Dux Britanniarum Games 4 and 5

The rest of the guys couldn't make game on Sunday, so fg and I played two consecutive games of our LOTR campaign.

After his string of successes, Badzur thought his next target - an isolated church - would be an easy prize... He was about to be surprised.

While the Dunlending ransack the church for loot, the allies suddenly appear!

The flank guard spots the levies closing in to cut off the orcs' retreat!

Thorgaut leads the dwarves and men and rout the orc centre.

Badzur's men (or rather orcs and goblins) flee, but he will manage to slip the tightening noose with the Dunlending, but have nothing to show for his efforts today.

fg's rolls meant his forces entered the table right on top of my looting forces and in the two rounds my orcs searched the church they couldn't find any loot. I was lucky to escape with my warlord.

We set up again and rolled the cattle raid scenario. This time, I thought I did well, moving my forces three turns before fg's forces arrive... with the grateful priest who is now part of his retinue.

Once again, Badzur is surprised by the pesky Belegon and his men.

Badzur sends the Dunlending with the livestock ahead while he organises the orcs to fend off the men.

Belegon orders the dwarves to head off the Dunlending, while he forms the men into a line of battle for the clash...

The orc charge falters before contact; the levies brace the shieldwall... and defeat the orcs!

The Dunlending fight off the orcs and drive the livestock towards the safety of the table's edge, but despite Badzur's valiant effort them men manage to catch them and recover the animals.

Two successive defeats leave me pretty much in the same position as before, but give fg two more men. I will need a bit of luck if I am to gain the upper hand... But that's the end of this campaign year and Bzur will have enough time to mull over his defeats and plot his revenge...

For this session we rushed to custome-make a set of activation cards using photos of the leader figures and a free software fg downloaded that is used to make custom Magic cards. It's quite a neat concept and we will probably do the same for future games which have a card activation system too.

Dux Britanniarum Game 3: Raiding a Border Tower

Emboldened by his successes, Badzur decided to capture Beren, a captain in The Gondor army, to further boost his reputation.

Tipped off by his scouts, Badzur lays an ambush for Beren as he returns from patrol...

Ruk leads the Dunlending to cut Beren off from the border tower. Seeing this, Belegond leads the garrison in a sally to link up with the patrol.

As Ruk and Thargurz lead the Dunlending and goblins to block the garrison, Badzur leads the orcs in pursuit of Beren. Beren decides to go around the ruined tower to avoid them.

Badzur catches up with Beren and the dwarves!

The allies are destroyed and Beren is captured just as he is about to reach the safety of the Gondor line!

This game really showed how troop quality makes a difference. Due to the scenario set-up, I was able to place my Warriors against fg's Levies, and my Elite against his Warriors, so while our two main formations fought each other near the tower, I was able to use my Elites to achieve the mission.

Once again cards played an important role here - I was able to gain an upper hand early in the game with a Carpe Diem card, and fg nearly managed to avert disaster by playing the Hero of the Age card to raise the number of attack dice Beren had, which prevented his capture.

While the mission was a success, the margin of victory did not let me gain new recruits. I did inflict enough casualties for fg to not contest my next raid, which gives Badzur enough money to declare himself a warlord.

I am now wondering if I should declare a battle the next game to try to win myself a province, or wait until I have a definite lead... Decisions, decisions...

Dux Britaniarum Game 2: Raiding a Wagon Train

After his initial setback some of the goblins deserted, but Badzur managed to convince a band of Dunlending to join him, and in the month of April he once again launched a raid into Enedwaith.

His scouts brought him the news of a small convoy of supplies coming from the north, and he planned an ambush at a river crossing...

Ruk springs the surprise on the allies!

Belegon orders his men to form a shieldwall while Thorgaut guards his flank. While Ruk demonstrates against the shieldwall, Badzur leads a furious charge against the levy guarding the mule train, routing them from the field.

The Allies are bested in the first clash of battlelines, and Belegon orders the men to retreat towards the crossing, where they are joined by levies sallying forth from the border fort. The orcs capture the mule train!

Separated from the men of Gondor, the dwarves fend off the orc assault and eventually rejoin their allies.

As it turned out the random terrain movement and scenario generation favoured the orcs this game: we rolled a river with a single crossing and the orcs enter the tabletop right where the convoy was.

In my first attack I played all five cards in my hand: Carpe Diem, Strong Arm, Bounding Move, Aggressive Charge, and Fear, which routed the levy guarding the mules and making possible their subsequent capture.

