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Dux Bellorum - Late Romans vs Goths in 28mm

 I painted up a 28mm collection of Late Romans and Goths / Early Saxons a year or two ago for Saga. Having played about 5 games of Saga I realised I hated it. It is a very clever and imaginative ruleset, but far to gamey and historically dubious for my tastes so onto eBay those books and fancy dice go.

The armies assemble either side of a stream


I had picked up Dan Mersey's Osprey rule set Dux Bellorum on the cheap some time ago, so I decided to upscale my armies and sabot base them for some rank and flank.


The Goth infantry line


My Romans army is roughly 100 figures from a mix of manufacturers. In metal I have Footsore cavalry, some Gripping beast characters and some Foundry manabalistas. In plastic they are gripping beast and Victrix. The Victrix are more detailed and more dynamic and I like the Victrix heads alot. But they break really easily and are hard to rank up because they are all flailing their limbs around. The Gripping Beast and exaggerated sculpts, not quite heroic scale, but leaning a little that way. It makes them much easier to paint even if they are not as sexy. 

The Roman infantry line


For the Goths it is a similar range of sources but I have some of the plastic Wargames Atlantic Goths and some Warlord Gauls that I have kit bashed in. The Wargames Atlantic figures are probably the weakest sculpts of the lot. A bit plain and un textured. If you are an average painted like me this makes them harder to use washes on. 

Some poor bravery rolls lead to an irregular advance

Dux Bell is for small battles. Its focus is really Arthurian England so I am stretching the rule set a little here. Your commander generates a handful of leadership points that form a meta resource for rerolls and buffs etc. They give the game most of its colour and tactical depth. Conceptually this only really works if your general is able to shout across the battlefield. So logically these are armies numbering in the hundreds to two or three thousand, a raid or a boarder skirmish rather than Adrianople. 


Skirmish archers are quite effective if you can concentrate 2-4 units on a single opposing unit

Mechanically it is a fairly stock element based rank and flank game. Units have to pass a bravery test (as WHFB leadership test) to move. You shoot first, then move, then melee etc. 


Being flanked is not so hot, but I used lots of leadership points to keep my general alive.


The two innovations are the aforementioned leadership points and the movement sequence. Each turn you can assign a handful of leadership points (purchased in list building) to your units. These are spent to push you over failed bravery tests, throw extra combat dice, or bleed off combat hits. The last of these can make combat very attractional at key locations. Both sides can effectively force a stalemate in at least one if not two combats in any given turn.


The period flavour comes from the games underlying maths and a little chrome. The Shield wall ability docks 2 attack dice from attackers, and warrior units have to test to avoid charging. Combat is quite attritional particularly if leadership points are used to ablate hits. This fits the dark age warbands slogging it out at the boarders setting but makes the rules less suitable for Belisarius campaigns in Italy.


The initial Goth charge caused quite some damage but then the tide slowly turned in favour of the defensive roman infantry


In sum I am happy with this ruleset. This is a figure collection I have loved painting and will continue to work on, but probably wont bring out often as its a pain to transport on foot or bike. having rules with a few twists that I can explain in 10 minutes to someone with a casual interest is key. I do think I'd
burn out on them if played them every week and the strategy isn't the deepest, but then it shouldn't be at this period.


Chief competition is probably Midguard Heroic Battles which I may play with a friend soon. From a basic glance that set emphasises larger than life heros more than leadership points and has rules for duels etc. 

Even in a world where newer or more popular rulesets exist I think Dux Bellorum is a good option. If you want something smaller than Hail Caesar and less constrained that Basic Impetus and period specific this is a good choice. I think if I did want to do cavalry armies I would probably go with Impetus instead though.






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