Preparations for Salute...Last Practice Game of Dux Bellorum

Last minute preparations for Salute are now done! I realised on Monday evening while packing my army to take to the club to play Andy MacTaggart at Dux Bellorum that I had forgotten to paint the extra casualty marker that I needed!! Doh!! Also, 25 of my Romano-Brit models had paint chipped off in varying degrees, so I needed to patch those up. Anyway, that's now done and I am all sorted and ready for Saturday! It's gonna be a long day, but no doubt a good one and the game I'm about to tell you about was excellent in that it helped Andy and I to realise some key errors we had been making in our games thus far - errors we will not make on Saturday! 

We opted for the 'End of Reign' scenario from the book. basically, you have to rout the enemy Companions unit to win the game - any other result is a draw. Also, this game's special rules are that you cannot allocate leadership points to save wounds on your companions... Interesting!!

We set up as follows: Andy split his force so that the bulk of his foot was on his left flank and a small flanking force was deployed way to his right. I countered by placing my cavalry on my left to hopefully exploit the gap and to keep his flankers busy.

In the event, it didn't quite work out. My heavy cavalry did fearful slaughter to Andy's infantry, but not enough to rout them before his flankers, having reduced my light cavalry to 1 cohesion, appeared in my cavalry's rear. My shieldwalls battled valiantly on my right, but by the end of the game, I was down to less than 50% of my starting force and, had we not called it a day, would have been in danger of losing my companions. I did manage to attack Andy's companions in the rear and reduce them to 1 cohesion, so it was close!! A draw it was, but I'm calling it a 'winning draw' to Andy.

However, we made a number of errors. Chief among these was that we got the part about avoiding uncontrolled charges totally wrong, so Andy basically avoided my shieldwalls for far longer than he should have and also did some illegal moves with those units as a result. 

Also, my rear charge onto his companions was illegal too! Although one can be behind the enemy and still charge them even with no line of sight, the unit has to surrender one base-width move to turn and make the charge. This is what I didn't do!!!

Still, even with the errors, it was a brilliant game! The more I play it, the more I enjoy it. In particular, I like the allocation of leadership points, which becomes almost like a poker game as one tries to out-think one's opponent!!

So, off to Salute with this army on Saturday. I hope to see some of you there. Pics of the battle from Monday night below....

Set-Up...

My cavalry moves to threaten the enemy...

It's looking good here! I did inflict serious death on those Saxon units nearest the cavalry, but not enough to rout them...

You can see my cavalry slogging away and killing Saxons, but they are about to get it big-stylee!!

Close up of the action in the centre...

The other flank...

It's about to go pear-shaped for my noble cavalry at top right of the picture...

I have reduced the Saxon unit at bottom right to 1 cohesion...can the Saxon  companions redress the balance long enough for their mates to rout my companions?

My infantry threaten the Saxon left...

My fabulous dice that so nearly routed the Saxon companions...just one more 6 would have done it!!