The Wargaming Erratic

In episode 1 I set the scene for starting a campaign using Dux Britanniarum.

Two evenly matched small forces are all that are necessary to get started – about 40 figures per side – all infantry. Although in my case that equates to just 7 impetus elements for my Romans and 6 for my Saxons.

Then its character creation with simple Role-Playing Game style giving the forces some particular definition. And if you’re going to campaign rather than play one off battles then a narrative becomes a real benefit. Creating a story from your gaming is one very good reason to wargame campaigns.

I used these rules unaltered except for terrain set up where Mike Smith’s Table Top Battles were preferred.

Next is the campaign start rules. Career paths are provided to signpost your characters development. Quite simply they remind me of the original Levels in 1970’s D&D – each status in the path opens up more benefits and choices – for a price. And that’s where the filthy lucre comes in. You need some bright metal to progress.

The aim of the campaign is that the Saxon player ends up with their own kingdom carved out of the Roman Provinces. Meanwhile the British/Roman player simply needs to retain his kingdom and aspire to either rule it or become the great military power of the whole island itself.

The campaign is not map based. The campaign last 8 months in each year from March to October. Losses are not easily replaced so some months no conflicts may occur.

At the start of the game both sides are minor players so the battle rules can be ignored.

The book of battles does though have the crucial Raiding tables which set out what you need to do to run a raid.

You determine the forces morale based on results of the previous encounter and a random element. So, each game will be slightly different.

For my start the Saxons were on 5 + 2 = 7 while the Romans were on 5 + 3 = 8.

Pre game set up, champions and speeches are skipped as they relate to battles.

The fate cards, which drive yet more variability, are designed to give each force specific benefits. Some cards mutually benefit both sides.

The two forces are dealt a hand of five cards for the raid where two are specified and three are random. Poor shuffling meant that some awful hands were dealt at the start.

I will just show the early “hands”

In Episode 1 I described the terrain set up. For my “Raiding a Farm or Village” the location was determined using the raiding rules in TDux.

Again fortune smiled on the Saxons.

The Saxons then threw to find out how much surprise they had. The Saxons gained two free moves before the game proper started.

I moved the Saxons and then determined the Roman arrival point. This turned out to be a congested corner of the table which impeded their progress from the start.

The Saxons would win the raid if they left the table with their loot. The scale of their win would be helped by how many men escaped as well plus how many Romans they killed.

The Romans had to stop them taking the loot to win.

I suppose I should say that I have tended to use Romans in this post rather than British or Romano British. Maybe as the campaign builds, they will morph into “Britons”.

Rules Digressions

Before I return to the action I have set down some of the rules which I think are notable.

A small set of cards determine the sequence for each turn. Another randomisation. For gamers who like control this is probably getting far too much. For solo play its ideal as “loss of control” is essential to make the game come alive.

A key aspect of the sequence is that controlled forces all activate before the uncontrolled. Using your leaders and their supporting nobles, command range is important. It follows that their position can improve or hinder things.

Each side has three commanders, and the leader has an initiative of 3 while his nobles have 2. That represents their ability to activate. The leader can do three discrete activations while his nobles on their turn get to do up to 2. In one full turn of the card deck the three commanders share 7 activations.

There are various constraints on these leader attributes such as when they are in the heat of the battle or how they have organised their forces. The fate hand cards allow additional activation.

Yet another variable is movement – when activated a group will throw dice to determine their movement. With 3d6 the range is 3” to a staggering 18”. There are quite a few reductions and as you have to move the full amount this can work against your force as its leader loses range control.

Forming shieldwall rightly slows you down and makes you less manoeuvrable. There are the usual terrain penalties for movement. There are some rules for the missile troops and cavalry as well as interpenetration of groups being restricted or having consequences.

Finally, units end up facing the direction they travelled and can only see the 180 degrees to their front. This informs the 4” Zone of influence which a group imposes to its front restricting any enemy entering or leaving that zone. I forgot this rule quite a few times during the heat of battle………..

Firing is straight forward with range limitations and usual “to hit” throws required.

Now we come to impact. “Shock” is what results from missile fire or hand to hand combat. Accumulated shock drives a group back and eventually breaks them. Leaders can rally groups by removing shock through activation.

In Combat once two forces contact each other dice are thrown to hit and for allocation – multiple groups fighting need to know who hit who. Effect is determined as with missile fire consulting a table where the quality of troops being hit affects the random dice outcome.

Leaders are not immune! You can lose a hero.

Shieldwalls stop initial hits and initial shocks so it is a valuable capability for the Romano British.

Unless there is a difference in shock results, the draw means the fight goes on and on for every drawn round of fighting. Only two combat rounds occur before other forces move again. So, more forces might join a combat to shake things up!

“Misplacing ones Amphora” means a group has taken twice as many shocks as there are men in the group and is broken. After uncontrolled groups have moved these broken groups move 3d6 towards any friendly table edge searching for their missing amphora………

So now we come to the force morale mentioned at the start of this post. Each group lost reduces the morale of the force, again randomly influenced by the lost groups type. Losing better quality groups does more harm as you would expect. This variable ensures that you can play the same raid over and over again even on the same terrain and the result will be different.

All this variability means the ruleset presents a vast range of different games to play before any similarity might get seen.

At the end of the game, you count various losses on another table to get a total score. Compared to the enemy score the difference gives a winner/loser combination of outcomes depending on how large the difference is.

Rules then follow for gaining reinforcements and when the next raid will happen. If the Saxon has grown on their success, then the next big step is to contest the province.

There are some tricky annual events to tackle for the Saxon leader, so it is not all one-way traffic to the top!

At 92 pages even allowing for some resource pages plus big FONT, there are lots of rules here compared to the rules I have previously tested the shieldwalls for.

I think it was worth explaining these aspects of the rules up front.

Let battle continue

Now back to the battle where Coenwulf was facing up to some fighting before he could escape with his filthy lucre. Coenwulf wished Gudwal would hurry up and find some coin to make the day worthwhile.

The net result of all losses on both sides was a difference of simply 1 on the raid results table – meagre pickings for Coenwulf and with heavy losses it will be 3 months before the Saxon can raid again. With moderate losses Vitalinus will take 2 months to replace his losses. He will be ready and waiting.