"Dux Bellorum at First Glance" Topic

I just returned from Historicon and one of my purchases was Dux Bellorum, the new dark ages rules set written by Daniel Mersey and published by Osprey which covers the Age of Arthur. I have not played the game yet, but wanted to give a quick overview of my opinion of the rules after reading through them a couple of times.

The rules are printed in a soft cover booklet similar in size and production quality to many of the other Osprey publications that I am familiar with. Rules, army lists, and playing aid total 64 pages. The artwork throughout the rules and the cover are very nicely done. The rules initially appear to be pretty easy to pick up and play, but with a lot of potential depth in strategy. By this I mean that the mechanics of the game (movement, combat, morale) seem straight forward and not complicated, but the player has a myriad of potential command choices that they can make each turn which I believe will be the most interesting part of playing the game. Players can attempt to move units by just an activation attempt roll vs. what is called a "bravery" number which varies from unit to unit, but each unit can also have extra "leadership points" placed with the unit at the beginning of the turn that can be used for a variety of things from combat, to enhanced bravery #, cancelling hits, to pre-empting an opponent's movement, etc…

The turn sequence is also interesting. There is an aggressor and a repeller which are diced for at the beginning of the game and this effects set up and troop placement. Each turn, players alternate placing leadership points with units (and do not have to announce what they are using them for), units or groups can have more than 1 LP placed with them if I read correctly. During movement, units are moved with aggressor's skirmishers, followed by repeller (both mounted and foot), followed by aggressor's mounted, then repeller's, then foot for both in the same manner. I think missile fire happens first, then movement, then combat. Troops can move either in groups or alone in single units.

Combat uses an aggression # for the attacker and missile firing unit and all units have a protection #. The attacker rolls a number of dice equal to his aggression # and hits when the dice equal or exceed the protection # of the enemy. There are a few modifiers and the LP effect these hits (if LP were placed with the unit before the turn). Certain types of units can also be subject to uncontrolled charges which can again be effected by LP placement.

There are many things that I am sure that I have not touched on, but this is a start.

I have rambled on enough and need to play a couple of games and will give another report after I have done so, but I am excited to try these rules and think that they have some really interesting mechanics which should make for a fun, exciting and unpredictable game.

Allen

They are published. I await my pre-ordered copy.

Is there a campaign system? Mersey's "Glutter of Ravens" had a lovely full-campaign feel to them. They are also my favorite name in rules!

NOTE: This should really be in ancients, as Mersey writes from the viewpoint that Arthur is a late roman warlord. So several hundred years before Medieval.

There is some good info on the campaign system here: toofatlardies.co.uk/blog/?p=989

Mr Bunny I think your confusing two Duxes (Duces?).

Dux Bellorum is Osprey.

Dux Britanniarum is two Fat Lardies.

So…dark ages is the new hotness?

Dux Bellorum is Osprey.

Dux Britanniarum is two Fat Lardies.

A pair of ducks!

A most ingenious pair of ducks.

D'oh! My bad.

NOTE: This should really be in ancients, as Mersey writes from the viewpoint that Arthur is a late roman warlord. So several hundred years before Medieval.

No, the medieval period is, I believe, generally considered to start at the end of the fifth century with the fall of the Roman Empire. I'm not sure what period these rules cover, but the "Arthurian" period is early medieval.

Thanks Allen for a first runthrough of the rules, very interesting. Realy looking forward to get my hands on a copy.

I don't know; why a dux?

I've just noticed this is also available as a Kindle edition – for basically the same price from Amazon.

A pair of ducks.

Or …

Dux and Redux!

A pair of ducks.

Very hard to figure out.

Dux! Incoming!

I played my first game last night. It was a quick solo game just to run through the mechanics and get a first impression of how the game feels. My armies were both 32 points, an Irish force composed entirely of foot with a tough core of noble warriors and some ordinary warriors and skirmishers with javelins. My Pictish force had several mounted units including 2 noble riders, the companion unit and an ordinary rider as well as several ordinary warriors and some foot skirmishers with javelins. The game played really quickly (despite my lack of understanding of many of the rules still) and gave an interesting game that had a fair amount of ebb and flow. There were a lot of situations where both sides had to make difficult decisions with their LP and this part of the game is really a cool mechanic. The Irish ultimately proved too difficult for the Picts to handle and at the end of the day the Irish held the field, but were bloodied. I played the game after only 1 full read through and as I played I wrote down a series of questions that came up. After the game, I re-read the rules and found the answers clearly stated to 7 of the 8 questions that I had, so I think that the rules are clearly written and easy to grasp.

Allen

If it's already available, how come the Amazon UK release date is 20th August ?

Because Amazon is pants

@ Allan, any pictures??

@ Marshal Mark, The official release date are the 20th August, BUT Ospry thought it was a "good" ideea to releas a few copies of the rules at Historicon…

Dalauppror, it would be an ugly photo. I cheated on my figures (being a medieval gamer I didn't have a large # of dark ages figs.) I did have plenty of picts, but for my horse I used chariots and for my irish I used some from my medieval highland and islemen army. I also didn't use any terrain, just the basic board. However, when I run my next game, I will get a few shots.

Allen

Allen, don't feel bad. At least your proxies were close. I plan on mixing my Arthurian figures in with later figures when I do Alfred, Vikings and 1066. Probably not the Romano-British, but the early Saxons, Irish, Picts etc yes. That way I can get started gaming sooner.

Now, if you. Had been using Space Marines to stand in for Saxons…

I just got mine in the mail today. The layout, and illustrations are great. I was (and am) a big fan of "Glutter," but their were a few holes in the rules and quite a bit of book-keeping so it was hard to get my group to play it more than occasionally. Mersey has a great feel for the period based on the few primary sources that we have. The "feel" of GoR was like a good Cornwell battle-scene (with more book-keeping). I had always been disappointed with DBM(s) and FoG for this period. Glutter at least captured the heroic feel and made interesting options in an era where tactics were limited and bravery mattered more than maneuver. I expect Dux Bellorum cleans up some of the mechanics and retains the feel. I haven't been this excited about a miniatures game in a long time.