Twilight of the Britons – A Battle Report 2

Chris and Adam played tested Twilight of the Britons – a version of Twilight of the Sun King for the early medieval period in Britain.

Summary: Much better game. The shield wall clash was realistic but took too long to resolve. Battles on the wings were interesting and had an impact in the


The Armies

Last time we had identical armies and Adam has that the armies be different this time. I went for Romano-British and English.

Chris had the Romano-British army, with a lot of Roman trained troops.

Romano-British Army

  • 1 x Warlord: Epic(+2) Hero
  • 2 x War leaders: Brave(+1) Hero
  • 2 x Roman Cavalry: Epic(+2) Heavy Cavalry, Aggressive, Armoured, Well Drilled, Javelin
  • 1 x Roman Light Cavalry: Epic(+2) Light Cavalry, Aggressive, Well Drilled, Javelin
  • 6 x Roman Infantry: Epic(+2) Heavy Infantry, Armoured, Well Drilled, Javelin
  • 1 x Briton Noble Cavalry: Epic(+2) Heavy Cavalry, Aggressive, Armoured, Undisciplined, Javelin
  • 2 x Briton Spearmen: Brave(+1) Heavy Infantry, Undisciplined
  • 1 x Roman or Briton Archers: Brave(+1) Light Infantry, Well Drilled, Foot Bow
  • 1 x Christian saint or monks: Epic(+2) Light Infantry, Curses
  • 3 x Heroes; 14 x Units; 63 Points; Breakpoint 9

I use the term “English” to cover the Angles (Ængle), Saxons (Sahson) and Jutes (Kentings) from Hengist and Horsa’s arrival in Kent (about 429), through their amalgamation as the English, until Norman subjugation. In this case, it was Saxons rebelling against their nominal Romano-British overlords. The English had a bigger army with more infantry.

English Army

  • 1 x Warlord: Epic(+2) Hero
  • 2 x War leaders: Brave(+1) Hero
  • 1 x Mounted Hird: Brave(+1) Heavy Cavalry, Armoured
  • 2 x Hird: Epic(+2) Heavy Infantry, Aggressive, Armoured, Undisciplined
  • 2 x Select Fyrd: Epic(+2) Heavy Infantry, Armoured
  • 7 x Great Fyrd: Brave(+1) Heavy Infantry, Undisciplined
  • 2 x Archers: Brave(+1) Light Infantry, Foot Bow
  • 1 x War dogs: Brave(+1) Heavy Cavalry, Aggressive, Undisciplined
  • 1 x Pagan Priest: Epic(+2) Light Infantry, Curses
  • 3 x Heroes; 16 x Units; 61 Points; Breakpoint 10

Note: I still don’t have the figures for most of the heroes, so we used blank stands for the missing ones.


Table

I used terrain cards which gave a relatively clear table with a hill, rough area and village.


The Battle

The English advanced straightforward. Perhaps the first play test convinced Adam that simple moves pay off under the rules.

Britons-201 English advance
Britons-201 English advance

Adam had Brave (+1) Heavy Infantry in the rear rank and a variety of troops in the front.

Britons-202 English right and centre
Britons-202 English right and centre

The English / Saxon magicians (pagan priests) launched some potent curses and force the opposing Briton Noble Cavalry to recoil.

Britons-203 Roman-British left flank cavalry recoil from pagan curses
Britons-203 Roman-British left flank cavalry recoil from pagan curses

Both warlords were keen to close to the battle lines quickly approached each other.

Britons-204 Battleines close
Britons-204 Battlelines close

The rules feature impetuous advances and the Briton Noble Cavalry showed how it is done. The flanking English heavy infantry recoiled and the Briton nobles followed them up.

Britons-205 Saxon magician recoils through heavy infantry
Britons-205 Saxon magician recoils through heavy infantry

On the other flank the War dogs recoiled through the archers following behind them.

Britons-206 Saxon Wardogs recoil
Britons-206 Saxon War dogs recoil

The Romano-British light infantry didn’t fancy being charged and evaded.

