Dux bellorum or lion rampant?

[sunspear]

My long time gaming buddy and I want to get into dark ages gaming and I have been looking at Dux bellorum and lion rampant. I'm kinda on the fence with which one I want to invest in. Any advise or knowledge would be appreciated.

[Driscoles]

Hi,

it depends what you aim at. Do you want to play small battles or man to man combat with small units ?

In DB a unit on a base represents about 50 men in LR one figure is a man I think.

DB was designed to fight battles in Dark Age Brittain in a size of about 400 to 600 men.

LR stands for a fight between to retinues. Thats how I understand LR. I have the rules but havent`t played it yet.

I played Dux Bellorum and thought it was a great game with some interesting rules inside !

Cheers
Björn

[commissarmoody]

Nether, you want Dux Britanniarum 

[Mick_in_Switzerland]

Lion Rampant is a fast and fun wargame.
The investment is quite small as the book costs just £12 and includes army lists and scenarios.
It is intended for small "battles" between "24 point retinues" of six or so units on each side.
It actually scales up very well and I have used it successfully for bigger battles including Murten and Agincourt.

Agincourt - see page 2 for army lists
http://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=78682.30

Murten - see page 7 for army lists
http://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=42627.90

Regards

Mick

[TWD]

Strictly speaking Lion Rampant is for later medieval periods than "Dark Ages" gaming.
There is a mod available from the LR forums I believe and an adaptation (by LR author Dan Mersey) was published in one of the wargaming magazines. But as written it's intended for post 1066 gaming.

DB is aimed at the "early Dark Ages" "Age of Arthur" period - immediately post Rome - though it does stretch right up to Viking times.

Apart from that, as others have said they're designed for different scales of battles (though in practice use similar numbers of models).
They also use different basing types - Dux Bellorum is an element based game, Lion Rampant is a more "skirmish" feel with individual casualty removal (though unit deterioration is handled more abstractly). The element basing thing is easily solved with sabots/ movement trays, so don't worry if models are individually based
Both use an activation roll system which some people like (me) and others hate (one of my regular opponents).

Both are available pretty cheaply from Osprey, so for less than the price of one of the big glossy rulebooks you can buy both and see which one suits.

I think they're both great little rulesets that give pleasing and relatively quick games.

Someone will doubtless be along shortly to suggest SAGA, which is another splendid ruleset for Dark Age gaming.

And no, you don't want Dux Britanniarum. *shudder*

[Nord]

I have played both and would go along with TWD for the most part. They are cheap to obtain and you could do worse than buy both books, give them a try - we all like different things. My take is that LR is the more abstract - there are no army lists as such, you make these up by taking troops from 11 different types available. There are 12 different scenarios to try in this game, a big plus I reckon. The activation system can be very random, but these is easily houseruled away if you don't like this aspect. The easiest system to learn.

DB does include lists, around half a dozen from memory, but again these are relatively abstracted. There's a little more command and control in this game, as you can decide up front which units will get leadership boosts at the start of your turn. There are 3 or 4 scenarios? (memory hazy on this one, not played for a few years). Again, reasonably easy rule system and cheap to obtain. For some reason we never really got to grips with this game.

Saga is highly recommended from me. While far more of a game than the others (it's part boardgame, part wargame), there is some real thinking to be done and it tests the grey cells more than the other two games. For me at any rate. Slightly more complex than LR in rules, but no too taxing. It is more pricey, around £20 - £25 I believe, with several expansions adding further cost. Probably my favourite of the games.

Finally Dux Brittaniarum deserves a mention. It's probably the most "historical" but still plays well. The rules contain some nice ideas, but are not particularly well written so you need a few playthroughs (or an exisiting player) before you get it. When you do, there's 6 scenarios to enjoy and a campaign system - though whether anybody has ever completed one is another question. I liked the game system, the campaign system less so and I wish the rules were set out better. It's about £20+, so do your research on this one before committing.

That's my dark ages skirmish knowledge in a nutshell.

