Dux Britanniarum: How do you know he's a king?

So, armed with a fistful of dice, I tackled the atmospheric but nonetheless straightforward procedure to create some heroes and villains to struggle for control of Britain.  It was considerably quicker than the time taken to write this post, and the preceding one!

Having consulted both the fantastic maps in the Dux rulebook and my own OS map of Roman Britain, I decided that my future games would be set within the Kingdom of Celemnion.  The rules allow you to place your campaign pretty much anywhere on mainland Britain, from the lowlands of Scotland southwards.  As such, I quite liked the idea of fighting on local ground, namely the Valley of the Temmes, hence Celemnion.  This also set a start date for the campaign, 550AD, as the Saxons pushed northwards from what is now Hampshire.  

The next step is to personalise the various nobles on each side.  The Romano-British are led by 22 year-old Tribune Albanus, the son of a centurion.  Clearly his mind is more on matters spiritual than material, given that he is also rather devout.  It may well be worth investigating the role of religion once play begins, both on the table and off it in the campaign.  Albanus is supported by a pair of Decurions, Burcanius (who is 25 years of age and short and wiry in physique) and Lupinus (a venerable 31 years old).  Burcanius is also the son of a centurion, and is both dutiful and an excellent horseman.  By contrast, Lupinus enjoyed a more privileged and wealthier upbringing as the son of an honestiore, but is none the worse for that, "for Lupinus is an honourable man", to anachronistically misquote the Bard.  As military nobles, they are responsible to a king who happens to be 64 years old.  The campaign rules allow a play to be made for the throne if wished, so a pensioner monarch might be handy.  None of them have any reputation to speak of; hopefully they'll each carve one out for themselves, rather than having it foisted upon them by their Saxon foes.    

Meanwhile, the Saxons are stirring to the south.   Their Aetheling is Aelfric, 27 years old.  His right-hand men- well, adeligs- are the ox-like Sigebryht and devout Coelwulf, 31 and 28 years respectively.  The son of a peasant, Coelwulf is the odd-man out, with the others both being Wodenborn aristocrats.  Again, they all have no reputations to speak of; not surprising given that Aelfric and Coelwulf have (to my mind) distinctly un-Saxon physiques, being short and wiry.  In fact, I get the distinct impression these are Saxon slackers, with Aelfric more interested in lust than loot! Having said that, his 'thief's horde' of initial loot is more impressive than Albanus' 'beggar's bowl'. 

Now, I just need the postie to deliver the starter armies that Too Fat Lardies are also offering, and we can get cracking with our first Saxon raid- once they've been painted and based.

Ah- I should've known there was a catch...  

Dux Britanniarum: King of the who?

Huzzah!

The digital version of Dux Britanniarum has arrived!  This is the latest offering from Too Fat Lardies, and its appeal is such that it has caused me to start an entirely new wargaming  period (Dark Age Britain, c.450-600AD) which was something I'd managed to avoid for, ooo, sometime now...

Anyway, what we have in digital form (hard copy, cards, limited edition Arthur figure and starter armies scheduled to arrive later in the week) is what looks like a rather nifty set of rules for Dark Age combat married to a cracking campaign system (it's the latter that started drawing me to these rules, although a number of other factors played a role in eroding my resistance to beginning a new period). 

The publication itself is, well- words will fail me.  Suffice to say, it is gorgeous- a clear layout, lovely photographs of miniatures in play and very evocative illustrations.  I can't wait to get my hands on the dead-tree version.  What follows are overviews of the various sections found in the rules, referred to as Books.

Book One's breakdown of forces is nice and clear, and highlights that you don't need to be painting up hordes of miniatures (although I imagine you could if you wanted to).  Even with a campaign in full swing, it looks like you'll only need to add half a dozen or so figures at one sitting.  Ideal for those of us who are challenged when it comes to painting the lead pile.  This section also contains the procedure for generating the Big Men of your chosen force, and is reminiscent of other products available through TFL, Platoon Forward and Squadron Forward.  By the end of the process, you're already going to be attached to your force's leaders, as illustrated in the post which follows this one; already my non-existent forces have developed personalities!      

Book Two looks at campaign objectives, career paths and 'filthy lucre'.  Both Saxons and Romano-British can be as ambitious as they want.  The latter can- if successful enough- even get a chance to decide whether to become Comes or go for the top job of King (which requires the existing king to have an unfortunate accident...).  This is done through a series of 'career paths', which include actions such as gaining religous support (as well as that of bards), constructing watch towers, dykes and hillforts, purchasing relics, strengthening city walls, recruiting armourers, getting promoted by the local Curia and even establishing ties with neighbouring kingdoms- and that's just the Romano-British options.  All of this is funded by your military successes.  It is clear how the book-keeping to this end is minimal as the rules state.  As ever with wargamers, I imagine players could make it as elaborate as they wish.  Indeed, although all you need is a sheet of paper, the rules point out you could go the whole hog and begin penning your own chronicles.