The first clash between the two battlelines went in my favour, and the Allies withdrew to reform. After that we spent two turns staring at each other while I moved the mules off the table.

The raid saw moderate losses on both sides: the orcs lost 11 men and the allies 16. More Dunlending joined Badzur, and in the month of May he once again launched a raid into Enedwaith, but was unopposed as Belegon chose to rebuild his strength over confronting them in his weakened state.

As this was our second game, things played faster. We hope to get the third game of the campaign in soon.

Painted Picts

Here are the Picts I promised.

They are from Tanatus Miniatures, a small range of figures which I did not know of until fg showed me the site.

I absolutely love these figures. I especially like the way the sculptor modelled the hair - it is like a Dark Age chart for grading of male pattern baldness - even if the leader does look like one of the Bee Gees, and the standard bearer Ron Jeremy (I was tempted to change the motif on the banner from a boar to a hedgehog...).

They are a perfect match for my Perry plastics, and thus also GW's LOTR range. In fact, I think they have more realistic proportions than Perrys. I replaced the soft metal spears that came with the packs with steel spears left over from my 15mm Attalid Pergamenes.

I painted them using my standard block-and-wash method, which makes them very dull - they look depressing if not for the addition of green flock. They can be used in three capacities: as Dunlending allies for my orcs in our Dux Britanniarum campaign, as peasants in my Strandhogg games, or in the front ranks with my armed peasants in Warhammer, where they will count as Spearmen. The "movement tray" they are on is actually a lipped chariot base, which I bought as artillery bases for my WOTR guns and crew.

I painted them all with black hair because they were described as swarthy and dark-haired by Tolkien - the professor was obliviously and unapologetically racist the way some old British gentlemen are, I suppose. Tolkien didn't tell us a lot about the Dunlending, but it is believed that they are based on the Celts (as the Rohirrim are based on Germanic invaders). While googling, I read that a computer game assigns them clans named after animals, and decided to give them a banner featuring a Celtic-styled boar.

Lacking the skills to make a "proper" banner, I simply found a "parchment" pattern I liked, printed that on a piece of paper, then found a boar motif, resized it to fit, and then printed that on the same piece of paper. This gave me a "pre-painted" banner which I simply cut and glued to the spear. I then painted the exposed edge of the paper with some Devlan Mud, which "sealed" the edge and added some staining.

I really like the way this unit turned out - let's hope I don't fail them in the next DB game...

Dux Britanniarum Game 1: Farm Raid

It's been a while in planning, but fg and I played the first game of our Dux Britanniarum campaign this evening.

We set our campaign in Middle Earth, sometime after the fall of Sauron, when bands of orcs still troubled the lands.

My Orc (Saxon) Warlord, by the name of Badzur the Tall, gathered about him a rag-tag band of orcs and goblins, along with a troll champion, and set about to raid the settlements of Gondor; unfortunately, young Lord Belegon and his trusted lieutenant Beren and Dwarven ally Thorgaut caught wind of his nefarious plan...

The orcs rush towards the farm, hoping to catch its inhabitants by surprise... but are surprised to find the soldiers of Gondor already there!

Still hoping to see off his challengers, Badzur ordered his men to form into lines of battle as Men and Dwarves formed a shieldwall atop a hill overlooking their approach.

The elite soldiers of Gondor take Badzur's orcs in the flank!

Men and Dwarves charge down the hill! The orcs flee after losing several killed.

We are quite sure we didn't get all the rules right, this being the first time we played them, but already I can tell they give a good narrative game.

In game terms, I was really rather unfortunate when it came to rolling for objective and entry - my objective (the farm) was far away from my starting point, and fg's troops entered the table on the same sector as the farm! Even though the orcs got a good head start, by the time they were close to the farm the allies have already formed up.

The terrain also funnelled my troops into a narrow frontage, which prevented me from getting all my troops engaged.

After a short sharp fight, the orcs were thrown back and Badzur decided to call it a day. Fortunately for him, the allies decided against pursuing them.

The losses suffered by the orcs were still considered "light" and Badzur will return to avenge his insult at the hands of Men and Dwarves the following month. Belegon was rewarded with treasures from his lord, and word of his victory draws new warriors to his banner.

I guess the way the scenarios are generated will give "unbalanced" scenarios once in a while, but then on a campaign time scale a player must know when to fight and when to cut his losses and leave the field, as Badzur did only too late this day.