Return to Dux

It had been a long time since my first game of Dux Brittaniarum, and I was glad to get another go last Saturday. My knowledge of the rules was rusty and although I picked up the basics soon enough, I didn't get the finesse of card hand management.

Dick and I set up a campaign in the kingdom of Caerwent, where former Saxon auxiliaries had turned on their former Roman employers around 550 AD. In spring my Saxons under lord Artelric ambushed a Romano-British waggon train. And although I successfully distracted some good enemy units with some warriors, I always found myself one step behind in a tit for tat with the rest of the enemy. It had been a pretty chaotic raid, and by the end Artelric's men were slowly rounded up in a small area. A last ditch attempt to capture the wagons failed and the remnants of his force fled.

Later that summer the rejuvenated warband returned to raid a village but just as his men started to search the houses for loot, the Romano-British appeared out of nowhere. Again, I was on the receiving end and despite some serious retribution again Artelric's men left the field empty handed.

By now Artelric's nickname The Martyr has raised some suspicion among his following about his chances of success in the future. Getting wounded every time surely doesn't help although his willingness to get into the thick of the fighting stands him in good stead. It is to be hoped that he and his devout henchmen One-Eyed Aelfwyn and Ine the Pious will be able to turn around the series of bad luck, because there is little time until winter and payment to king Cwichelm is due...

Jolly Monks

A fine addition to my Dux Brittaniarum host, a bunch of priests to rob and despoil.

 Part one of my new Foundry shipment.  

Excellent painting again from Rene

Quick! Have a look at the blog of René van den Assem to see pictures of the new Saxons (by Musketeer Miniatures) that he painted for me. And the alternative versions. Stunning!

Back in town, open my mailbox...

And there it is: Dux Britanniarum!

A weekend's worth of gaming including Guards!Guards!

On Thursday I visited a game shop in Utrecht, which I hadn’t been before: Subcultures. I was really impressed! Apart from some Warhammer stuff, and the basic boardgames, it has a really good collection of miniatures (eg Hasslefree, Warlord, Perry, FOW) and attributes, and good selections of boardgames from FFG and other Ameritrash publishers. There was even some LARP equipment, rules and literature. I will be back there for sure.
I also picked up a leaflet on Army Painter and I think there’s still a lot stuff I can learn about painting miniatures. Even though the intention is to outsource miniatures painting, a bit of handwork might still be necessary at times.
But the best part of weekend was the gaming itself.

On Saturday night we played a great management game about a financial institution trying to balance growth and risks. The mechanisms were really good, the material outstanding and the challenge daunting. Although we managed to expand out portfolio by a great number of mergers, we were late in getting rid of our risky assets, so at some point the regulators stepped in. Great game.


After that we tried Guards!Guards!, one of the two Terry Pratchett games released late last year. This edition is published by Z-Man Games. The game looks good, materials are good quality, the references to the Pratchett books are nice and the plot of the game is believable in the context of the Discworld novels.
The third or fourth time I´d been overrun by the Luggage

Although the object of the game is obviously to draw in the large fanbase for all things Pratchett, the game is not easy. There’s quite a lot of rules and there’s a lot to take in: movement, actions, volunteers, spells, that need to be collected, brought back to Unseen University and then there’s a challenge to be surmounted. And there’s dragons and cultists, and the Luggage, and saboteurs. Pffew! Indeed the game did prove longish and hard work. A trained crew could do it in 2 hours, but we didn’t get it finished in 2 and a half.
Not an unqualified success, but it is the first of the Essen 2011 games I had not played. A first milestone therefor on that project.



In the mail I received Angola, a rerelease of the 1988 version by MMP. It’s a four player game covering the 1970s civil war in that country with inspiring faction names like MPLA, FNLA, and UNITA.

Also, there was Eight Banners and Green Flag, about the Ming/Manchu army of the 17th to 19th centuries. I am still intreagued by Eastern armies, but I have no handle to take them on at this time. So this one will be on the stack but will not get read soon. This is a publication from the Pike & Shot Society, of which I'm a long standing but passive member. I have no problem, however, subsidising them and their excellent magazine Arquebusier.

And finally, Too Fat Lardies has given July 30th for the release of Dux Brittaniarum! There's also suggestions that there may be a SAGA event in the Netherlands at some point, but that's in the "maybe, possibly' category as of yet. So get busy y’all!

Minor Project: Dark Ages Skirmishing

There's two interesting new skirmish rulesets out (or on the verge of coming out) set in the Dark Ages: SAGA by Studio Tomahawk/Gripping Beast and Dux Brittaniarum by Two Fat Lardies. SAGA is set in the later period around 1,000 AD while Dux is set in the age of Arthur around 500 AD.


Anyone who's ever played Avalon Hill's classic boardgame Britannia can probably understand the fascination of this period. Not only was Britain invaded by consecutive waves of invaders, there's also an epic quality to these small bands of adventurers carving out their kingdoms on foreign shores: Hengest & Orsa, Swein Forkbeard, Harald Hardrada and of course William.

On the opposing side are always the desperate invaders-turned-incumbents like Arthur, Offa, Alfred and Harold Godwinson. Their tragic fates lend a melancholy quality to the age.

You can also understand I was immediately taken in by the prospect of playing scenario based skirmishes with a limited number of miniatures rather than sizeable armies that would take ages to collect and paint.


I've ordered a German/Anglo-Saxon starter armer of 44 figures from Gripping Beast for Dux, and a first bunch of 40 plastic Vikings for SAGA. The miniatures are fine, and very good value for money as far as I'm concerned. I liked the Germanic sculpts better than the other Arthurian factions I think are interesting, like the Picts and Scots. Vikings are just the coolest miniatures around for SAGA.

Now, knowing my time restraints, I intend to have them painted rather than take that on myself. This is a big decision, but I think the right one. Time is shorter than money, so I need to outsource and focus on what I do best, which is reading.


This means I have a bunch of books stacked up, and as you could see in my previous post, it is still growing. There's a few Ospreys, to get me running, like the Anglo-Saxon Thegn, Vikings, Arthurian Fortresses etc. There's also a few books with interesting articles on Dark Age warfare and finally a few broader monographs on the Age of Migrations and the Anglo-Saxons. Most of the latter cover both the Arthurian and the Viking period, so that's efficient information collection, eh?

I hope to put on a first few reviews shortly.