Book Three is the fight.  To be honest, I've skimmed over the actual combat rules (about a fifth of the entire publication), on the grounds that reading rules and actual playing them through are two very different beasts.  So, gameplay is being saved for a future post.  However, I like the look of the pre-game options to boost your force's morale (Single combat between champions!  Booze for those about to die!  Praying to your chosen deity!  A suitably inspiring speech!), ditto the Fate Deck (should be interesting to see how that affects combat) and the post-game sequence, which to my untutored eye seems to cover almost every aspect likely, including sieges, civil war and regicide!  It also looks at the enhancements you can make to your kingdom in a campaign context, as well as expanding your personal retinue and annual events (for the most part, death and taxes).

Book Four:  The Book Of Battles!  Whether you're campaigning or not, this section allows you to generate five basic raiding scenarios, as well as gearing up for full-on battles when one or other side is getting mightily ambitious.  Having been sad enough to go through and tot up what terrain one might need to run any one of the five raids, I was pleased to note (from my perspective) that you don't need huge amounts.  With hills, woodland, river and so forth already sorted, my eventual outlay looks like being a watchtower, a church and three farmbuildings.  Perhaps some kind of town gate, if I feeling grandiose at a much later stage.  

The final Book is the Book of Kingdoms, giving details of the various locations one's campaign could take place in.  Having no particular claim to knowledge of this period, this section did a bang up job in bringing me up to speed, so to speak.  The very final page forms a reference sheet for the game itself. 

Dux therefore looks like shaping up to be highly enjoyable (yes, I know I've not actually played it yet).  Already there has been talk on the TFL Yahoo group about future expansions to cover raiders from the west, such as the Irish, as well as looking at cavalry in more detail.  However,  let's start by generating up some protagonists, shall we? Onto to Dux post #2...    

Charlie Don't Surf: Where's My Zippo?

The TooFatLardies Yahoo group is tremendously useful for anyone who plays any of the rulesets available from the TFL stable.  It's also very welcoming and an endless fount of knowledge on subjects wargaming-wise and otherwise.  Having taken the plunge and posted a few comments on Charlie Don't Surf and the various reactions it had got at shows over the last few months, I found myself arranging a CDS game for one of that list's fine denizens, Nick, who'd played I Ain't Been Shot Mum but not CDS.

So, having schlepped over to us on Friday night, Nick found himself commanding a full strength US infantry company, more than ably assisted by a potential new recruit to the club, Reg.  As ever, Mr. Smallridge leapt at the chance to play the role of the Communists...

...Bravo Company advanced to the edge of the rubber plantation that lay to the west of the Da Ban creek.  Taking their time to ascertain that Charlie was nowhere to be seen, the company began to break down into platoons to carry out the mission.  Yellow Platoon headed south-east, looking to sweep the jungle that came perilously close to the hooches on the creek's western bank.  Red Platoon did likewise to the north-east.  With its flanks hopefully secured, Blue Platoon advanced on the hooches.  

Clearly keen to get the job done and enjoy some R&R, its LT wasted little time searching for hidden rice caches or tunnels.  Instead, after a cursory glance, Blue Platoon's squads had soon fired almost half of Da Ban hamlet's hooches.  

With events unfolding according to plan, Blue and Red Platoon's LTs were somewhat concerned when they noticed that Yellow Platoon's veteran CO- as well as Company HQ- seemed reluctant to advance.  What did they know that Blue and Red didn't?

The answer to that was various Communists scuttling backwards and forwards in the jungle ahead.  Despite the discretion being shown by their more experienced counterparts, Red and Blue Platoons aggressively advanced eastwards across the creek, eager to reach the hamlet's remaining hooches.

At this point, a Communist sniper opened up to the north of the hamlet, catching one poor member of  Blue Platoon utterly off-guard.  First blood had gone to the Communists.  

Encouraged by their Company CO, Blue Platoon continued to pound forward, with their MG squad looking to take Gold in their platoon's race to reach the hamlet.  In the meantime, Red Platoon's LT took the initiative to try and flush out the sniper who lay ahead in a cunningly concealed bunker.  With covering fire being laid by 2nd Squad, 1st Squad rushed the bunker, only to find that the sniper had bugged out.  The wily Communist had clearly been in a rush to leave, for 1st Squad found a wealth of Communist arms and ammunition.  This would be an added bonus to a mission that seemed to be shaping up well.

However, either the sniper had a change of heart or a chum.  A second bout of sniper fire broke out to the south, on Yellow Platoon's right flank in the jungle.  Once again, Blue Platoon bore the brunt of this sustained fore (albeit more erratic in effect), and with a herculean effort, Blue Platoon's MG squad hurled themselves into the nearest hooch, whilst the rest of the platoon hunkered down behind the berms of nearby paddy fields.

Unfortunately, it was not the MG squad's lucky day.  To the east of their position, a fine French colonial dwelling sat atop a rise, commanding excellent views to the rest of the hamlet.  Without warning (the US having advanced at the expense of careful spotting perhaps?), a significant quantity of fire was poured from the hilltop into the MG squad's hooch, the one saving grace being perhaps the range at which the Communists were firing.  Blue Platoon's medic soon found his hands full with a severely shocked and wounded squad.  

