Dux Bellorum at Salute 2013

Well, this was a result both unexpected and very gratefully received!! You know that you have achieved your 'wargame show aims' when you find yourself pretty much welded to your game for the day answering myriad questions, demonstrating bits of the rules, chatting to punters, etc, AND you end up winning a prestigious trophy, which, as the pics above demonstrate, was 'Best Painting.' At ANY show that'd be a result... At Salute, it's doubly special as there are SO many great miniatures on display.

So, overall, I think 'the team' (myself, Steve Jones, James Morris, Scrivs, Andy MacT, Tom and John) did ourselves proud and did a darn fine job of promoting Osprey's Dux Bellorum rules on the day.

It was a long day, as I was up at 4.20am to leave the house at 5.30am and got home at 8.15 in the evening, but it was really worth it in every sense. So may people came to see our game and left with positive comments. Lots of them told us that they owned the game, but hadn't played it and I like to think that a good number of them will now be inspired to go and try it having seen us play it through. We tried to ensure that we had one of our two games running at all points throughout the day. This worked well, as there was a little overlap and it enabled lots of the team to be on hand to explain stuff to the punters. We always try very hard to get that aspect right at a wargame show - while some punters don't really want to stand and chat, a good number do, so taking the time to say 'hello' and strike up a conversation is always worth the effort and having a big team certainly made that possible.

On the day, Arthur lost twice to the Saxons. In the first game, Scrivs beat me and in the second, Scrivs started out with the Saxons against Andy MacT who took the Romano-Brits, but Scrivs then toddled off to see the Chain of Command demo on TooFatLardies stand, so I took over and killed every Briton on the table...including Arthur!!! Over on the big game, they played it through once, but I'm not sure what the result was.

Both tables looked spectacular due to the quality of figures and especially the terrain - Steve's scratch-built hill fort and the charming 'church that is now a water mill' providing plenty of eye candy for the punters and prompting several questions.

I didn't get to see much of the rest of the show, as it's so big and I was only away from the game about 90 mins, so, while I had a wander and did a bit of shopping (new Musketeer Arthurian characters and cataphracts, some paint and Foundry's new Fantasy rulebook) there was too much to take in. There was a stunning 40mm Alamo game put on by Gringo minis which just look AMAZING - thousands upon thousands of pounds worth of minis and terrain, apparently - and a HUGE Waterloo game, which caught my eye simply because of the size of it and the mass of figures on the table - too many figures crammed into the space, if I'm honest, but then that always seems to happen when folk attempt a Waterloo refight. Still, that sheer number of models always causes a 'wow' moment.

The show seemed busy and it was GREAT to catch up with some gamers who I hadn't seen in a while, as well as to meet some of the bloggers who follow my ramblings on here...

Anyway, enough chit-chat, you wanna see some pics, right? Here are a few I took of our games. Apologies for poor photography on a few. I was experimenting with camera settings as, for some reason, I had more trouble than usual with settings and getting depth of field, focus and lighting right...

Scrivs' Saxons...

My Romano-British

More  of Scrivs' Saxons

Steve Jones' home-made hill fort...matchsticks by the thousand!!!

The Byzantine church that had become a watermill....

Steve's fabulous Late Romans...

James Morris' barbarian conspiracy Pict/Scot alliance

Action  hots up on the 'Arthur' game...

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!!

Back In The Land Of The Living...Just!!!!!

Greetings one and all. Apologies for lack of updates over the past 2 weeks. I had planned to post some pics of painted models, as I had several awaiting completion and had planned to do those over the holiday period. Sadly, a flu virus intervened and utterly wiped me out for 10 days!!! Truly, 'twas a mighty and most virulent virus, made worse by the fact that we were on a family holiday at the time...Great!!!! :-(

Hopefully, I am now on the road to full recovery and I hope to resume some painting and gaming next week. Next posts are likely to be the final practice game of Dux Bellorum before Salute (gaming that one on Monday evening) and I do hope to eventually post some pics of some Colonial Sikhs, a Saxon standard bearer and a new bunch of Elves...plus of course the next Dux Brit battle, where I attempt to salvage an iota of pride and throw Mike's Saxons back from the walls of Linnius...That last one is coming after Salute.

