Battle Report - 05-May-2013 - Dux Britanniarum

The Saxons, driving MY cattle
before them.

Saturday's game at Tim's was a raid scenario, with the Saxons (run by Phil) trying to make off with some British cattle from Caer Gynntguic, while I as the British attempted to thwart them.

First time I've played the British (as Andy has that pleasure in our campaign), which was interesting. Force Morale rolls gave Phil 8 and me 6, which really would come back to bite me later. 

Phil's Saxons got a good first move, and I came on in probably the second worst place I could, midway down the left flank with trees between me and them. To add insult to injury I then got to deploy precisely two units on my first turn.

And things didn't get much better from there, to start with. On my second turn I deployed my levy, and used a Bounding Move card to get them a bit closer to the action, as well as the warriors.

As you can see, as 4d6 rolls go, it wasn't exactly stellar. On top of that, I got over keen with my hearthguard, forgetting for a moment that shieldwall and single units don't mix...

How not to use a unit of British
hearthguard (bottom left).

The end result of that was getting charged by both units of Phil's hearthguard, which... unsurprisingly, since he had a nice hand of Fate cards...  rather, erm, hurt. Cue lost Amphora (now I know how Andy feels!), and - double ouch - minus 3 on my Force Morale. 

I also had to burn a Step Forth card to hurriedly get my warriors into Shieldwall, having strayed a little too close to the Saxons on the previous turn. Which I was a tad annoyed about, as there are only two in the deck, and it was my own stupid fault for wasting it.

My basic tactical goof, to be honest, was heading straight across the table to intercept the raiders rather than tracking them down the table and trying to cut them off at the end. However, I decided the best thing to do now was to send the levy and archers that way now, while hopefully using the warriors as a distraction. It ... nearly... worked.

Time to evade!

Phil pulled off two units of warriors and his hearthguard to head off my warriors. We had a fight between me and the former, which I managed to survive the first turn of (while wishing I'd kept the Evade card I'd literally just ditched two activations previously), and then managed to draw a Disengage card, which avoided any more painful Force Morale loss, but did result in Phil turning them back to follow after the cattle. By now, we've gone right through the Fate deck, which is pretty unusual, and started on a second shuffle.

And I have an interesting hand. Yes, that is the other Step Forth in the deck, PLUS the one I discarded!

Meanwhile, the levy and missile troops hared down the table to head off the raiders, with Phil's warriors and elite catching up. They catch up even better when I manage to roll a 4 on 3d6 for the levy's move (stop me if you've heard about my dice rolling before!), and they charge.

Whoops. Time to burn ... another Step Forth! I make it into shieldwall, and the Saxons wind up just short. The archers, meanwhile have made it right round the end of the table and are engaged in an archery duel with the Saxons, while the cattle and herders hide behind a small hill. I'm hoping that I can kill enough to make them lose control of the cows, so that Fleet of Foot card is very handy, as it gets me a 3d6 move away from Phil's archers, and round the side of the hill while still being able to shoot without penalty. Sadly, I only manage to do one shock. 

Lefy (on the left) in
their final death or
glory charge.

Back at the levy. It's a new turn. And Phil's leader comes up first. 

Time to burn... you guessed it... my third Step Forth. Pray I can roll enough on 1d6 to close, and hope 18 levy in Shieldwall can break two units of warriors supported by a unit of hearthguard.

It was so close. I had some absolutely preposterous luck, doing five kills on one group of Phil's warriors in the first round and routing them. Unfortunately, in the second round I had abysmal luck rolling to see if kills got assigned to my leaders, and got one killed and my Lord wounded.

So let's roll for force morale. Leader killed.  -2. Lord wounded?  -1. 

Making zero. Byebye levy, and byebye cattle. 

Loved it - really fun game that made me think in a whole different way to playing the Saxons. Again, thanks to Tim and Phil - looking forward to the next one.