Last night three of us got together for our routine Dux game. Rather than getting through a full month, we instead carried on with a raid that was a result of some clever politicking by Nate. Grontoft, to the north, had earlier been paid tribute to Nate, and the Rovian warrior societies were unhappy and agitating against the leadership of the province. So, after some negotiating, the deal was struck. Nate would wipe out the leadership of the warrior societies and if he did so, would take the land, protect it from the gobblins, and leave the leadership of the province below him intact.

The rumours sent out before we met up confirmed the location and also gave an idea of what the rest of the month would give:

Grontoft
– There have been leadership disputes
– Large number of levies being called up (which is atypical) as many warrior societies have moved south to a town called Mahlen
Greenwood
– Gobblins have been seen moving in the wood but the recent rains have driven them deeper into the wood
Markadal
– Horsemen seen moving south to raid Wegrik
– An envoy from the Unconquered City has arrived with a few guards to discuss something
Athramere
– Is having a large fair. Its troops are protecting travellers to and from the fair.
Olin Dashi
– has a new war leader eager to prove himself in battle. He is, by all accounts, young and seeks glory

The Fight

This fight was interesting and showed some issues with Dux Britanniarum ruleset so most of my time was taken up looking up rules and making rulings. This was exacerbated by me misplacing my good camera so there will be only 1 picture for this one.

The Iron Band arrived in force, leaving only a few levies and their cavalry back to guard their home. The warrior societies set up behind a stout fence in the fields, and guarding the gap in the old walls of the farm. Cavalry faced out towards the woods, but no forces were obvious there. As the Iron Band moved up, they saw undead in the woods and decided to hit the Rovians head on.

Forming their troops into larger formations, the Iron Band moved forward across the front, and here is where we saw some issues. Matt’s Rovian cavalry rode out to get around the advancing forces. Under the rules, it’s impossible to charge cavalry with infantry unless you use a Carpe Diem card. But, if you approach within 4″, you can effectively lock down the cavalry. This means that the cavalry cannot move, and can only sit there or attack. While this 4″ zone of control makes sense when dealing with infantry, the ruleset doesn’t mention cavalry.

Matt negated this discussion by charging out from behind the fence into Nate’s Iron Band forces at the same time that Nate attempted to make it through the broken wall. Here the fight bogged down. Matt lost troops but put so much shock on Nate’s elites that the dice were even. Eventually Matt’s Rovian warriors recoiled from the violence and the blood and Nate was free to concentrate on the other fight.

There, beyond the fence, Matt threw first 2 units, and then a fresh one at Nate’s line, again trading casualties for shock, but this time forcing 2 of Nate’s units off the table before rushing back to cover for the final assault.

Arrows first, then fighting along the fence. At the end, every Rovian warrior-society fighter was dead. Nate lost 17 dead across his units, so will take 3 month to get them all back, but he has kept his word and taken out the Warrior Societies in Grontoft. Now he has to keep both lands safe with his depleted forces.

Another issue with the rules as written, is that shieldwall is more effective for the warriors than for the elites. Warriors are killed on a 5-6 on a d6. Elites on a 6. Formations in shieldwall ignore the first kill of each round. Warriors are twice as likely to receive a kill, and so receive a greater benefit from the formation. It seems that Dux was a great idea (it is elegant in most things) but wasn’t play-tested as well as the other Too Fat Lardies rules (of which I am very fond). What shall we do? Well, we have played Hail Caesar before, but found the game unsuitable for smaller battles and skirmishes. We do have the Shieldwall modifications, and may try that out in the coming weeks (life has meant that the next Dux fight will be in about 2 weeks). If that doesn’t work, we’ll house rule this thing for cavalry, shieldwalls, etc.