Talking of Salute, if any of my esteemed readers are frequenting the show this year, please look out for the Newark Irregulars banner, as that'll be where you'll find me demoing Osprey's Dux Bellorum rules. Please do come over and say 'hello'!!

Dux Bellorum Romano-British for Salute

Ok, so at long last, I can post something related to 'the other Dux B', or Osprey's 'Dux Bellorum'. Yes, I have agreed to join the supremos of Arthurian Wargaming (James Morris & Steve Jones, of course), plus a number of the other 'usual suspects, in demoing Dan Mersey's Dux Bellorum at Salute this year.

And, after a bit of to-ing and fro-ing about the hows, whys and wherefores, here are the new bases for the job!! For those of you who don't know, Dux Bellorum is an element-based game that relies heavily on the base size as a key measure for deployment and movement. We have agreed that we will use 120mm wide bases as they 'look about right' for 28mm (according to sir Steve of Jones on his blog and I have to agree that he is bang on the money there!)  However, as 120mm is a pain in the arse for movement purposes, we are using the good old traditional 4" as our equivalent of 'base-width' when moving troops.

You may recall me buying a load of sabot bases from Warbases ages ago for this purpose and that is largely what I have here. The only difference is that I decided once I'd got them that 4 models on a 120mm wide base looked absolutely crap for noble and companion cavalry. Accordingly, I fashioned '5 men per base' sabots for said cavalry using GW movement trays with balsa inserts, gaps filled with Green Stuff. These look great and are only a tiny bit over 120mm...not enough to worry about!

Here are the empty sabot bases I'll be using...

Home-made Companion/Noble Rider cavalry element base

WarbasesShieldwall infantry base - Close order foot

Warbases Bow base- I opted for a looser formation for this base to simulate medium infantry in slightly more open order

Originally planned as a Rider base, I opted to use this Warbases cavalry base for the skirmishing cavalry

Light troops - Romano-British Bow and Skirmishing Cavalry

Shieldwall Infantry

The 'main event' - Arthur's Companions (front) and Noble Riders behind

With regard to the army, I have been asked to supply 'Arthur's army' for a straightforward 32pts per side (standard army size) 'Arfur vs the Saxons' game while the others do some kind of mega game. This suits me down to the ground, so I have designed the following army. Clearly it is not one iota historical, but it is, nonetheless, what most people will expect to see from any game involving Arthur!!!

We have:

1 x unit of mounted Companions (kick-ass heavily armoured cavalry) led by the Man Himself (5pts)

2 x units of Noble Riders (armoured noble cavalry) @ 5pts each (10pts)

3 x units of ordinary Shieldwall infantry @ 3pts each (9pts)

1 x unit of Romano-British Bow (3pts)

1 x unit of Skirmishing Light cavalry with javelins (2pts)

This comes to 29pts, allowing me to add the strategem 'Imposing Horsemen' to make my Companions and Noble Riders even harder in combat for the additional 3pts.

When choosing models for the units, I opted to include my classic Romano-British 'Mounted Arthur' model to denote the unit of Companions (even though it's not 'necessary' - it just can't be Arthur's army without him!) and the Noble units are denoted by banners. This makes it easier to remember in the heat of battle which units are which should I ever opt to mix noble and non-noble units of the same type within an army.

So, there you have it...the 'Dux Bellorum' Army of Arthur as you might see it in Rosemary Sutcliff's books: Shedloads of rock-hard cavalry backed up by spearmen and a few light troops...Classic Arthur!!

All I have to do is learn to play the game and learn how to use the army now... all in about 2 months...less, actually as my first game is on 4th March!!! Yikes!!! I hope Dan is on hand on the day for the first run-through!!!!!

