Dux Britanniarum Campaign: First Game

Last week, ok well it's been 9 days since, I had a very enjoyable game of 'Dux Britanniarum' at Axebreakers mansion. Chris himself has written some words about the game.
As he already did the job of explaining the idea behind the game (and I go pretty much along with him) you should really head over to his blog.


Cyrric the Flatulent king of a small province in the outermost southwest of Britannia called Noviomagus Regnorum felt the cold creeping into his old bones as he was starring into the chilly spring night. He knew they were out there. Somewhere in the dark these vain saxon dogs were about to raid his kingdom.
After a rainy summer followed by poor harvest before a hard winter he knew his little realm was in no way prepared to meet the saxon threat. Just as he was about to leave the walls of his little stronghold he saw the luminous glare of burning huts in the otherwise deep black sky.

'Get ready you bunch of lazy bastards!' Theodosius Magnus bellowed at a group of drowsy figures.
This was one of these moments he asked himself why the hell he was here in this god forsaken part of the world.
Born in Rome as bastard of a high ranking officer in the field legions and a young slavegirl, he was part of the last Legions in Britannia as the Emperor decided to withdraw his troops to the continent.

Just hours before he had to embark, Cyrric this drunken piece of sheepdung, now calling himself king of Noviomagus Regnorum, asked him to stay and become leader of his despicable bodyguard. If it wasn't for this little girl having made eyes at him he would have refused the offer.

Now he was in the mud of a true british spring, his girl already in the hands of some other bugger, leading some dirty skits of soldiers to fight a band of marauding saxons. He knew he was already late as he had seen the fires of burning huts in the distance. Now it was all about swiftness to catch these saxons before they were to recover into the safety of the lost lands...

We played the first scenario 'Raiding a church' where I had to prevent Chris's Saxons from plundering the church and take the monk as hostage. The fight would be over when the troops taking the monk with them leave the table.

The real battle began after some rounds of aggressive maneuvering. As Chris's saxons had a headstart of three full movements I had to be quick to get my troops on the board and ready for action. Unfortunately most of the time my troops were standing in the way of each other due to my ignorance of the movement and formation rules.

First troops in contact with enemy warriors were a single group of levies...

 I don't think I've to mention explicitely the levies were mawed down within minutes.

Just a round later a group of my warriors, accompanied by my Noble Eckfrith ap Ynys were to make contact with the afore mentioned saxon warriors...

  ...only to be extinguished by the fierce saxon resistance. Leaving Eckfrith running for his life back to my lines.

Only moments before a shieldwall of my last group of warriors together with the Elite Comanipulares could crash into the saxons...

...Hamarolf 'the Battlers' elite warriors managed to leave the field of battle taking Aethelrich the monk to their homes for ransom.

A last glance on the troops facing each other before they decided to go home and fight another day.

Having lost 11 men (light losses) in comparison to Chris's six men (moderate losses) it was a cracking defeat to me and my troops were that battered that I didn't dare to face the saxons next raid. As after the rules light losses are to be replenished in just a month, while mine would need two full month I feared the loss of even more men. This would have had catastrophic results in case of a second defeat, weakening my forces even further.
So I decided to let Hamarolf his raid, waiting for a better day to face the invaders.

Hope you enjoyed!