On Saturday we played two full months of campaign time in our game. Before the game, I gave out this list of rumours:

Rumours

• Goblins are becoming increasingly active in the Dunwood. Some say that they always strike after the Feast of Aleda
• Tiv Ungali – Mercenaries are unhappy with how their peers were simply thrown away in battle and are charging far more from Rithian, the local lord. Additionally, the warrior societies are livid at the use of Dalmorian mercenaries and many have left and headed to Markadal, where Teminina is seen as more aggressive and more true to the Rovian ways. Undead from the edges of the Woodmere have raided some towns in Tiv Ungali
• Markadal – warriors from several different societies have shown up for some meetings. Some horsemen have been seen arriving from the north, though in small numbers still
• The Iron Band is holding the Pass at Tur Liath with few casualties. Reinforcements are being trained near Battleton Bridge and local leaders should be able to expect some additional assets sometime in the coming months
• The King’s forces have won their first major battle against Duke Florick
• Some demons have been seen in the Greenwood!
• Trained troops from the north have been seen in Meg Ushil, the plains to the north of the Gardal. These troops are heavily armed and armoured
• A reminder. A beggar’s bowl is due to the Iron Band just before Winter

A little bit about time. In this world, Winter lasts for 4 months. At the end of Winter the year starts with the month of Ulcitanus. In order to make things easier, I’m adding a table to display what is happening when:

Month	Gron Gard (Nate)	Rikdal (Matt)	Gron Toft	Tiv Ungalli	Markadal
Ulcitanus	Raided Gron Toft	Raided Tiv Ungalli	No activity	Lost support of warrior societies by using mercenaries	No activity
Aberas	Non-Aggression Pact with Gron Toft	Raided Tiv Ungalli	Non-Aggression Pact with Gron Gard (ransom)	No activity	Raided Rikdal
Molarin	Attacked Tiv Ungalli	Attacked Tiv Ungalli	No activity	Lost battle. Province will fall in 4 months	No activity

As you can see, the second month of the campaign was interesting. Matt raided Tiv Ungalli who were unable or unwilling to field a response as they were licking their wounds from the defection of some of the warrior societies. Nate sent an envoy and negotiated a temporary peace so Gron Toft could face the Gobblins instead of the Iron Band. In exchange, Gron Toft would pay a beggar’s bowl of wealth (the lowest unit of wealth in the game) for two months of no fighting, and would volunteer a unit of warriors to attack those terrible people at Tiv Ungalli.

Matt responded to a raid from Markadal, but in his typical way, rolled for the placement of the farm and his own troop arrival place terribly.

Nate rolled well for the forces of Markadal, and quickly brought his troops into the farm. We used our modified searching rules, where every figure searching adds a d6, but all search requirements are increased. In this case, I used 4 successes to find loot, and this needed to be done in 2 houses. This worked well, and I think we’ll limit the number of searchers to 8 for a small house to make things reasonable.

Matt realised that he would be unlikely to bring the enemy to battle, so used his activations to increase the quality of his fate card deck (which can impact the post-raid outcome). He did push his troops forward and came under some ineffective arrow fire.

Overall, the raid was fun and fast and left us JUST enough time for the next month. As both Matt and Nate were able to pay for their advancement to the rank of Captain, they decided to attack Tiv Ungalli to take the province and so we fought our first battle. The rules work a treat and are simple but effective at getting troops moving. Unlike Hail Caesar, which is also a great ruleset, there is no worry about not activating, only figuring out where you are going to spend your activations.

This battle was lopsided as the forces were not equal. Sadly, I didn’t anticipate this happening, so some of my forces were unpainted, but in my mind, a game is more than just pretty miniatures and I’d rather play with unpainted miniatures than not at all.

In any event, the battle went well. I played the beleaguered forces of Tiv Ungalli. I rolled for divine aid and got a 1, reducing my force morale and fate card hand size. Nate asked if he sacrificed one of his lieutenants if I would give him a bonus on the roll. I said yes and he rolled a 6, giving him a huge bonus in morale and in fate card hand size. I declined a duel, figuring that my champion was worth more on the battlefield than as an instrument of morale.

As you can see from the slideshow below, the battle was quick. My light cavalry were extremely dangerous for a bit, but Matt played a Carpe Diem card and wiped them out. In the future, I think that light cavalry will help to turn the tide.

