Battle Report - 23 Dec 2019 - "The Tax Collector", Dux Britanniarum

Playtesting with AndyM and a late-arriving AndyH...

The British warrior cavalry wind their way down the hillside to come rescue the tax gatherer...

...who has been yelled at to get the heck out of the village while his levy escort rank up in Shieldwall to hold off the advancing Saxon warriors. I actually blew a Step Forth to make sure the levy were in Shieldwall before the warriors could hit them.

...except that Mr Miller had a Strong Arm and some very good dice (and I really don't), resulting in one Group being wiped out and the other mislaying its Amphora. Force morale down to 4, given that the Noble took a wound as well...

And then it just got worse. The Warrior cavalry made it down the hill, but due to a bit of a logjam at the bottom, had to charge the approaching Saxon Elites over the corner of the temple ruin, which was -1/dice terrain...
First dice 1(+2 -1) . Second dice 2(+2 -1). Third dice (now clear of the ruin) 3(+2).

Well short.

Oh dear.  

A turn through the deck later. The Saxon hearthguard have charged the cavalry that are hanging around waiting for it, and AndyM has a Carpe Diem (and I DON'T have an Evade) so they have no escape, and they don't get double dice or Shock. It goes about as well as you'd imagine - Amphora lost, Force Morale down to 2.

"Oh, hi, AndyH. I've been running the British for you while you got here. Erm... your force Morale is 2, and you're down to a mixed unit of hearthguard and warriors and one group of Levy."

I'm probably off his Christmas list.

The British hearthguard/warrior unit has fallen back under the weight of yet another Strong Arm and multi-card attack - it's actually halfway down the hill around about the belly of the horse, but it won't stay on the slope :D
Meanwhile the remaining levy prepare to sell their lives dearly in an attempt to protect the tax gatherer's wagon.

(Note: had this been a campaign game, we as the British would have called it a day by now!)

And the levy manage to last a whole round of combat. Unsurprisingly. Amphora gone, Force Morale down to 1....

Redesigning the initial setup, so we don't have so many 'X in a village' variants... There's nothing fundamentally wrong with scenario balance, but I don't think any scenario would survive in the face of such awful dice rolling!