Dux Britanniarum: A campaign in the North of Britain. Part One

This week Terry and I have began a campaign using the Two Fat Lardies  Dark Age Rules Dux Brtanniarum. The rules themselves are easy to learn and provide a game that is quick to play and full of period colour. One of the best aspects of the rules is the clever campaign system. We chose to set the games in the North of Britain as this will let us introduce Picts and Irish into our games. As we had not played Dux for quite a while it was good to start with a raid to remind ourselves of the rules.
The year is 580AD and I Aelfwald have designs on the Kingdom of Elmet. I have led my war band into the Kingdom and have gathered a herd of sheep that we found unattended near one of Elmet's rich settlements. Here is the plunder being driven before my brave warriors.

 Aelfwald and his champion Eadwulf can be seen at the head of his band of determined raiders

 Here are a few pictures of  Elmet. It should be noted that the figures being used are part of Terry's superb collection of 15mm Dark Age troops many of which are made by Splintered Light Miniatures. The buildings are also Terry's and come from a variety of manufacturers. The hills and trees are mine made by S&A Scenics. Here is a woodman's hut

 A lonely hut near a swamp. Poor town planning rules in Elmet

 Pigs are kept under close watch as my raiders may not all like lamb.

 Another lonely hut

 My raiders gain a march on the British commander Ieuan's pursuing forces.

 Given how successful everything had been so far it is surprising my force moral was not higher.

 Dust can be seen in the distance as Ieuan's troops close on the raiders. Two units of Hearthguard move to block a possible attack.

 The rest of the Saxons push on with the sheep!

 The situation just before the Briton's arrive

Here come the Britons and they don't look happy.

Saxon skirmishers line the wooded hill in order to pepper the advancing Britons as they advance.

The Britons have two units of cavalry with them who are just behind the wood. Aelfwald and Eoppa turn two units of warriors to face them

The Britons have managed to get one unit behind most of the Saxon army and are closing on the sheep!

A mad dash by Aelfwald and Eadwulf crashes into the Briton's levy causing much harm

The remnants of the Levy and their leader Cynrain can be seen falling back in rout towards the swamp

One unit of the British cavalry charge the Saxon rear guard. The other has turned round to rejoin the rest of the Britons 

Heavy losses for the Saxons but also for the Britons. The same is true in the centre

Final stage of the battle. The Britons did manage to recapture the sheep! The Saxon unit had almost made it to the end of the table but were overwhelmed. They were to far away from the rest of the army so no help from Aelfwald. In the final stages of the game the Saxon's took a heavy toll on the Britons and even managed to kill Cynrain who had been leading the cavalry units.

To sum up. The raid in March 580 was a failure for the Saxons. However, Aelfward's war band only suffered moderate casualties and the Briton's were left with heavy casualties, especially among the levied units. Consequently Aedfwald raided a small church in May but was unopposed. Sadly it was a poor church and nothing of value was found. The next stage will be another raid in May 580.
Great game with Terry and a lot of fun. We are both up to date with the rules again and have learnt a lot about what not to do next time. The Saxon's were quite good at holding their ground and not being impulsive to begin with. Then I changed my mind and attacked at great cost so should have waited until my forces were in supportive positions. Terry's cavalry would have been devastating if they had acted together but would then have had to wait to recover after their charge. They look to be a force that could win a game but they only really have one chance to do it. Other thoughts were that I need to take more pictures as towards the final stages of the game I was too involved in what I was going to do so missed taking a few shots. I also need to take some pictures from the other side of the table to even up the narrative. Looking forward to part two when we can get together again.

A rather late and quite short Look at Partizan 2016

Steve and I journeyed up the A1 to the new venue for Partizan. I have to say that I felt this proved a big improvement. The space to walk around and the improved lighting made the experience much more congenial. On the way up we stopped at the A1 Dinner as usual for our breakfast and then arrived at the showground at about 11.45. Here are a selection of the pictures I took on the day.

