Dux on a budget

Apropos of a question on the Facebook group, I've been doing the maths to see what the minimum investment is in figures to play Dux Britanniarum.

Obviously, your best bet at least for starters is going to be Gripping Beast plastics, namely one box of Late Romans, one box of Saxon Thegns, one box of Dark Ages Warriors. Lets have a look:

Dark Ages Warriors: 40 figures

• 40 with spears (you end up using 18)
• 16 with javelins 
• 8 with swords
• 32! with slings (you will use 8)

Saxon Thegns: 44 figures

• 32 with spears (you end up using 30)
• 36 with swords or axes (you end up using 2)
• 2 officers, 2 standard bearers (you use the officers)

Late Romans: 44 figures

• 16 with bow (find someone with a late Roman or Byzantine army to sell them to :D)
• 24 with spear (you end up using 18)
• 16 with sword - same body as spearmen (you end up using 2)
• 2 officers, 2 musician/standard bearers (you use the officers)

Currently, GB will sell you this for £60 as a three box deal. You'll probably then need about 6 or 7 sheets of shield transfers if you don't want to hand paint them, at £3 a sheet.

For a starter Dux force, you will need

Saxons:

• 12 elite
• 12 from the Thegns box
• 18 warriors
• 18 from the Thegns box, or mix in some unarmored and/or bareheaded spearmen in each group from the Dark Age Warriors box so you can distinguish them from the elites
• 4 slingers
• from the Dark Age Warriors box
• 3 Lords and a champion
• two Lords, plus two figures with axe or sword from the Thegns box.

British:

• 6 elite
• 6 from the Late Romans box
• 12 warriors
• 12 from the Late Romans box (I'd distinguish these and the elites by using different shield designs - I have these on my elites, for example, and these on my warriors and levy, giving the levy the ones with white backgrounds)
• 18 levy
• 18 spearmen from the Dark Age Warriors box, but use heads and oval shields from the Late Romans box (or leave them bare-headed)
• 4 slingers
• from the Dark Age Warriors box
• 3 Lords and a champion
• use the two Lords, plus a couple with swords from the Late Roman box

This usefully leaves you enough figures to produce:

• 2 Saxon warrior reinforcements (more if you used some of the Dark Ages Warriors)
• 4 British warrior reinforcements 
• 12 mercenary javelinmen

And yes, I know, the Thegns aren't perfect, being a bit late for the era, but it hasn't bothered me or my opponents (or apparently anyone reading this blog) in 5 years of playing Dux :D The other downside is that your missile troops are slingers, not archers (as the late Roman archers are armoured and thus not really right), but this isn't a huge problem IMO.