June 565AD

Our Dux B campaign has staklked a bit over the summer, while people disappeared away on Holiday or just decided to enjoy the nicer weather outside.  Things are starting to move again though and this month my British Kingdom of Alt Clut was to be raided by the Scotti of Cenel Loarn, led by Rory.

The random scenario we generated was the watchtower raid, where an isolated British Patrol were trying to get to the safety of a local watchtower, while being chased down by a raiding party with the intent of capturing the patrol leader for ransom.   The patrol consisted of two groups of warriors, one mounted, led by a mounted noble.  The balance of the British forces were deployed round the watchtower, waiting to decide whether they should sally forth or stay put.

As ever with Dux B the deployment was random, with my patrol deploying on the left hand side of the far side of the table, while the Scotti raiders deployed to the flank of them.  This worked out quite well for me as the Scotti were basically behind my patrol rather than in front of them so they would need to spend the game chasing down the patrol with their cavalry, hopefully leaving the slower infantry behind.

Early game and my cavalry patrol legged it as fast as they could, while some of the British moved forward from the watchtower to provide support. The Scotti gave chase, but the terrain and dice were against them and they struggled to catch up.

Some shooting followed with a few casualties on either side but by turn three the British were nearly at the tower.  Rory decided to through caution to the wind and charged his noble raider cavalry into my elite cavalry, and after some dice rolling the British Cavalry were routed while the Raider cavalry withdrew due to shock.

In a last ditch attempt to stop me Rory advance with his other cavalry, only to be mobbed by three groups of levy, commanded by my Lord. Under such numbers there could be only one result and the Raiders were all killed, leaving the British safely in their tower at which point the Scotti decided to withdraw.

Casualties were light on both side, with 2 British dead and 6 Raiders. The 6 was enough to provide and +3 victory to the British though, which was good as it gave me enough income to construct watchtowers in both of my provinces. I suspect next month I am going to be battling some Saxons for control of my kingdom so I am not sure how much use they will be, but we will need to wait and see.  Both the British and Scotti suffered light casualties this month so will be at full strength for July.

Another strange game of Dux B where the victor was decided by the random deployment and not much else.  Any other result of the die and I would have had to fight my way through the entire Scotti force, but this time the random deployment favoured me rather than my opponent.

Land of the Rising Sun

For this week’s game we made a trip to medieval Japan.  John has been running a series of linked games of Daisho at the club, slowly building up a narrative.

This week we had four players:

Me taking the role of the local patrol

Ken with his Mercenary Ronin

Douglas with his peasant rebellion

Greg with his Monks.

We each had our own objective for the game, which the other players did not know about.

The game was set around a sacred grove, which was looked after by a priest.  My objective was to acquire a Sashimono (flag) that was a symbol of a previous peasant rebellion and bring it back to my Lord. 

My band was quite small but well equipped, even including a Horse and my leader was pretty tough.

Early game saw a lot of people making for the centre of the board, with my forces closing as quickly as possible.  There were a few pot shots taken at each other from the other players but they were mostly ineffectual.  

Turn 2 and I decided to be decisive and my Leader on his horse decided to rush into the sacred glade and try and grab the Sashimono, with the rest of my band following up as quickly as they could, while keeping an eye on the monks to my left.   As it turns out the priest guarding the place was some kind of monster so I ended up having to fight him.  

Charge!

Oh Dear

On the other side of the board the Ronin and the Peasants were starting to come to blows as well, leaving me to fight it out with the guardians while trying to distract the monks.

Turn three got even worse as, angered by the violence in the Sacred Glade a guardian spirit descended on my hapless leader, as well as two peasants, leaving him heavily outnumbered.  He rose to the challenge though, and started to take down his opponents while trying to stay alive.

The Ronin had by this time fully engaged the Peasants and a large fight had kicked off. This resulted in the leader of the peasants being taken out of action. As it turns out this is what the Ronin were here to do and having succeeded in their mission they started to remove themselves from the field.

Getting thoroughly picked on.

Inside the shrine things were getting pretty desperate. My band of soldiers managed to see of a couple of monks, but with my main fighter up to his eyeballs in enemies it was a losing battle.  In as stroke of luck the mighty leader struck down both eth Priest and the Guardian Spirit, proving the he was worthy and carrying the Sashimono, if only he could live long enough to extricate himself from the angry mob that was attacking him!  Alas it was not to be and eventually he was struck from behind by one of the sneaky underhand monks.  Karma is great though as the monk was promptly taken out of the game by a member of the peasant rebellion (another monk as it turns out!), who promptly legged it from the field with the prized flag and symbol of rebellion!

This is getting ridiculous!

Down and out, the rest fighting for the spoils.

A great evenings gaming with everyone trying to achieve their missions.  I felt a bit robbed in the end and thought that the Samurai Leader deserved to get away with thanks to his herculean efforts, but alas it was not to be, mainly as he ended up fighting against pretty much everyone else except the Ronin, who left the table pretty quickly after achieving their objective. At one point it was looking not too bad for me to extricate my leader from combat and run off on my horse but I was unlucky and moved last, making it very difficult.  Still great fun though!

This was my first game playing Daisho, which is based on the In Her Majesties Name rules and I quite enjoyed them.  The main changed that John made were to the activation sequence. Normally you would roll for initiative in a two player game but as there were four players we were drawing random chits each phase to see who got to go first which worked quite well although it made the initiative bonus for having the Leadership skill redundant.  It was still a good evenings gaming and I would really like to have another go sometimes, if for no other reason but to even the score against those monks and peasants!