 General view of the hall showing the space to walk round 

 Impressive ACW game in 28mm

 

 Simon Miller put on an interesting game using Phil Hendry's superb figures. The game was insired by one of the battles in Harry Sidebottom's Warrior of Rome books. I would recommend both Simon's rules,To the Strongest and Harry's books. I have read all of  this series and now have started the set one the Throne of the Caesar's. The books have also awakened an interest in the events of the Roman Empire in Third Century.

 

 

 

Impressive naval battle with skillfully constructed ships superbly painted. 

Clothes peg armies!

 Excellent terrain constructed 

 World War Two in the snow

In general the show was well worth the trip up the A1. I am sure this show will grow and grow over the next few years. It would be interesting to compare the numbers at this show with the next one in August. 

The Battle of Raphia _ OK Simon I now know where all the Phalangites went

This is the second look at the To the Strongest weekend at the Wargames Holiday Centre. The biggest game that Simon Miller put together was a recreation of the Battle of Raphia 217 BC. This is a clash between Ptolemy IV and Antiochus III of the Seleucid Empire. This was one of the largest battles of the Hellenistic world and the object of the clash was control of Syria. 

These are a few pictures of the Phalanx units that Simon has created. Hundreds of figures. In ancient texts they often refer to troops "without number" and this is clearly true for Simon's collection.

I was playing the part of Antiochus Megas on leading the Seleucid army. Here you can see some Greek mercenaries supporting Elephants on the right of the Seleucid army.

One of the Phalanx units to the left of the mercenaries. 48 figures. These are led by Byttacus the Macedonian who can be seen in the left of the picture

Over on the left of the Seleucid army are units of arabs led by Aspasianus the Mede

Next to them were Medians armed with spears

Meanwhile the elephant units begin to attack. These are escorted by light troops

The Agema of Antichus hope that charges on the right of the army will cause the Ptolemaic forces to collapse.

A general view of the battle giving some idea of its scale. As usual with games at the WHC it is often likely that generals have no idea what is going on in other parts of the game. 

A view of the Phalanx units of both sides closing on each other

The clash between the elephants on the right flank

Andromachus the Aspendian urges his Phalanx on

More Greek mercenaries

Troops packed into the phalanx

Superb painting on these Greeks

One phalangite clearly wants Leicester City to win the cup!

Simon's rules make use of coins to keep a running score of the moral of the two armies. When you lose all your coins then you have lost the game.

Wedges of Agema pushing through on the Seleucid right

Looking through the sea of pikes

Another view of the phalanx in the Seleucid centre

Even the back row look determined 

I like to look at all the small variations that Simon's figures display

Elephants continue their advance

A view along the line of the Seleucid phalanx 

Elephants closing on the enemy with the Ptolemaic phalanx in the distance 

Cards turning fast in the game.

Phalanx units closing on each other

The deep pike units clash

Elephants and Agema units charge each other on both sides. Antiochus with fight it out with Ptolemy

This Elephant unit looks as if it was based on the old WRG book on the Macedonian and Punic Wars

Head on collision. It should  be noted that their is a difference between the Indian and African Elephants and their ability to absorb punishment  the fighting 

Thus picture shows that the Ptolemaic side has a problem. The phalanx unit in the top of the picture belongs to the Seleucids

The battle ended with the defeat of Ptolemy. The phalanx units in the centre broke through the opponents and began to roll up the units to the left and right. The Elephants defeated their Ptolemaic counterparts and the Agema units went on the victory despite Antiochus being killed in the fighting (loss of six coins alone for that!). Ptolemy himself was also wounded. I confess that some of the pictures were from some of the other games but they do illustrate the general progress of the game. This was the second run of the game in which Antiochus was killed which gave rise to a series of Zombie related novels the first entitled "What Antiochus is dead again?" Simon and a second "Well Antiochus is still dead" Matthew. A very good game and an excellent weekend. Well don Simon and Mark