Church Raid

No games for the last couple of weeks so there have not been any updates.

This was my second game of Dux Britaniarum and was a follow up to my game against Dave a few months ago.  This would follow my Saxon Lords raids into the English kingdom of Caer Colun, located on the Saxon Shore on the East Coast of England.

We rolled for the random Raid scenario and I ended up trying to rob an English church. In Dux B most of the various details of the scenarios are generated randomly.  As it turned out the church was located at the far end of the 6x4foot table, with just over half the English defenders arriving mid way up the opposite long edge of the table.  I was lucky and my force managed three full turns of movement before the game started proper.

Early game I sent a unit of Hearthguard and a unit of warriors towards the church to start searching for the loot, while the rest of my force, commanded by my Lord and one of his nobles took position on a hill in a n attempt to keep the English away and buy some time for the church to be ransacked.

The Saxon raiders

One group make for the church, although they forgot their glasses!

Saxons take the hill, ready to stall the English

Two lines of English, good warriors to the front, Levies huddling at the rear.

The English advanced in two lines, with the front consisting of the main warriors and elites, and a second shieldwall of Levies reluctantly forming a second line.

The Saxons reached the church quite quickly and started to look for the loot and it was not long before the two forces clashed on the hill.  The initial combats went the way of the English, with some excellent dice rolling from Dave and some clever use of the Fate Card deck meaning that my Saxon force was depleted very quickly, due to a lot of kills.

Luckily my two units of elite managed to salvage the centre and it quickly became a war of attrition. After three turns I decided to give up the looting of the church as I was running short of men and the group that was in the church came out to join the fight.

The initial clash of warriors. the Saxons came of very badly from this!

Elites take advantage of the poor manoeuverability of the shieldwall.

Running out of troops!

Saxon Lord runs out of troops and decides to make a run for it!

The game went right down to the wire and I eventually managed to break Dave's forces, but I only had one point of moral left myself. The main difference was that I had chased of a large chunk of his force through accumulation of shock, whereas I had had a lot of men killed.  

In the end I only managed a narrow victory, mainly thanks to the extreme amount of casualties I had suffered, while not managing to inflict many in return.

Post game discussion turned to the scenario itself. We both agreed that while we liked the raid scenarios there was not really much point in trying to actually complete them. The chances of them being successful were quite slim and the Saxon forces were strong enough at this stage of the game to just take on the English in a head on fight. Of course the risk of this is that casualties can become a problem. I was lucky in this game as I rolled very high for my initial roll and had a moral of 8 against Dave's five. Otherwise it would have been a disastrous day for the Saxons. Perhaps there needs to be more incentive ot actually try and complete the raid propoerly, although some of them look very dificult to complete!

I still had a good time and am keen to play again, but I don't think that it will be a game that I play a lot of. Perhaps 2-3 times a year.