[commissarmoody]

I think that TFL is actually doing a 20% off sale on Dux Brittaniarum too.
Just to let you know, yes I am a fan boy of this game, but I actually do own and Really enjoy Lion Rampart. And play it regularly. Its good for a pick up game and as pointed out its abstract but still feels right, at least for medieval.

Where as Dux Brittaniarum, can work for other eras, its really set up for fall of the west style Post Roman kingdoms, or Tribal chieftains fighting against the very increasing hordes of Germanic peoples from the East. Even has an expansion with rules for the welsh, the Scots and the Irish. So more period flavor with a ready set campaign, but a little more investment in time and book keeping.

[guitarheroandy]

There is a good Wargames Illustrated article by author Dan Mersey to convert lion Rampant to Dark ages. I have played it a couple of times and it works really well. I ran a multiplayer game at the club the other week (4 players in 2 teams on an 8 x 4 table) and we got a result in 2 hours. General consensus was that it's great!! You will also be able to use Dragon Rampant when that is relaesed as that has some cool mechanisms which will really work well with Arthurian type armies.

Dux Britanniarum is also very good (in my humble opinion) but you need to play it as a campaign and use the scenario generator properly, as it doesn't do 'pick-up' games or straight-forward 'line up and fight' battles at all well! Where it excels is with raid-type scenarios that shift the balance around a bit via deployment options, etc. Probably very appropriate for warfare in 5th/6th century Britain which is what it represents. I played it loads when it first came out, although the campaign stalled due to other commitments, rather than us not liking it. Haven't played with the newer supplement yet.

Dux Bellorum is a good rule set. I haven't played it very often - not foten enough really. I suspect that it also works better with well-designed scenarios as otherwise it could get old quite quickly just doing 'line up and fight' games. There are scenarios in the rulebook. We play with 28mm figs on 120 x 80mm element bases and treat a standard 'base-width' as 4" (movement, etc, is in 'base-widths') because we find that this both looks good and plays well on a 6 x 4 foot table with standard size armies. have a look here: http://guitarheroandy.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Dux%20Bellorum

[sunspear]

Thanks everyone, especially the detailed replies, they help a lot. We both come from GW gaming and have been wanting to get into historical gaming for some time. I have been doing some research on LR, DB and saga. I am leaning toward LR just because I only need the rule book and it seems like we can go with skirmish and larger battles with it. I could be wrong not ever having played it yet
I like what I have read about saga but if we wanted to work our way up to larger battles I'm not sure we could do it with saga. There doesn't seem to be a lot out there for DB I have read a few articles online and did some searches for batreps but just doesn't seem to be a lot. Again I appreciate all the help.

[sunspear]

Just saw your post guitarheroandy, thanks! I will definitely check it out. Is that wargames illustrated a recent issue?

[guitarheroandy]

Yes, a couple or three months, I think... Let me know if you can't locate it. I may be able to be of assistance!

[wulfgar22]

Just saw your post guitarheroandy, thanks! I will definitely check it out. Is that wargames illustrated a recent issue?

Wargames Illustrated 331. I've played a couple of games (AARs on the blog in my sig, if you're interested) using the Dark Ages variation and it works really well. Not much changes rules-wise, though...a couple of additional and optional rules, some name changes (Schiltron becomes Shieldwall, for example).

[sunspear]

Humakt- I have read quite a bit on saga and really the only thing holding me back on it is that I am not sure if we wanted to scale up to larger games that the system isn't designed to handle it. We have thought about a campaign and eventually as we get the models I know we would like to play larger engagements, again I haven't played a game yet so I could be wrong. It seems with LR we would be able to play anything from a skirmish to a full scale battle, let's say 200 to 250 28mm models per side.

[Nord]

On the size of game issue, I wouldn't make any assumptions. We have played Saga with 10 points rather than the usual 6 and it works okay, you just need some very simple house rules to make it work. Any of these games will scale up with a little modification, though if you get much bigger you are really into mass battles and then none of these rules works particularly well IMO. For mass battles you are possibly better served by games like KOW, Hail Caesar or others.

[Big Rick]

I am also a GW refugee and want to thank the OP for asking the question and everyone for contributing as this conversation is a big help to me as well. Thanks!