the British had been reduced to a single unit of spearmen and the Comitatus, the latter eventually broke and the Saxons, having only lost three units of Warriors themselves were victorious.

After the game Martin and I were both very much of the same thought. The rules are ok, but the armies seem a bit small and the game a bit formulaic. We started with seven core units and had to reduce the British to a single unit to get a result, that seemed rather a lot. If we had played DBA we would have started with a dozen units and the game would have been over when reduced to three units.

 Here are some more photos from the game, my Saxons are mainly Musketeer Miniatures painted by myself, while Martins Twilight of Brittania are mainly Gripping Beast painted by himself.

The Saxon line

British Comitatus and Nobel Riders

The ghost and goat haunted outcrop

Skirmishers clash

Things go well on the Saxon left

The Warriors get stuck in

The British shieldwall proves a tougher prospect

Saxon and British Comitatus units grind away at each other

The British right under pressure

Likewise on the left

Saxon Nobles take on two units of spearmen

Things about to go bad for the British commander

But he fights off the first wave

Dux Bellorum

Clash of lines

For our game at the club yesterday Martin was fancying a go at the Dux Bellorum rules from Osprey using his Twilight of Britannia troops against my Early Saxon Kingdoms fellows.

Martin had not played before and I was rather rusty only having played a couple of time s before and most recently during our demo game at Salute 2013.

We would play the Annals battle and both picked 32pt forces. I used: Foot Commitatus, 2 Noble Warriors, 2 Ordinary Warriors, 1 Skirmisher with javelins and 2 extra Leadership Points. Martin used Mounted Comitatus, 1 Noble Rider, 2 Ordinary Riders, 4 Ordinary Shieldwall, 2 Skirmishers with bows and 2 extra Leadership Points.

Rolling for the Aggressor and Repeller Martin rolled very high and would be attacking me with his Shieldwalls. I laid out the terrain with a wood on one flank and a cornfield on the other and we deployed our forces as per the image on the right.

Martin started with some desultory bow fire which my chaps shrugged off and soon the lines were closing. The first combat was initiated with the Noble Riders charging my javelin armed skirmishers in the in the corn, after two rounds of combat we had inflicted no cohesion point on each other (we were playing that you could only use a single leadership to avoid a cohesion point per combat). Eventually the infantry lines clashed and then I made my first mistake. The riders had finally inflicted a cohesion point on my skirmishers and forced them to recoil. I used an LP to take the initiative and move them away from the riders, this unfortunately allowed the riders to bugger off somewhere more effective as they were were not within one base width of an enemy unit - arse - I did however put a couple of cohesion point son with the javelins first though.

The infantry lines were now going at it hammer and nails and the Saxons were getting the upper hand but casualties were mounting on both sides. On my right a unit of warriors managed to tied down and beat up both units of riders who had become stuck in the woods.

Now things were really looking up for the Saxons, Martin had lost four units and myself none, the LPs' were really in my favour and I just needed to clear up. Of course now things started to go wrong!

Having beaten up all the supporting horse and skirmishers on his left flank my warriors fell upon his shieldwall on that side engaging to the front and flank. In one combat I had fifteen dice to get a six and did not roll one, Martin rolled his three attacks back and scored three fives killing off a unit of mine that was already down to three cohesion points. A few of my other units finally succumbed and things were looking quite even now.

Surrounded and they still fought me off!

My foot comitatus were pants, engaged from very early on against the shield-walls in about twelve rounds of combat they had inflicted a single cohesion point on the unit that they were engaged with - pants! They finally let me down badly, in the same turn, both Martin and I dropped to below 50% my comitatus made their morale roll and threw an 11 stupid buggers! Martin also failed a roll and we were both now at the 75% mark - both armies simultaneously routed.

An ignoble draw after it was all going so well. I blame those bloody la-de-dah Saxon nobles, effete in the fight and then running away when things got sticky.

More photos from the game. My collection is almost entirely Musketeer Miniatures painted by myself, Martins is Gripping Beast painted by himself.

Salute 2013 - The morning after the day before

Andy Hawes Twilight of Brittania force

So, the alarm goes off at oh-my-gawd-it's-three-thirty, it's a small matter of wiping the sleep from my eyes, getting dressed and into the car and off to Littleover to pick up John. Then it's over to the Wyvern to meet up with James and Tom a quick transfer of everything into James' car and we are off to Salute.

A good couple of hours later we are in the Excel, we meet up with Steve and are soon setting up our games. The two Andys from Peterborough arrive shortly and our complement is complete.

Arthur leads his Commitatus

We will be running two side-by-side Dux Bellorum games, a large 64-point game of the Barbarian Conspiracy featuring the armies of Steve Jones and James Morris on a 8ft x 6ft table and a regular sized 32-point Arthurian game featuring Andy Hawes' beautiful Twilight of Brittania army and my rather more shonky Early Saxons.

