Musing about Dux Bellorum

So I have owned a nook copy of Daniel Mersey's excellent Dux Bellorum rules for battles in dark age Britain since they were published in 2012. I've even played a handful of games, using my figures based for DBA. It's a great game, and I'd like to play more of it!

But the aesthetics of the way I've played it leave something to be desired; a cohesion dice behind every 40mm DBA base, and those dice being 12mm size, means it doesn't look as clean and minimalist as DBA. The dice tend to over-power the figures on the bases, and detract from the look of the game. The number of figures per unit looks puny.

Dice show cohesion, glass beads for leadership points (LPs). Too much table clutter!

So I know this an example of an "ooh shiny" distraction, particularly as I am trying to focus on finishing my French division for Drums and Shakos Large Battles, but for years now I have thought about someday making armies specifically for Dux Bellorum, on 80mm x 40mm deep bases, with something called a dice frame on each base, for tracking cohesion. If you're not familiar with these, they are little mdf square frames, specially sized for dice in 5mm, 7mm, 10mm, and even 12mm sizes. You glue the frame onto the base, and it holds the dice in place while you move the unit. It seems like the ideal solution for a game like Dux Bellorum.

Aside from the dice frames though are the look of the units themselves. I have seen a lot of armies for this game on the 'web, and have found the 10mm armies most attractive: instead of a single, uniform rank of soldiers as in DBA, the warriors clump together in a wedge, some braver warriors charging ahead, spurred on by a lust for glory in single combat. Shield wall units have tight formations gathered around their standards. And cavalry ("riders" in the game) charge ahead, not in a neat orderly rank, but staggered. Impetus, a rival game to DBx, uses this style of diorama basing, and the examples I've seen have been quite impressive. I think it would make the game more enjoyable to have integral cohesion dice and more scenically attractive units.

So for the last 5 or 6 years I have window-shopped on the Internet for 10mm figures I could use to make this happen, with the Pendraken figures a leading contender, and recently the beautiful 6mm figures by Baccus Miniatures. Then there is the question of base size: for these smaller scales, my thought was 60mm x 40mm.

Frustrated with FoG

But lately, I have been considering that I should stick to 15mm, and make use of the figures and scenery I have. Several years back, my friends in California and I were playing Field of Glory, and I had collected and painted an early Visigoth army with Old Glory 15mm figures. I still have it, and it is a beautiful army to behold: I could run several 12 element battle groups, plus the maximum allowed cavalry.

Too bad the army turned out to be a loser though; the way combat worked in the game, it did not matter that my warbands (battle groups) were half again to twice the size of the Roman units. Only the first rank would fight in the impact phase, and the first two in the melee phases that followed. If the Romans could do well in the impact phase (likely) then they were certain to win in the following melee rounds, where they held two points of advantage (skilled swordsmen vs. swordsmen, armored vs. protected).

So when we moved to the east coast, I kept the figures because I could still use them for any DBx game, especially DBA. But as much as I enjoyed FoG for Hundred Years' War, crusades, and bronze age (1 game only-I won!), I hated playing late Romans vs. Visigoths. I was not going to bother painting a FoG sized Roman army to repeat the agony inflicted on me by my regular opponent.

Using the Visigoths for Dux Bellorum

So taking inventory of my barbarians, I have plenty of troops to make units with four times the number of foot bases (16 figures), and twice the number of mounted figures (6 figures). An example of this is portrayed in the rule book with Feudal Castings 15mm figures. Even though my barbarians are central European/Germanic and are probably not appropriate for dark age Britain (far too many redheads and blonds for Welsh, Britons, or Irish), I have enough stands to make 10 warrior units and five rider units, plus 2 mounted skirmishers and 5 foot skirmishers with bows.

The Achilles heel with this idea though, is that I do not have a corresponding number of shield wall army figures. So I have been thinking of following through on my dream of making a shield wall army for DB, instead of just adding more DBA stands. I have decided to stick with 15mm on this project, instead of going with 10mm or 6mm (nice as they are), for the following reasons:

• I only need to build one army to start with, while my FoG Visigoths play the part of the warrior army, until I can buy the appropriate figures for Welsh, Picts, or Irish.
• Old Glory 15s, from Nineteenth Century Miniatures, are the same brand as my Visigoths, and they have a wider array of dark ages armies appropriate for the game, when the time comes to build a warrior army.
• While I am decided on Romano-British, if I want to try the cataphract option for late romans, I can just put two Parthian cataphract stands side by side. That way, I don't have to buy those figures for just one unit. 
• The 80mm frontage makes it easy to use my existing figures, and I just so happen to have some 80mm x 40mm stands from Litko (bought when DBA War Wagons were mounted on that size). That way I can experiment with some basing ideas for DB.