Britons-208 Romano-British lights evade
Britons-208 Romano-British lights evade

The Saxon mounted Hird bounced the more numerous Roman cavalry.

Britons-209 Romano-British cavalry recoil
Britons-209 Romano-British cavalry recoil

After those skirmishes on the flanks, the battle lines were about to clash together.

Britons-210 Battlefield
Britons-210 Battlefield
Britons-211 Shieldwall shove
Britons-211 Shieldwall shove
Britons-212 Priests think about outflanking
Britons-212 Priests think about outflanking
Britons-213 Battlefield
Britons-213 Battlefield
Britons-214 Roman-British shield wall recoils
Britons-214 Roman-British shield wall recoils
Britons-215 Romano-British cavalry recoils
Britons-215 Romano-British cavalry recoils
Britons-216 Shieldwall shove
Britons-216 Shieldwall shove
Britons-217 English Warlord dies
Britons-217 English Warlord dies
Britons-218 Romano-British light cavalry routs
Britons-218 Romano-British light cavalry routs
Britons-219 English heavy infantry rout
Britons-219 English heavy infantry rout
Britons-220 English Hero killed
Britons-220 English Hero killed
Britons-221 Romano-British Hero killed
Britons-221 Romano-British Hero killed
Britons-222 Replacement Hero killed
Britons-222 Replacement Hero killed
Britons-223 Battlefield
Britons-223 Battlefield
Britons-224 English Hero Killed
Britons-224 English Hero Killed
Britons-225 Briton Nobles rout
Britons-225 Briton Nobles rout
Britons-226 Another Romano-British Hero killed
Britons-226 Another Romano-British Hero killed
Britons-227 Battlefield
Britons-227 Battlefield
Britons-229 Shieldwall shove
Britons-229 Shieldwall shove
Britons-230 Crack in the Romano-British shieldwall
Britons-230 Crack in the Romano-British shieldwall
Britons-231 Romano-British cvavalry chew on the English flank
Britons-231 Romano-British cvavalry chew on the English flank
Britons-232 Crack in the English shieldwall
Britons-232 Crack in the English shieldwall
Britons-233 Another crack in the English shieldwall
Britons-233 Another crack in the English shieldwall
Britons-234 End Game
Britons-234 End Game
Britons-235 English Casualties
Britons-235 English Casualties
Britons-236 Romano-British casualties
Britons-236 Romano-British casualties

Observations and conclusions

Vincent Tsao (the co-author) and I are still working on the rules and they evolved a bit between the first play test and this one. This game was much better. The troops behaved more like they should and the game got a conclusion. Chris and Adam appreciated the new army lists, creating slightly different armies.

But there were still some things to improve.

The game took 2 hours and 15 minutes and we felt that was too long. I guess we are comparing to DBA where games take 1 hour. In fact DBA is our benchmark and Chris’s assessment was “Good game, but is DBA still better?” Probably, so Vincent and I will tweak some more.

Two many heroes died. Vincent had play tested a version where heroes died on 2-4 and that was far too lethal. So for this game I had heroes dying on a 2-3 on 2d6. This happened too much. Both sides lost three heroes. We were also playing resurrecting heroes so they’d die, come back and die again. In one instance Chris lost a hero, the hero’s son and then the hero’s granddaughter all in one player turn, as the hero died, got resurrected and died again. Chris said, “Heroes should stay dead.” Good suggestion.

Adam again asked for cascading morale i.e. seeing friends rout should hurt. That would speed up the game. Something to think about.

We also found the 50% breakpoint made the game too long. We’ll try 33% instead.

Chris liked the curses as a missile weapon. However, I’d given the “curses” missile weapon a range of 5 BW. Much further than foot bows (2 BW) and slings, javelins and horse bows (1 BW). That was too generous and made the priests a super troop. Chris suggested, “Make them like archers”, i.e. I cut their range back to that of foot bows.

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