Matt’s main forces advanced and closed with me, as Nate slowly moved forward. I was never able to attach my general and champion to a battle line, which was frusterating as due to the cards, they would have added as many dice as another full unit of elites.

My forces were unable to break the shieldwalls in the end, as they disregard the first kill on each group. In several rounds of combat I inflicted 1 or 2 kills per group but most were ignored and I got ground down.

Nate charged his force at my right flank and used javelins and axes to give me a huge amount of shock before slamming into my line.

The battle was over but it was great fun. Now Matt needs to hold some forces here for the next 4 months and then he will own it. The question is will Markadal and Athramere let him? Will Markadal attack Rikdal and cut Matt off? The dice will tell and we’ll find out in 2 weeks as we take a break from this to allow for some other gaming to happen – I am very fortunate to be able to game every week!

So on Saturday night Nate and Matt came over for the first of hopefully many campaign nights. Matt decided to raid north into Tiv Ungalli, while Nate raided into Gron Toft. Meanwhile, some undead had raided into Tiv Ungalli as well, from the forest near the Woodmere, further reducing that province’s ability to defend itself.

The first raid was a bit of trial, with the intent of trying to game the system to see if we could break it. So, all the terrain was placed into a line across the table:

Then, Matt diced to determine where the village he was raiding would go… and naturally it was in the worst position possible. To add to the fun, Nate (playing the Rovians), would be entering from his left just before the obstacles. This seemed to be a theme for Matt. His dice rolls were, frankly, terrible. I think this may come back to an RPG session a while ago where he desecrated a shrine to a particular wolf god. In any event, Matt’s horsemen (seen here) advanced at a waddle while most of his forces remained off the table edge, with only his lord sitting at table edge trying to get as many advantageous Fate cards as he could. Matt’s rolling ensured that he had only two turns of free movement. There was much discussion about how much trouble this “Beggar’s Bowl” of loot was worth, and the image came forth of a scary beggar eliciting donations with a bundle of heads from those who were not forthcoming, thereby making this bowl full of coins, jewels, and possibly a few teeth.

Matt’s horse managed to race to unfortunately placed village (your rolls Matt, not mine!) and Nate’s forces begin to appear in force. The elite Rovian warriors and archers rushed to the village, while the warriors moved to push the pesky mercenary lord off the table. At this point, with a little prompting, Matt decided to bring on his whole force. Nate chased off the cavalry in the town, but was left without his best units facing a rapidly advancing mass formation.

A unit of mercenaries charged in with three Fate cards in support and it merely rebounded from the line, which then surged forward and massacred the unfortunates taking no losses. The Rovians attempted to withdraw behind the forest, but based on the simulataneous raid that I had diced for earlier, the Rovian leader abandoned resistence and fled the field. Matt came off a fair bit wealthier and maybe a bit wiser about trusting his rolling.

The second short raid saw Nate’s forces push across a deep stream/river to raid a shrine. Nate only took three units with him and rolled amazingly well.

Before the defenders showed up, Nate had troops across the unpainted bridge (bearing the marks of where the airbrush failed). Matt mustered his Rovians and threw them forth. Nate was now cursed by the dice gods. He could not roll a 6 to save his life. So he abandoned his position, and rather than fight a slightly larger force, he ordered his troops off the nearby neutral edge, and promptly rolled two ‘6s’ for movement. The Rovian warriors and elites were closing fast, and Nate was unable to leave with his own elite troops and threw them into shieldwall, with two “shieldwall braced” cards to back them up. Matt’s forces just couldn’t kill the troops behind the shieldwall, and were forced backwards, giving Nate just enough time to finish looting the shrine before disappearing off the near edge. Nate lost 5 troops to thieves and bandits, but his raid was a success. It also showed how valuable shieldwall is (the Rovian forces cannot enter into that formation).

So, while each raid was short, it was a fun evening and the campaign rules continue to be refined. Hopefully next week we can fight two more encounters as well, seeing that we are getting much faster with the ruleset. I will be putting a post up later this week with some further updates to our game rules and you can look forward to seeing some more fantasy melee action next weekend with more pictures – (taken with a proper camera)!