Dux Bellorum 8 village raid AAR

It's been a while since we had a Dux Bellorum game but we fancied a change from the 17th century and inspired by Stew's dark age game on his A terrible  waste of time and wealth blog , we had another go with Dux Bellorum.
Once more it was early Saxon versus Irish,  Des chose the Saxons again, up to strength this time with 8 units,Leader and companions, 3 units of noble warriors and  4 units of ordinary warriors the Irish this time had Leader and companions, 4 units of noble warriors, 4 units of foot skirmishers (slingers) and a unit of ordinary riders which had been rushed to the top of the painting queue and had almost  been finished in time!
We chose the village raid scenario and worked out that the Irish would be the aggressor as they had more noble units, making the Saxons the repellars,its what they're called in the rules (lets call them defenders it's easier!)
I chose a side and Des set up a very poor village on the edge of his board( must build some dark age buildings!) I had to have a unit in the village at the end of a turn to win,maximum of 12 turns or for an army to collapse.
He set his troops up,I set mine and off we went!

The coins are leadership points that you distribute each go, we set a limit of 1 that could be used to offset a hit

The lines crashed into each other, as they were noth warrior troops this happened automatically, we didn't have to roll below our leadership on 2 die like we would otherwise to activate.

Having inflicted first blood with some skirmishers, they were caught unfortunately by some Saxon nobles, only one result really, we both agreed that skirmishers could shoot and then move,which seemed to work well, they could be quite irritating but they wouldn't win you the game. 

My (almost !) Newly painted mounted unit await the inevitable result 

Companions versus nobles, companions lose and fall back

The ordinary Saxon warriors are(mostly) pushed back

Yep, evaporated cavalry!

 Nobles supported by companions

 Noble Irish about to steam into a noble Saxon unit

 After it's been softened up by lurking slingers

 Saxon nobles returning to the fray

 Lots of units on both sides have very low hits left

 Des hits 75%loss just before I  do, plus I could get my last noble unit into the village next turn

Really, it was a draw as I had just hit 75%casualties as well.  It was great fun and nice to try out new troop types, skirmishers ( which worked out well but I haven't got the best out of them yet) and riders( lost them too early to find out much about them other that they are pretty fragile!) 

Next up, probably the Irish riders as they are almost finished, then I've got lots of ECW cavalry partially done but for some reason Pictish cavalry have shoved they're way in,next game WOTR  I think, maybe Barnet, a hail Caesar game, should be fun. 

Next post needs to be terrain as I have one week left to fulfill Dave's challenge!

All the best Iain