Dux Britanniarum

I heard a podcast interview with Richard Clarke from Toofatlardies about his latest set of campaign rules, Dux Britanniarum, a skirmish game set in the Arthurian period. It sounded interesting to me, and Richard's outlook to wargaming appealed to me (don't take it seriously, drink lots of beer and have a laugh. The winner? who cares!).

Seriously, his rule design to many of his games seems based on the notion that you have 3 or 4 "big men", charismatic leaders who can motivate units around them. A random card draw determines which "big man" activates on the battlefield. It is designed to simulate battlefield friction.

Dux Britaniarum is based on a very simple campaign system where the Saxons seek to invade a territory of Dark Ages England, and the Romano-Britons seek to defend the invasion.

Anyway, I bought the rules and the two starter armies, Saxons and Romano-Britons. All figures are from Gripping Beast's metal range.

I've finished the Saxon warband.

The three "Big Men" and the Champion:



Gedridht or Elite troops:





Duguth, or Warriors:







Missile Troops:



The Warband:



One nice thing is that when I get round to painting another 8 archers, I have a very flexible Saga Warband.

His activation system is a pretty solid model of how historians think it worked in historical battles, where a few sociopaths were responsible for most of the aggressive action in a battle. They were responsible for much of the "aggressive morale" in the army.

If I had the patience to paint I'd do this kind of gaming. I may just get the rule book for the brain candy.

S.