Dux Britanniarum AAR Welsh vs. Vikings

Haven´t been to much painting for me lately... but I have managed to play some Dux games at least...

I introduce Dux Britanniarum to 4 of the members at our club last week, here comes a short AAR of the event;)

As several of our members have got SAGA armys we decided to move the seting forward a couple of hundred years and use a Welsh and a Viking warband.

The Welsh used the Romano-British stats and the Vikings used the Saxon ones. We also altered the configuration of the warbands some due to the minis we had, I have made a small point value schedule to calculate the composition of the warbands.

OOB

Vikings
Warlord "Torgeir the Red" and his Champion "Varg"
He had brought he´s two hephews to lead his men.
4x6 Hirdmen (Elit warriors)

Welsh
Warlord "Engelbert the Bold" and his Champion "Aderyn"
He had also brought two relatives as help to lead his men.
1x6 Elit Warriors
2x6 Warriors
2x6 Levys
1x4 Skirmishers

One again we run the Farm raid scenario, The Vikings got 3 moves befor the game started.

The Vikings had just landed on the beach and hurried to move against the defenseless little welsh farm to get some fresh sheeps...

Torgeir the Red shoose to move through the fileds...not the fastest rout...

As the first group of Viking raiders reaches the farm and start to search the house for plunder the Welsh Warlord Engelbert the Bold and his bold men emerge from behind the forest...

As Torgeir the Red joins the pilagers in the houses the Welsh close in on all sides of the farm, just one lone group of Vikings lure behind the farmhouses douptful of what to do as they been left withouit any heroes to show the way...

The viking hirdmen left without any leadership was a easy prey for Engelbert the Bold that after a short but intense fight chase them away...

At the same time there are a hard fight going on around the small hovel... 

The first group of Vikings to enter the farm have struck gold...or at least some sheeps that they start to haul forward the beach and the ships...

To save there beloved sheeps a bold group of Welsh warriors charges the Vikings that are on there way to the beach, they let the loot go and meet up the Welsh Warriors...

Torgeir the Red start to feel overwhelm and start to get his men out of the farmhouse to be able to meet the threat...

The Vikings fighting on the farmyard do good and starts to were down the Welshmen...but at the Hovel the Vikings starts to get beaten up...

Engelbert the Bold  are nowere to be seen...

The few Vikings that were left at the hovel start to run for saftey, shasing some innocent sheeps before them...

Torgeir the Red order his hirdmen to get the looted sheeps at the farmyard and run for it...TO THE SHIPS!!!

Engelbert the Bold returning just in time to see some of the sheeps to be draged of to an uncertain destiny...

Good work boys ! at least we got some real god action and some sheeps to dinner... Torgeir the Red didn´t won the day but he got some plunder and only small losses, he will be back in a mont or so...

Engelbert the Bold was proud of his men, many untrained but still they fought well in the struggle against the sea raiders only loosing 6 of his men he still had a strong force and with some reinforcements he would be ready to meet new threats to his realm within a month or so...

This was a very nice game, I think several of the participants will play more Dux Britanniarum especialy if we make a Viking era campaign of it. This was my second game and I think the rules worked realy good even as there was 4 rookiess to them....worked very good with 2 players aside to.

Dux Britanniarum first game AAR

Here comes a short AAR of my and Jonas first tryout game of Britanniarum from TooFatLardies.

Jonas Commanded my Romano-British and I took command of my generic Saxons. We started to roll for the Character but only all the way for the Warlords as we was a little short of time and the main focus was to try out the rule engine.

OOB as per the rules.

Saxons
Warlord "Wselfwulf" and his Champion "Wyman"
Two relatives to the Warlord as Leaders, "Abrecan" and "Bana"
2x6 Elit Warriors
3x6 Warriors
1x4 Missile (Slingers)

Romano-British

Warlord "Titus Claudius Cogidubnus" and his Champion "Vindicus"
Two close friends as Leaders, "Marcifilius" and "Morganius"
1x6 Elit Warriors
2x6 Warriors
3x6 Levy
1x4 Missile (Archers)


We rolled for scenario and got the Farm Raid, the Saxons got 3 turns of movement befor the game started.

