2023 - Back to the Dark Ages!

Happy New Year to all!  I hope 2023 is good to you.

When I first met Alan (which the Lad says was also in the Dark Ages) I was kindly gifted the newly published rules Dux Bellorum to tempt me to the Dark Ages way of things; not that I needed much of a push, admittedly. And while we have played many Dark Ages games with Lion Rampant and SAGA we somehow never got back to Bellorum.  Our first game of the new year seemed a good way to rectify that omission and scratch a growing Dark Age itch once more. 

Its always a real treat to play with Alan's extensive collection of fantastic Dark Age models, which is not small. We decided to leave the Mounted troops at home to simplify our first return game and I got to field his Saxons, taking: 

• Companion Foot
• 2 Noble Warriors
• 5 Ordinary Warriors and 
• 2 foot skirmishers (with bows)

Some of Alan's fabulous Post Romano British army

Alan took his Post Roman Britain/Arthurians with: 

• 1 Companion Foot
• 2 Noble Shieldwall
• 4 ordinary shieldwall
• 1 foot skirmisher (with bows)
• plus 1 extra Leadership point and the Experienced Leader Tactic. 

These army selections made for an interesting matchup of Warriors vs Shieldwall

We learned much along the way and the mechanics reminded me of a mix of SAGA, DBA and Lion Rampant (no surprise on the latter!) that flowed well, though we still have a few questions!  I liked the  Leadership points resource management, and the battle did indeed feel like a big battle as opposed to a large skirmish. We also saw that Shieldwall units did not stand up as well to Warriors as might be expected, though I did roll an unfeasible number of 6s which skewed the outcome (in fact there was 6 of them across 2 x 5 dice attacks!)

Overall I enjoyed Dux Bellorum and would like to play more. Unfortunately they do suffer from Osprey 'Blue Book' syndrome in which they are published, have a couple of follow up articles to promote sales, and are then left unsupported. With some tweaking they could forward in time into the Viking Age, or earlier to the Roman period. Certainly not 'beyond the wit of man' if we get around to it anyway...

The return of Dux Homunculorum!

Thanks mate, that was fun! #makethedarkagesgreatagain :-)

Rules note: One of the criticisms of the rules is that using a Ld point for an extra attacks, gets you a chance to get a hit (rolling 5+), but spending a Ld on defence automatically negates a successful attack. So hording points for use in defence is a no brainer, albeit a bit boring and can really slow a game down.

We used an internet (non author) suggestion that in spending a Ld point in Defence, the defending unit  must pass a morale check to negate the hit - fail and the hit is effective and the Ld is still used. Seemed to work well (and balances with an element of chance, just like buying the extra attack) and added a fun element of uncertainty.

A Dux of a plan

Aficionados of this Man Cave blog may recall that last year I was subjected to unethical coercion by Comrade James when he bought me the British Army book for Bolt Action last year...when he knew I didn't have any figs or the core rules, yet.  Clearly, I folded like a deck of cards and got into the game. Well played Sir!

Now Alan aka Dux Homunculorum  has taken a leaf out of this evil playbook of persuasion, sending me the Dux Bellorum rulebook from the sale at War and Peace Games when he knew I was trying to be good and resist such temptations.  A gamer can only take so much, or maybe its just me?

It isn't fair really, and lovely eye candy it is too....

EDIT: found a lovely and well written expansion for using these rules for Classical Warfare here

https://irregularwars.blogspot.com/2024/12/dux-bellorum-hoplpmachia-classical.html