The Heroic Coward Dux Britanniarum battle report

Okay, that might be a title drenched in vinegar, but that is because I really wasn`t in a mood to play this game.

I love campaign politics and betrayals as much as the next guy, and I don`t mind if your ally betrays you after as soon as a month an alliance was forged, but it was his explanation that ticked my boxes.

I always liked Glenn, and he was the guy I lost to in the very first game, before going on the winning streak.  So he comes around again now and raid me (fair game) because he wanted to see how I did it, winning all the games on tactics.  Again, fair game.  He explained the breaking because he wanted to see in a straight fight he was the better lord on the battlefield, again, totally fair to me, it's a game after all and it is there to be played.
But then he goes on and brings along one of the blocks of Saxons that can be hired in the campaign (two of them are available, and you can only get them if you are at a certain time behind the pc to give your raid and hire them), because yeah, all those extra Warrior and Elite classed troops make it a fair battle of skills... so that`s where the vinegar comes from.  Heroic enough to come to my turf, and cowardly enough to bring along an extra army just in case... a real straight and fair fight of skills this is going to turn out.

I even considered just refusing the game.  But as the Dux campaign is already low on my "having fun" factor anyways even though I`m solid in the lead, because it's not because I`m winning the whole shabang that it means I`m enjoying it.  The reasons being simple, I just don`t like the ruleset that much, to much depending on luck in drawing cards as the main reason, and some game mechanics I can`t really enjoy as the other.
I just decided to get it over with, even if it would shatter my force.  I went in this game with one disgusting plan: focus on his warlord, try to assassinate him, and knock Glenn out of the campaign as a result.  And make it David's ultimate revenge versus Goliath.

The scenario rolled was Defend the Watchtower, and my plan to lure Glenn to a trap was simple: open the gates and run to my side.  I know this works on him like a red carpet on a bull, so his cavalry would race after them.  By saying I wasn`t planning on bringing up my army in the third turn, I tried to give him a (succesfull) feel of safety.

His army was as per the scenario split in two, and would come on both the far ends of the table.  My levy did just as they where ordered, making the hopeless sprint to my table edge, only to be caught halfway by his forces.

However, his cavalry with his lord strayed to close to my table edge in his third turn, and a 16 inch charge later my cavalry crashed in his line.  His units where beaten to a pulp and lost the amphora, running for their lives and taking for now his lord with him.  His morale dropped to 1 due to this, but I didn`t have any real "safe" targets anymore to break it.

In order to preserve mine as long as possible, I formed a huge shieldwall with my lord, to safeguard him and make his cavalry avoid charging into them.

I made the hopeless charge against a warrior unit and a saxon warrior unit, but they didn`t break hard enough to make him take another test unfortunatly.

In what would become the final turn, he charged and overwhelmed my elite cavalry with noble, pushing my morale under 0 and netting him the game.  But it was a bloody close fight where I managed to keep the saxons out of the game as much as possible, even though their presence blocked all my possible access lines.

While my losses where after modifiers only 2 levy units missing the rest of this month, and the killed noble surviving, it was a pity I couldn`t pull of the miracle win in the end, pulling almost any trick out of my hat that I had at my disposal with my hopelessly outnumbered and outclassed force.

But it was a fun game (Glenn is a fun guy to play with, it`s just the whole hire thing, see above) and it would have given a whole other result I guess without his extra 3 units of Elites (making it 4 against my 1) and 2 extra units of warriors.

Still, no prestige has been lost, so we are still on the path to the crown as Dux Britanniarum...