The river was in the Saxons way and with just one passable ford...the rest of it was impassible due to heavy rains the last days...

The Saxon warlord Wselfwulf sent he´s slingers to the left to be able to shower the British from the saftey of the river. At the same time Abrecan and he´s Saxon Warriors had managed to get cross the river ans reached the farm to start the loot of the duildings...

At the same time the British warlord Cogidubnus and all his Warriors emerged close to the farm and started to advance forward the farm...

So far so good, nice with random movement, usualy 3D6" if there arn´t any obstacle in the way like a ford or a stone fence... you have to use all the movement rolled, if you haven´t clearly stated where you want the unit to move.

Yet more British forces emerged from the Saxon left...the Saxons still had problem to get over the river... and they didn´t find any loot in the house...

At the farm the first battles started to emerge...The main part of the Saxons still struggled to get pass tha ford and the Britts had a hard time to get cross the enclosed field...

The British levy managed to make a swift advance in to the Saxon slingers...that disperse and took no more part in this raid...

If the missile-slinges had been skirmish-javelin, they would have thrown there sticks and retreated, but missile troops contacted by formed troops are dispersed for the rest of the game...Should have used then differently...

The British Elite Warriors managed to beat the Saxons in the house that after a fierce and close battle made a run fore it to the ford, creating havoc amongst ther own comrades in arms.

If a unit gets, double the amount of men left in it, of schock, they are out of buissness for the game and just try to get home as quickly as possible. The arrow markers are 1 chock and the dead markers are 3 chock.

Warlord "Wselfwulf" still tryed to lead his men to the farm for some plunder...but there was plenty of British warriors there already...and more was comming at the back, risking to cut of the retreat...

After some more intense fighting at the outskirt of the farm a unit of Saxon elit warriors broke due exsess chock...heading back to the ships in a haste...

Both forces roll for Warband Morale Value at the begining of the game and for each unit lost och Hero wounded the Morale drop... at this time the Saxons had lost 5 of 7 points....

After a failed last push in to the farm by a unit of Saxon elit warriors Warlord "Wselfwulf" decided that there was better to save the rest of the men for a nother day, he ordered hes Warband to start to withdraw back to the ships....

It had been a close shot for Titus Claudius Cogidubnus as the only undamaged units left for the british was the Levy, he was still glad that he´s forces had managed to repell the Saxon invaders...

This was a realy nice game and we learned alot of the rules and will absolutly play different next time. The rules are quite easy and run realy smoth, it was sometimes hard to find rules during the game, but we will both read them some more to get them right next time.

Please make a visit to Jonas blog "A Conflict of Interests" to and read about the battle from the British point of view:) 

Dux Britanniarum "Review"

Here comes some initial  thought of the new rules Dux Britanniarum from Too Fat Lardies...

Dux Brittaniarum are a set of rules that focus around the Saxon invasion of the British isles during the 5th to 7th century. The rule book are 92 pages full colour and avaliable in printed book, as a .PDF or in a tablet version.

The layout of the book are nice and clear with several rules clarification pictures and some gaming pictures, could have been some more gaming pictures in my mind.

The glue bounding of the book are good, although I still have one Issue with the printed Dux Britanniarum book...the top layer plastic on the front and back have started to come loose at the edges...

At first glance I was a little disappointed of the softback book I got in the snailmail...I had expected a hardback book... suppouse it was my lack in english as I ordered a "Hard Copy"...for me that was Hardback...

I would have prefered a real hardback book, suppouse I have been spoiled by the nice Hail Caesar and Black Powder rules book, again they are at least £10 more expensive...

In the printed copy they also included a A3 print of a map of the British isles, stunning work by Coral Sealey. I think you can download it at the TooFatLardies yahoo group.