The majority of the terrain had been created by Steve Jones and the remainder provided by James Morris. Steve had made a rather splendid hill fort that you can see on his blog here. Our intention was to have action in at least one of the battles at all times and to try to keep spectators involved with running commentary and comment.

The Barbarian Conspiracy by James Morris

It was a great day, Andy and I managed to play out our Twilight of Brittania game twice with the Saxons coming out on top both times. I am almost hoarse this morning with all the chatting and glad handling, but I think we managed to enthuse a lot of people about this particular and often overlooked gaming period and to the Dux Bellorum rules. Many people said they had bought the rules and had not gotten around to playing them and would certainly be giving them a try.

Steve Jones' Late Romans

I had a great day and over the course of that day met up with some good friends, many of whom I'd not seen for quite some time, several years in some cases. To top it off, we were presented with the Salute 2013 Best Painting prize.

I finally made it home at about 9:30 in the evening, knackered but somewhat elated.

My hairy Saxon battle line

And my 'spend' at Salute, up to 16:00 I had only spent one pound! But this sad state of affairs had to end, so I went to the Perry Miniatures stand and purchased their Desert Rats and Universal Carrier deal for £30.00. That's right, without petrol, parking and snacks I had only spent £31.00 at Salute, I think I need to see a doctor!


Here are some more pictures of our games, all the figures are from and by James Morris, Steve Jones, Andy Hawes and myself, the terrain is by Steve Jones and James Morris.

The team for the day was Steve Jones, http://guitarheroandy.blogspot.co.uk/, Andy McTaggart, James Morris, John Grant, Tom Webster Deakin and myself. Thank you chaps!

 

More of James' Picts and Irish

More of James' Picts and Irish

More of Steves Late Romans

Andy Hawes Shieldwall forms against the Saxon onslaught

Andy Hawes Noble Riders

The beautiful fort by Steve Jones

The Saxon Warriors crash into the British Shieldwall

British Shieldwall

Arthur and his Comitatus again

Arhur gets stuck into the Saxons

The battle lines clash

The British left flank is under a lot of pressure

We won the Best Painting prize!

First try of Dux Bellorum

Saxon battle lines close

So, Salute is coming up and Tom and myself have volunteered to assist James, Steve, Andy M and Andy H with the Dux Bellorum game at the event. It may be a good idea if we could actually get a game in before the 20th April when Salute is on.

Last night it was round to Toms and we had our first crack at Dux Bellorum, I used Saxon, representing an Early Saxon Kingdoms list, while Tom used Sea Raiders again with Saxons. As it was our first game we decided on 24 points, Tom used:

• Foot Companions - Move 2, Bravery 10, Aggression 6, Protection 6, Cohesion 6
• 2 Noble Warriors - Move 2, Bravery 9, Aggression 6, Protection 5, Cohesion 6
• 3 Ordinary Warriors - Move 2, Bravery 7, Aggression 5, Protection 5, Cohesion 5

My list was:

• Foot Companions - Move 2, Bravery 10, Aggression 6, Protection 6, Cohesion 6
• Noble Warriors - Move 2, Bravery 9, Aggression 6, Protection 5, Cohesion 6
• 4 Ordinary Warriors - Move 2, Bravery 7, Aggression 5, Protection 5, Cohesion 5
• 2 Skirmishers with Slings - Move 3, Bravery 8(6), Aggression 1(2), Protection 4, Cohesion 2

Saxon on Saxon

Both armies had 6 Leadership Points (LP).

Looking at the scenarios, we decided on the Annals Battle as it seemed to be the easiest and then we randomised that I would be the Aggressor. The game played out ok, and once the initial concepts were garnered it seemed to flow well and is quite simple enough.

I am really not impressed with how the rules are laid out, we spent quite some time trying to find out things like support, which I think after a first play do not seem to work very well at all.

The lines finally clash

Toms Companions were fighting against my Companions and a unit of Ordinary Warriors, rather than me having the advantage for outnumbering him, Tom had the advantage as he was able to direct all the attacks against my lower protection Warriors where I just got an extra attack from the supporting unit.

Skirmishers seem to have no role in the game at all, if you fire your bows, you cannot move so soon get splattered by a unit of Warriors (costing you a Leadership Point) as you cannot move if you shot, and if you support a combat with them then the opponent gets an advantage as described above.
In the end, I did finish off Toms Companions meaning he could not allocate Leadership Points, and having whittled down Toms other units eventually his army routed while I was left with a unit each of my Companions, Noble Warriors and Ordinary Warriors.


No doubt Tom will soon update his blog with his version of events.

More Saxon action

We are going to have another try in a couple of weeks so will get a couple of games in before Salute, it may be that we find out what we are doing wrong and the next game plays better.

Here are some more photos from the game, I need to do some more work on my movement trays in time for Salute as they are just plain brown at the moment: