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Friday, December 21, 2012

Village Raid! A Dux Britanniarum AAR

ABOVE: The Saxon raiders arrive at the sleepy village of Stanfordium; "Anyone home"!
Hi Guys
As some of you might know I've always been a huge fan of all things 'Too Fat Lardies'. Their rules and Scenario books, and 'Summer Specials' etc are quite choice. If you can afford them, (and you can 'cause they are also sooo afordable) then I highly recommend their tasty treats.
One of their more recent offerings has been Dux Britanniarum, which one can use to game / simulate war in Romano Britain just as it's all falling apart at the seams.
The rules come with an exceptionally fine campaign system and my usual gaming buddy Stan and I jumped straight in.
I can't recall if I picked or had forced on me the option to be the Saxon Raiders, but either way I do like them.
Obviously Stan picked up the Romano-British.
Characters were generated; a Lord each and two subordinate 'Nobles' and we were off.
The first encounter was a raid on a Watch Tower that resulted in a victory for me, with a Brit Noble being carried off for ransom, (after Cedric the Confused had his way with him).
After that was a raid on a church. This was a real ding-dong afair that resulted in a lot of dead on both sides, and a 'drawn' result. We now have some nice leadlight windows back at the Great Hall in Germany.
That brings us to the third raid. This time a village raid.
ABOVE: First house searched "O Bugger it, nothing here but moldy bread and stale ale. And what a mess!  HOW DO THESE PEOPLE LIVE LIKE THIS"!!!

We had two turns head start on the Brits, which was enough time to get to the edge of the village before the first of the Brits arrived to try and spoil the party. The first building was entered by the Saxon Loard, his Champion and his Hearthguard and their searched revealed nothing, but the large villa (essentially classed as two buildings) being searched by the 2nd Hearthguard came up trumps two turns in a row (rolling a 6 and then another 6)!!

BELOW: Olaf the Bloated grabs a wife and a refreshing beverage as two of his mates engage in less civalized pursuits. Savages.

ABOVE: Saxon Lord and Champion together with two of his Hearthguard survey the Saxon Archers in the woods.
BELOW: The British arrive in force
BELOW: The Saxon warriors pour into the village.
While the villa was being plundered my archers started peppering the oncoming British without much success, and before you could say, "someone might lose an eye" the 2nd group of Hearthguard was making off with armfulls of loot.
As this was happening the Saxons sent a group of Warriors to pounce on a group of British Levy who had advance to close before forming a shieldwall.
Surprisingly they managed to give as good as the got and both groups virtually destroyed each other!
As this was happening another group of Saxon Warriors entered the villa to collect their share of loot and were about to exit when they found their exit barred by a group of British Warriors.
ABOVE: The 2nd Hearthguard make off with the loot.
BELOW: Warriors attempt to leave with the second lot of plunder but some British Warriors think not!
BELOW: Warriors V Warriors. It started pretty well for the Saxons and then as was the recurring pattern of my day, it went south quickly.
These two groups again butchered each other. Initially the Saxons seem to have the better of it, but yet again the British died hard and both groups were destroyed.
ABOVE: Lord's, Champions and Hearthguards do battle.
Now the two Lords Hearthguards clashed on the edge of the Village. Yet again another see-sawing stoush but ultimately The British lord triumphed. Only the Saxon Lord, his Champion and one of his hearthguard managed to escape.
At this point the Saxons called it a day and headed back to their boats.
BELOW: The situation at the end of the game.
Though not a success, the saxon Lord still has sufficiant funds to share some spoils and has been declared a 'Warlord'!
The next encounter will not be a raid, but rather a Battle for a chunk of British land.
Comments Welcomed.

2 comments:

Phil said...

A great AAR, with wonderful pictures!
Phil.

A J said...

Sounds like it was a fun game! I love the pictures and captions. Thanks for sharing.