So back to essentials...the rules...

They are the kind of rules that I like, focused on the telling of a story, campaign games and easy fast play rules with a certain amount of unpreditctable outcomes.

The key to the game are of course, as in all? TooFatLardied rules, the card driven activation. In Dux Britanniarum they have separate the special card from the Action deck to a Fate deck, work mighty good. The card are ofcourse sold at the TooFatLardie site or you can print your own as they kindly provided them for free here.

But there are a few glitches to the writing of the rules...  I feels that some rules are lacking in explanation, are hard to find or not included at all as the authour might have taken them for granted... gets especially cleare than one reads the design notes on there blog. The design notes are a must to get the rules right...

Apart from these realy small issues it´s a very good set of rules. Can´t point it out to many times, it´s so nice to have a game that focus around the campaign gaming AND campaign system that are easy to administrate.

The campaigns are in my mind 2 man affairs, so that will limit the gaming possibilitys, but it shouldent be to hard to get around I suppouse... sure the Lardies already thought of that for next expansion to the game.

I realy hope to get some Dux Britanniarum campaings up and running...maybe one with Vikings and Saxons...or with my new project that are in the pipeline, think they would be prefect...

AAR of our first tryout game of the Dux Britanniarum rules in a day or so:)

28mm WotR minis for sale

I have sorted out some minis from my leadpile of 15th century 28mm minis that I never will have time to paint up.

So if any one of you are in need for 56 (37 Bill/pike/Spear men, 13 Archers and 6 handgunners) unpainted WotR/15th century minis from the Crusader miniature WotR range, please post a comment with your email adress and I get in touch, ofcourse I won´t publish comments with mail adresses:)

The price asked for are £40 + P&P.

Dux Bellorum first game AAR

Today are the official releaseday of Dux Bellorum, if you haven´t already order your copy do it now;)

During saturday I had the chanse to properly try out Dux Bellorum, untill now it´s only been small tryouts at the kitchen table.

We used my 28mm minis on movement trays giving us a base width of 80mm, and was playing at a 120x120cm table... think we should have used the full 180x120cm as it got a little to narrow.

The forces was of the standard 32 points, one Romano-British Land Raiding warband and one Saxon Warrior warband.

OOB

Romano-British Land Raiders
1x Mounted Companions w. Leader @5pts
4x Mounted Nobles @5pts each
3x Foot Skirmishers w. Bows @1pts each
8x Leadership Points @4pts
Total: 32 pts

Saxon Warriors
1x Foot Companions w. Leader @5pts
2x Foot Noble Warriors @5pts each
5x Foot Warriors @3pts each
2x Foot Skirmishers w. Slings @1pts each
6x Leadership Points for Free:)
Total: 32 pts

I played the Romano-British and was agressor, my friend Jonas commanded the Saxons and was obvious then repellor. I have made some comments about how the rules work in to the AAR as well as this is a new set of rules.

The Set-up, the defending Saxons placed half he´s warband in the village and the other half out in the open...

The British plan was to use the cavalry to annihilate all the Saxons in the open and win the day and in the same time use the 3 units of Skirmish archers to delay the Saxons in the village... nothing could go wrong...

The set-up alternate, all steps begin with the agressor. First all Foot from borht sides, then the Cavalry and last all Skrimishers.

The Saxons in the open started to make a uneven advance, the ones in the village seems to like the good food so they shoose to stay for a while longer...

The British skirmishes advanced out of the forest to start harassing the Saxons hiding in the village... at the same time the British cavalry started to make way through the filed in there way...took some time...

Each turn start with one of the key elements of the rules, the placements of Leadership Points (LP´s) these points, right placed, will give your units benefits during the turn. As they are placed alternated starting with the repeller, this stage are like a game in the game, not giving away ones plan to obvious...

We used my red shield markers as LP´s and as you can see I at a start shoose to sprinkel them allower my British warband...

