Double header at Rod's

We played two games.  The first was a playtest of Rod's homemade skirmish system, CV.  This is a really cool system, where there is one stat -- your figure's CV (for combat / cohesion / casualty / <insert C word> value.  If you roll your CV or under, you do an action.  It turns out CV 5 is dramatically better than CV4, which is better than CV 3, etc.  As you take wounds, you lose CV.

The scenario was 6 rangers attacking a village to free a hostage.  !2 Taliban defended the village.

The table, before deployment

The rangers come on.  There are a couple of sentries, but otherwise all is quiet (and hidden)

The rangers got to the top of the small building, and killed a Taliban machine gunner.  Sentries opened fire -- two hits on each ranger!!!  This could have been bad.  But each ranger shrugged off the hit (they used cover well)

The Taliban sniper!!!!  He was dangerous!!!  Until the rangers opened up on him with their support weapon!!!!  Scratch one sniper!!!

A minor shootout started, with the rangers methodically removing any hostiles that appeared.

Then the dangerous stuff started -- clearing the village room by room.  The rangers were lucky -- the Taliban kept getting hits, but the Rangers skill (and hence use of cover) was enough to save them.  The Ranger leader did actually get hit, but he was saved by his body armour!  Pretty soon the rangers found the hostage and evacuated.

We decided to have a second game -- Dux Bellorum.  A straight up Saxons (Rod) vs Vikings (Nick)

Rod kept rolling bad dice, especially for movement, and the Vikings managed to crush a flank and scrape a win.

Revenge!!!!!

Another game of Dux Bellorum with Rod.

This time the armies were 42 points -- slightly larger than the recommended 30+ points.  It was a replay of the game we played a few weeks ago -- I was Viking raiders, attacking a poor hapless village of peace loving Saxons.  There were a couple of changes though -- the Vikings had javelin men for their skirmishers, and the Saxons had a unit of archers.


There was a funnel between two woods, and the Vikings were lucky with movement, rolling a double 1 for the movement for one formation, allowing them to move the formation twice.  They immediately moved to block off the pass between the woods..A fight developed at this choke point, with the Viking skirmishers working their way through the woods.

(The beads in the photo show unit strength -- blue or green beads for command points, red beads for strength of elite units, orange and yellow for the strength of average units.

The battle in the pass between the woods intensified.  Rod was OK -- he just had to hold the village to win.  But it was 3 Viking units vs 2 Anglo-Saxon units -- the numbers were starting to tell.

On the right, some Vikings got through the woods and fell on some happless defenders.  This was an even fight, but the Saxons just couldn't roll good dice.  In the middle, the shieldwall was collapsing through numbers.  And on the left some Vikings have worked through the woods and are about to sneak into an undefended village.

The Vikings scored a total victory.  But they were lucky -- two units were beaten up, and most took some damage.

Dux Bellorum

I love Dux Bellorum

I got smashed in my first game, as I misplayed the first combat, not realizing how to use the command dice.  By the time I had figured the subtleties of the mechanic out, I was behind the 8-ball, in the death spiral, etc.

Basically, you have a certain number of command dice.  You can use these to influence movement, attack, or defence.  I was a raiding army (think vikings), hence good on attack and poor on defense.  Rod was the local defenders, good on defense and poor on morale and attack.

Since I was poor on defense, I should have used my command dice to boost my defence.  Instead I used them to boost my attack -- but the boost want enough to break through, so I ended up being  damaged and still in melee.  Eventually, being damaged in a long grind I started to lose units, which cost me command dice, which cost me units, etc.


In the pictures below we used the dice to count the units strength.  When reduced to zero the unit is eliminated and routs.