First Game of Dux Bellorum

On Monday, Grahame and I played our first game of Dux Bellorum, the Osprey Arthurian rules by Dan Mersey. Grahame had been a at a WAB tourney all weekend and I had had a LONG day at work, so brains were frazzled even before we started. Grahame brought along Picts to take on Arthur in a wooded landscape (Cat Coit Celidon??)

We found it a bit tricky getting to grips with things, getting all mixed up about units, groups and their respective movement ability. We struggled to work out some combat situations regarding uncontrolled charges. We also completely neglected to do combat resolutions, (we were very brain-dead!) and messed up some of the combat modifiers for woods, flanks, etc.

However, despite all of that, by the end, we were finding our way through much easier and I really enjoyed myself. When I actually play a game 'properly', I think the rules will work really well. I do like the Leadership Points allocation bit in particular...

What I did find tricky was the way that being aggressor or repeller influences the game play. I was aggressor in this game, so was generally going first for everything, but that in turn meant that I had to think about what Grahame would do in response all the time. Also, I deployed first  for each troop-type, meaning that Grahame could avoid my shieldwall and focus his warriors on my cavalry!! This didn't go well in the end as, although they were all on-table at the end, their cohesion was shot. It was that that lost me the game, as we didn't play to a conclusion so counted cohesion points on-table at the end and I had less!!

Here's the pics I took. The armies look good on the sabot bases and I'm pleased with my cohesion markers.
Overall, I liked it MUCH better than I thought I might (Grahame commented that it is very 'Phil Barker' in style and I do not enjoy that sort of game normally) and I can see myself playing fairly regularly if opponents are available at the club. I'll do a batrep after me and Andy 'Colin of Rom - Ford' MacTaggart play on Monday night...

Deployment

The armies advance

My shieldwall can't even overcome skirmishers!!!! This was a drawn combat!

Getting to the end...my shieldwall lost a unit after this and we called it with me losing on cohesion pts