After some doubt the Saxons left the village durinng constant harassment of the British skirmishers... On the Brisish cavalry flank they at last managed to get through the filed and charged in to the poor Saxon warriors...

The movement are also alternated starting with Skirmishers then Cavalry and last Foot, each of the movement sequences starts with the agressor.

A fierce battle commence, surprisengly the Saxon warriors stod there ground several turns...

By good use of the LP´s both sides minimised their casultys and ther would be a long and hard fought combat. The single combat one unit against one are quite stright forward. But then you start to fight out the linked combat with several units there can be some problem and confusion about how hit how etc, but I think it will cleare then we get some more games.

Over at the village the Saxons had slaughtered the British skirmishers due to poor command by the british warlord...

Now the situation for the British Cavalry started to get stressed as more and more Saxon closed in...  at least one British Cavalry unit managed to exploit the left flank and ride down the Saxon Slinger:)

The British and The Saxon Skrimishers was both taken care of as they didn´t manage to evade due to lack of LP´s.... LP´s give you the opportunety to move before your opponent, but if you don´t have any LP´s allocated to the unit then you are f...  we might have missed some rule here, but I don´t think so...

Due to loss of units you start to lose LP´s to and it gets harder and harder to get the real edge in the combat situations.

Chaotic situation... as more and more Saxon warrior closed from the village in to join the fight, but the British some how managed to meet up with a singel unit of cavalry and at the same time make a last puch against the broken-down Saxons in the open...

We used the small arrow markers (1 loss)  and dead horses (3 loss) to mark cohesion loss...got a little to much markers from time to time with both the LP´s and the Cohesionloss makrers on the table.

Finaly the Saxons in the open breakes and are vipedout by the British Cavalry, the harsh reatment of there fellows was like a shock wave through out the Saxons llines and severl more Saxon units lost there will to fight on...

It was a victorius day for the British with lots of plunder in the vilage:)

Then a warband have lost more than 50% of it´s units (not counting Skirmishers) each remaning unit have to test for Bravery or flee the field of battle...

As this was the first real test of the rules there ofcourse was several rules that we missed, but it was still a realy enjoyable game. The rules have more to explore and I realy like the ideea of that I won´t need to puchase lots of suplements but all I need are in one book to a realy decent cost.

More info about the Dux Bellorum rules and a runthrough of a game turn can you find at Dan Merseys blog.

Dux Bellorum "Review"

As you surely know I got my hands on a previw copy of the new Osprey wargame Dux Bellorum by Daniel (Dan) Mersey.

The rules are up for official release at Monday the 20th of august and I thought I would share my first impressions of the game with you, especially as I now had the opportunety to try them out properly for the first time. AAR in a day or so:)

The Basics, Dux bellorum are a set of wargaming rules focusing on Arthurian Wargaming 367-793 AD.

The book in it self are 64 pages, full colour and sprinkled with greate pictures in the Clasical Osprey format. I must admit that I like the format very much, you get a full game that is easy to carry around and you don´t have to await for THAT army list to be released. It´s all in one book, splendid.

The text in the book have a clearly layout, are well writen(at least for me that not have english as my first language), and with several diagram that shows different gaming situations and rules explanations.

The rules was easy writen and easy to learn, but as with all new rules it will take some games to get all the detail right. Dan have been quite inovative in he´s rule writing and come up with some greate mechanism, like the leadership points and a twist to the turn sequence, that will take some time to get use to.

So far my only concern have been that there are quite much markes on the gaming table, one sort for the Leadership Points and one to keep track of the units lost Cohesion.

As the focus are on the Arthurian era there are a limited selection of army list, Late Roman, Romano-British, Welsh, Saxon, Irish, Pictish and two different Raider lists, that actually are variations of the other six lists.

Even though a limited number of lists I feel that there are plenty of room to customise the different armies, to try different tactics and options of how to game them. Dan have included about 20 different "Strategies and tactics" to add extra flavour to the army lists, some of them more or less historical.