More pics and Salute....

Good morning All...

Thought I'd whack a few pics up this morning, seeing as how I've completed the new Romano-british army standard bearer to go with the Ambrosius model I posted earlier. I've also popped in a couple of shots of the two characters in with their unit.

It's quite amazing how much difference a few different models in a unit can make. The unit below is basically my British Kingdoms Teulu, but with two different characters and a different leader (the chap with the cataphract armour and face-covering parade helmet), a different standard bearer (with the Draco,) and a chap in the back rank with an oval shield who doesn't normally get used in the Brit kingdoms force. The whole unit now just looks much more 'late Roman' which is, of course what I was after...



Salute was ok. No pics, I'm afraid, as the missus had taken the camera with her to her friend's birthday party...I only just managed to sneak in with the above shots before she whisked it into her handbag...

Trouble with Salute is that it's just so bloody enormous. You kinda forget what you've seen after a while and it all blurs into one..

However, I must say that from an Age of Arthur standpoint, Newark Irregulars did not disappoint with the battle of Hatfield!!! Marvellous armies, stunning conversions and the biggest 28mm Dark Age village I've ever seen!! Great to catch up with James and Steve again... Oh, and apparently the Welsh won!! Yaaaayyy!!!!! (Well, apparently the victory was rather more due to the alliance with Penda's Saxons, but hey ho...)
Nice to see Mike Evans again too, whose son Tom was heroically rolling dice for the Welsh contingent! Also ran into Guy Halsall, unsurprisingly, not far from the Hatfield game!!

Other things of note: Fantastic Medieval 'Siege of Orleans' game that looked really reallly good. Must resist...must NOT buy medieval knights!!!! The Warlords' 90mm LOTR game was even better than last year's...loads of 90mm Uruk Hai and Rohirrim slugging it out over MEGA terrain... Bloody fantastic!!
A fewe other nice looking games, but like I say, it kinda blurred after being there all day!!!

The Andy Hawes award for 'spoiling what should have been a great display game' goes to the chaps doing 28mm Waterloo. Great terrain, marvellous models...but just so many of the buggers that it looked rather more like a rugby scrum! With a table half as long again, it'd have worked a treat....as it was, not so great, which was a shame...

Perry's plastic ACW went down a storm and so it should. I bought an infantry box set and for £12 it's a minor miracle!! Great quality models and the plastic cavalry are even better! I'm going to paint a dozen or so as 'Plains war' infantry for LOTOW then convert the rest to Indian Mutiny Brits for skirmish gaming. The painting will be 'basic', i.e. base colours then use that dipping stuff....should look great, as I've already run a couple of tests from some of my unpainted figure horde!!! Pics will be posted, rest assured...

Warlord games were promoting their new plastic 28mm Romans and they are stunning too! I now have 4 of the free samples through various means. If I can be arsed, I'll paint them. They are brilliant models and will sit beautifully alongside Foundry's stuff...

Oh, lastly, an honourable mention must go to the chaps with the radio controlled Action man size WW2 tanks, which looked (and sounded!) bloody GREAT!! They spent the day manoeuvering round the hall and the look on some folks' faces was priceless!!! There was one chap (about 45 years old) - typical 'stereotype wargamer' look with straggly, thinning, unkempt hair and a wild, similarly unkempt beard reaching to his chest, who literally danced when he first saw them! He reminded me of a strange 'Merlin-like figure'!! Priceless!!! But, joking aside, it does actually say a lot about the sheer quality of those tanks...even the 'action men -style' tank commanders were radio controlled, with their hands lifting binoculars, etc...the turrets turned round..the exhausts even 'smoked'. Stunning!! My faves were the Russian T34 with it's infantrymen passengers and the SS Tiger, which just looked rock hard!!!!

Anyway...must dash. The wife is due home in a couple of hours and I have to sort the house out prior to her arrival!!

See ya...