Basing Experiments

The first thing I need to do, before buying any more figures, is to base up some figures on the 80mm x 40mm bases, and see how they look. Since I'll be basing the troops for this game in irregular formations, I will need fewer than the 16 figures that would normally fit in this space on DBx bases, especially when I'll need to leave room on the rear of each base for the dice frame. My estimate is that 10-11 warrior figures will be sufficient for one warrior unit, or a little less than 3 of my 41 stands of Visigoths. I can certainly spare those figures, or say 5-6 stands out of 41 to make 2 warrior units for DB.

I still need to remove the figures from the DBA bases to re-arrange the warriors and leave room for the dice frame, but on this 80mm x 40mm base, it looks like I could save 25% on figures, compared with the same base width in DBA. Not bad!  

I also scrounged from the lead pile 3 leftover barbarian cavalry figures (all Old Glory); painted, I could then put them together with 2 additional figures from among my "troop commanders" that I don't use with DBA. This would be 5 mounted figures, which  

is what I expect will look good for rider units (instead of six figures). I hope that I can stagger the horses a bit on the 40mm depth, otherwise I may need to go with deeper bases for the rider units. I'd like to avoid that though, as I want to keep basing as simple and uniform as possible.

And last but not least, I have some primed barbarian skirmishers with slings and bows. Enough that I can make at least 2-3 units of slingers for the Irish, and 2-3 bowmen units for other barbarians. 5-6 figures in skirmish formation on a big base will look better than a single pair on a 40mm wide base.

Personal Challenges

My first order of business is to attempt to paint the figures I have on hand, to see if I can still paint. I was recently diagnosed with an aggressive brain cancer that has affected the motor skills in my right (dominant) side, and I have not attempted any painting since a few weeks before the diagnosis. I may have to wait until after chemotherapy and radiation to regain the sufficient motor skills to accomplish this.

Then if I can, I will base up those figures to see how they look, and re-base some of my Visigoths (5 DBA stands should be good) to get an idea how many figures will be good for each DB unit. My estimate is that 4-5 mounted figures for rider units, 5-6 for foot skirmishers, and 10-12 figures for warriors and shield wall should be sufficient.

Ordering new figures

So, if I can show to myself that I can still paint and enjoy it, I may order the parts for this project. The first would be the dice frames from minibits: 7mm dice frames with white dice for ordinary troops (2 sets), red dice for nobles (2 sets), and a set of frames only (20). This would give me 60 dice frames, enough for four DB armies, if not even a fifth, depending on how many units I paint for each one. Most battle reports and sample armies have 7-10 units, but building in some options for variety will keep it interesting. 

In the same order, I can also order more bases; 80mm x 40mm bases (2mm thick) are in packs of 8 for 1.04GBP each. If I buy 7 packs, that is 56 bases, and with the Litko bases I already own, that will be 60 bases. The dice frame packs are 1 pound each, so that is four pounds for all frames. I can even throw in 10 purple dice for 50p, so I can show the companion units with its own color.

So all these bits would be only 12.82 GBP, plus S&H. At today's rate, that is $16.58 plus shipping. This is "cheap as chips" as they say in the UK, and I might as well buy these items all at once.

Ordering the first army

For the figures however, I only want to buy what I can reasonably paint in a few month's time. So if I go ahead with this project, I will start with the Romano-British army, as they are a good shield wall army to face off against any of the warrior armies. This match-up highlights the beauty of these rules. 

The plan is not to have an all-options army, but enough to make some interesting choices. For example, it is conceivable to have mounted companions, noble and ordinary riders that one could field an all-mounted force. But it will be enough to choose between some mounted and foot. 

Old Glory 15s (Nineteenth Century Miniatures) still sell the old 15mm line from Old Glory, and are an excellent value. So if I order the following figures, the order will be:

• Command. Contains both foot command for the shield wall units and mounted command for the companion units. If memory serves, there are six foot command groups (18 figures) and 1-2 mounted command groups (6-12 figures)
• Heavy Cavalry x 2. These packs are 9 figures each, so 18 figures, plus mounted command figures gives me enough for mounted companions, plus 3 more riders (which can be noble or ordinary, depending on the dice color I use for them.
• Heavy Infantry x2. These are 24 figures each, so I could make six shield wall units of eight, plus 3 command figures, making each unit 11 figures, which I should determine after my basing experiment is sufficient mass to make a convincing unit. This then would give me 18 points of ordinary shield wall, or 3 noble units for 15 points, and another 3 ordinary units at 9 points.
• I notice that the archers for the Romano-British (Arthurian Britons in the catalogue) look exactly the same figures as the archers I painted for my Visigoth army. Since I already have 22 DBA elements of these bowmen, I can use some of them for the two foot skirmisher units and the massed bow unit available to the army. So I don't need to purchase new figures for that. I estimate I will have to sacrifice 11-12 DBA elements for this, out of 22. Not bad!

So for $50.00, plus S&H, I could start on a new army for Dux Bellorum. We shall see what I can accomplish in the next few months, and this project gives me something to look forward too.