So to the big question are Dux Bellorum worth the money?

Ofcourse yes! especialy if you are in to Arthurian wargaming, but they will work fine for the "Viking" era to as they are realy generic in troop clasification. So for less than £12 you will get a stunning book with easy and still inovative rules for dark age wargaming. I think these rules will be perfect for pick-up games at the gaming club.

Dux Bellorum Romano-British warband

As you know I been working on rebasing my Romano-British Cavalry minis for a Dux Bellorum warband, here are some pictures of the whole warband with some Skirmishing Archers in support.

Just a few days before the Dux Bellorum rules are officialy released at the 20th of august. If you want to get some more info about the rules please visit the authur Dan Merseys excellent blog.

Now I´m of for my firts game of Dux Bellorum :)

Dux Bellorum Romano-British Cavalry Warlord

Time for the Warlord of my Romano-British Dux Bellorum warband with he´s new bases and movement tray.

I hope to get my first test game of the rules tomorrow and be able to post a AAR and some thoughts about the rules during the weekend, in time for the release of the Dux Bellorum rules at the 20th of august.

Pictures of the whole warband are in progress...

Dux Bellorum Romano-British Cavalry #4

Yet a nother cavalry unit for my Romano-British Dux Bellorum warband.

Notised that Osprey also will releade the Dux Bellorum rules as a .pdf.

Dux Britanniarium Arthur mini

Just got to show you some pictures of my Dux Britanniarium Arthur mini.

I sent it to Andrés at Einar Olafson Painting to get a new coat of paint, for free:)  Thanks Andrés!, and Thanks for a stunning work !!!

Looking forward to its arrivel here so he can take command of my Romano-British warband:)

Dux Bellorum Romano-British Cavalry #3

Time for the 3rd of 5 cavalry units for my Romano-British Dux Bellorum army.

I have started to read the rules...very nice looking book and the rules in it selfs look very interesting...more about them later...have to try them out a couple of times first.

If you haven´t already been around the Authour Dan Merseys blog I can recomend it, a perfect sourse for info about Dux Bellorum.

Swedish Interwar 28mm Infantry Officers

The last 3 minis from the Swedish Interwar 28mm Infantry, this is 2 officers and a man with a LMG.

Bjorn have decided to call this little miniature enterprise Ådalenminiatures or Adalenminiatures in english, you can find Björns Adalenminiatures blog here. Please send him a message if you are interested to buy some of he´s minis.

Dux Bellorum are in da house

Back in Stockholm after a couple of weeks up in our summer house in Dalarna/Darlecarlia and I got realy glad as I run through the post and found a letter from Osprey with a review copy of Dux Bellorum:) Very nice indeed!!!

I will start to read right away...or as soon as I get the chance after unpacking all stuff we got in the car...

At request of Alan at tradgardmastare here are a picture of the summer house:)

Dux Bellorum Romano-British Cavalry #2

The second unit for my Roman-British Dux Bellorum Cavalry force.

My aim are a 32 point army for Dux Bellorum, comprise:

1x Mounted Companions with Leader @ 5 points
4x Noble Riders @ 5 points each
2x Foot Skirmishers (Bow) @ 1 point each or if that is not possilbe ruleswise I field them as a single unit of Bow @ 3 points.
Total: 27 or 28 points leave me with 4 or 5 points to spend on extra Leadership Points (LP´s)

I hope its works ruleswise as on the gaming table:)

Swedish Interwar 28mm Infantry #3

Here are pictures of the last 4 regulars for my friend Björns Swedish Interwar 28mm Infantry this time in the Tricorne.

A swedish platoon by the time was composed of:

1x Platoon commander (Sabre and Pistol)
1x 2nd in command (Sabre and Pistol)
2x Runners (Rifle)
4x Rifle squads (12 men each, 11 with Rifles and 1 with LMG)

In total 52 men