Osprey Publishing have always been a mainstay of historical
wargamer's collections. Whether its for an easy dive into a specific period or
to seek out conversion fodder and paint schemes from the wonderful plates,
there tends to be something for everyone. Going back a fair few years now, it
was a bit of a welcome surprise when they started to publish the Osprey
Wargames line. These books in the traditional Osprey format were fairly simple
games from a host of different periods. As it stands, there are now over twenty
five different titles, with no signs of stopping.
One of the first to be released was Daniel Mersey's Dux Bellorum (having just checked my copy it was actually the first OWG1). With fantastic illustrations from José Daniel Cabrera Peña, this was a straightforward unit based battle game for early dark age conflicts in the British Isles. Anyone who knows me, knows I have a penchant for this period so it was no surprise that I took this wee game to heart at the time.
If you haven't seen the rules before a very brief summary is to say that they are command and control based with figures organised in units. The idea is that all units will have the same footprint throughout the course of the game allowing gamers to utilise elements that they might already have around. Units can be activated and moved singly or as part of larger groups and cover horse, regular infantry, and skirmishers.
At the local club, we played a fair bit but it wasn't long before a couple of individuals started to introduce house rules and change things to better suit their tastes. As these were the folks organising the majority of the games the rest kind of followed on. When the house rule document was almost as big as the core rules, I knew it was time to step back. I'm not saying I disagree with the rules that the folks suggested; in many cases they were sensible and made a lot of sense in the bigger picture. For me though, it took away from the simple idea of this game at its heart. Fast forward a good few years and I'm taking another look.
With a young family and a wandering interest for new things, I enjoy when I can have what is often termed, "a game in a box". I'm a fan of a quick and easy way to get a project off the ground and finished so that I can actually game with it. If I can do this cheaply, all the better!
Using the Dux Bellorum rules and sourcing figures from the wonderful Pendraken Dark Age Picts and Late Roman ranges (not to mention some bases), I picked up what would be one half of my game in a box. Clocking in at under £25, this is a big thumbs up as I could have two forces assembled for this side of £50 (not including paints and such which I have anyway). Settling on a warband hailing from near where I grew up, these would be men from Fib and Gododdin.
Below are pictures of what I received along with some in progress build shots. Hoping that I should be able to get these based and painted pretty speedily. I've been out of painting practise for a while and I'm normally a 28mm gamer. I had considered painting these individually and then basing but I thought that would lead to even more procrastination than usual. As such, get em all on their bases and get a lick o paint on them.
Here are the horse - heavy cavalry from the halls of Gododdin and lighter cavalry from the Pictish Kingdom.
The bases here are 60x30 mm and I think give a great balance between cost effectiveness and visual impact on the table. They are also handily scaled back from the Warband rules which means they can pull duty elsewhere.
And here are the infantry - warriors from Fib and skilled bowmen and slingers.
Finally, a shot of the warband coming together. You'll note that I've also added some of the Minibits diceframes. These are great for keeping these wee dice in place as wound trackers for the units. The dice can pull double duty (or more) elsewhere so I just need to pick up more frames as and when. I use these for other games including the appropriately named Warband from Pendraken as well as for pin markers in things like Bolt Action. Simply take a base with appropriate gubbins, frame, and voila.
For Dux Bellorum, this should give me all the options I'll need for a 'standard' game. Once I've got these painted I can then add some more Late Roman and early Saxon types for the surrounding kingdoms giving me the opportunity to play bigger battles or to have everything I need in a single box for games with a mate(s) at mine or in the club (if we ever get back!)
