Grafted Dark Age Rules Bear Fruit

This week I finally sat down and put my thoughts to paper. These particular thoughts were about Dux Britanniarum. I like the rules and love the period but I have almost wanted to simplify the rules somewhat. Likewise I really enjoy Lion Rampant but have wanted to complicate the rules somewhat to give more command decisions and control.

So ... I did it and managed to hoodwink 3 gentlemen into sharing a game with me.

To my surprise everyone had fun and would play the rules again. A couple of parts to sand smooth but I have a working set of Dark Age rules that work.

Each unit had eight figures or skirmishers with six. In my mind this isn't eight or six people but represents a unit of maybe 50 or 100? I haven't a firm figure in mind.

The game we played was back to my old tricks ... Eric Bloodaxe and his northern warriors battling the men from Wessex under Athelstan. It was the men from Wessex who drove the invaders back to Jorvik with many fewer warriors than they marched south with.

Above, the battlefield while below monks hard at work consecrating a pagan monument. 

The Viking King advances down the flank. 

The shieldwall of the Wessex men. 

The above shows the entire battle from the perspective of Eric Bloodaxe on the Viking far left flank. 

Both armies had selected a flanking attack. The Danes rushed forward while the Saxons held back using the spaces between woods and marshes as defensible areas. 

Above shows the Saxon king rounding the wood and readying his men to charge the Danes flank. 

The Danes advanced toward the Saxons but a marsh cut the field in two. A small amount of shock began to accumulate due to slings and javelins launched from the wood. 

And then the grass miraculously changed colour ... then changed back. 

Above and below the forces of the Saxon king begin to appear around the wood. On their way they chased off the skirmishers who tried to slow their approach. 

The above also shows a possible problem. The Viking unit charged and caught the skirmishers. I ruled that this would halt their movement as they killed the skirmishers. This meant the Vikings were halted but inches from a shieldwall. In the subsequent phase this charged and inflicted many points of shock. I should have let the Viking unit come on straight into the Saxons and just rule the skirmishers had run off. 

On the other side of the battlefield the Viking king urged his warriors to charge the shieldwall. It was only manned by levy fyrdsmen. 

In the centre elite troops from both sides did battle. Shock mounted on the Viking. 

And then the Saxons charged the Viking flank. 

Athelstan's men smashed another Viking unit then began to advance again. 

Morale is lost in my rules for every reverse ... a defeat in combat, more shock than men, nobles wounded or killed and units routed. Makes for a quicker game. 

These couple of images show the hammer swinging onto the anvil. The Saxon flank attack is in position. Also positioned well to cause damage are some skirmishers in the woods and the below images show the shock building on the depleted huscarl unit. It valiantly charged a shieldwall but lost out in the end. 

The enormous hand is pointing to the Viking attack on their left. Finally into position they charged the Saxon fyrd in shieldwall. These held out well but over two turns of combat shock mounted. 

What can men do against such turns of fortune?

The battle nearing the end above. The Vikings were caught and pressured. Warriors started to slip away despite the cries from their jarls. Perhaps only the gods could help but even these stayed silent. 

The Saxon king Athelstan's command resplendent with banners of their victorious god. 

This vicious struggle continued to the end. 

In the final moments the Vikings gained a victory on the left as a fyrd unit broke. However, the other fell back and formed a new shieldwall with the reserve warrior unit. 

As started in the intro, the game had been a success attained through a simple system with lots of flavour from the Dux cards. We started with five cards per side and each noble could purchase a card and/or discard and draw at the end of his activation. This worked well. I added the Bibamus and Portent cards (2 or each) to the deck as well. These supply additional period flavour - I added the rule if you forced an enemy unit to charge then this would count as a Ferocious Charge to offset being able to break up someone's shieldwall. This forced charge may prove to be too powerful but more playtesting is needed. Another thing I need to make clearer is when to allow rallying of shock - especially in a prolonged combat over two turns. 

But any tweaks appear small at the moment although only one game has been played and this was not a scenario but a straight up fight. More will be needed. Overall, the rules are essentially Dux with changes to formation and movement - I removed the dice for movement and instead went with a 4" move per action - slower for shieldwall. I left that a player could roll 3d6 under certain circumstances but the unit was bound to move the full roll of the dice whether beneficial or not. Also I changed the shieldwall rules to raise the cover level by one - so warriors and levy in shieldwall defend as if in light cover - while elites always count as light cover but rise to heavy cover if in shieldwall. Will need to divide combat dice between different quality units before rolling to hit. 

Command choices make for the best games - or at least that's what our little group currently concurs upon - and this is what I tried to supply.