The recollection of the combat photographer accompanying Bravo Company became a little hazy at this point.  He suggests that Yellow Platoon's LT came to the conclusion that it was more important to engage the enemy platoon atop the hilltop, rather than flushing out the undeniably closer sniper.  Although the US fire may not have had much ferocity (perhaps one Communist was estimated to have been killed), it nonetheless seemed to encourage the Communists to begin a general withdrawal from the area.

Bravo's CO looked around with some satisfaction.  The village clearance was now underway without any more interuptions, and no evidence had been found of enemy rice caches or tunnels.  The bodycount was low for the US losses sustained, but that surely compensated for by Red Platoon's weapons haul?  All in all, this looked like it might be a good war....

[A little while later]

The VC emerged from the jungle and approached the smoking remains of Da Ban hamlet.  Lieutenant Dinh was perplexed by Captain Tran's cheerful demeanour.  What kind of victory could possibly be conjured from these embers?

"Why the long face, Dinh?  Forgotten Mao's words, have we?  If I may misquote him- we give the Americans this village now; they will give us a united Vietnam in the future."

 A triumphant yell went up from a section that had been digging in the ashes what once was a hooch.  A large concrete slab had been unearthed and lifted, allowing the now-grinning section to access a singed but otherwise intact riche cache of substantial size.

"You see, Dinh?  It's just a matter of patience." 

The game seemed to be enjoyed by all concerned (despite an error with regard to the results of one search on my part- mea culpa!).  As I Ain't Been Shot Mum veterans, Nick and Reg seemed quite taken with how the same Lard trademarks were present- Big Men, Action dice, Blinds etc- yet CDS captured the distinct period feel of Vietnam.  I believe one quote summing this up from the US players was something along the lines of "Where are the b*****s hiding?!"

All good fun, and we'll hopefully see you chaps back at AWC in the future!

  

 

 

 

Attack! 2012

Quick post- we took Charlie Don't Surf to Attack, hosted by Devizes & District Wargames Group today.  Our players today seemed to enjoy themselves and the rules throughly, and poor Mr. Smallridge fell foul of some very sharp spotting by the young gent in command of Red Platoon.  The fact that they also asked to use his lucky red Communist dice instead of the usual US yellow dice has nothing to do with it.

We'd not attended Attack before, and found we weren't overwhelmed with players, possibly as it was only Sunday that we attended, rather than both days, so we actually found it quite a nice relaxed day.  I grabbed some terrain on wandering round, and a couple more KR cases in anticipation of, well, you'll see in future.

Thanks again to Phil Mackie and the rest of D&DWG for the invite- hopefully we'll be back with something different in 2013!

We interupt our normal service...

Pas de wargaming tonight, as it'd the end of term and there's a pub crawl to mark this momentous moment, as well as the moving on of various colleagues.

Mind you, in an effort to maintain some kind of tenuous relevance, the night will undoubtedly see ale and pork scratchings. 

Darkest Africa 7: Damn Their Hides!

On the tenth day of the month of respect, Rajab, 1279*, my master returned to seek glory in Zanj. 

However, he has fallen foul of those pox-ridden sons of jackals, slavers from Sudan to the north.  We were peacefully camped, when we found ourselves under attack from these mangy dogs!  Having realised they could not defeat us in a fair fight, these accursed slavers must have paid a good deal of silver or hongo to gain the services of the many tribesmen who sided with them.  Against such numbers, our brave swordsmen and wangwana were hard-pressed to prevail!

Baker appears to have enjoyed far better fortune.  With those fiendish slavers preoccupied elsewhere, he left Khartoum about six month ago in an effort to follow the course of the White Nile.

Position	Faction	Played	Won	Lost	Hongos
					Gained	Lost	Total
1	Mangbetu	2	2	0	2	0	7
1	“Turks”	2	2	0	2	0	7
3	Ngoni	4	2	2	2	2	5
4	Ruga-Ruga	1	0	1	0	1	4
4	Smythe-Bletherington	1	0	1	0	1	4
6	Zanzibar	4	1	3	1	3	3

*Early 1863

Darkest Africa 6: A time for war, a time for peace...

On the third day of the month of pilgrimage, Dhu al-Hijjah, 1278*, my master continued to eschew war and instead made his way as a humble pilgrim to Mecca to visit the Kaaba.

News nonetheless reached us that one of our considerably less pious fellow believers was apparently to be found in battle against a European expedition, possibly under German patronage.  Details remained vague, however.

Furthermore, it was also learned that- having spent much of the last year on the Sudanese and Abyssinian frontiers (during which time he learned Arabic)- Samuel Baker and Flooey were now exploring the Atbara River amongst other watercourses.  He apparently is very interested in the mud of said river, and is expected at Khartoum at some point in the near future.

*Late 1862.  Gad, I could do with a brandy.