Dux Bellorum Rules $13.50 with US Shipping

[DaveB]

Very new rules however in looking through them, I do not see that I will use them.

Rules have elements of Field of Glory and DBMM. I was looking for something that was historical but had a bit of fanatasy to them. These rules are very historical in nature.

$13.50 includes first class shipping in the US. List price is $17.95.

[landwehr]

I'm thinking of picking up a copy and would be curious to hear your take on the rules (other than that there is no fantasy stuff). Any thoughts?

Thanks,

George

[geekmeter11]

How close to FoG is Dux Bellorum?
Is it a lot of movement or actual combat?

[DaveB]

rules are spoken for.......

I only looked briefly at the rules. The part that is like DBMM is the Strageties and Tactics that the armies can use. I thought the army list mwere like that of FOG. Other than those notes I can not say much.

Command appears to be via Leader points... a more consistent means of knowing what a player can do from turn to turn than dicing for PIPS.

Other than that I would be hard pressed to provide input.

[Lewchips]

I have a copy of the rules, however, I am yet to read them, but I like what I've seen so far.

He is a link to Dan's Blog - http://merseybooks.blogspot.co.uk/

This link, again to Dan's Blog, shows an example of how the game plays -http://merseybooks.blogspot.co.uk/se...play%20example

I hope this helps,

Barry

[landwehr]

Thanks. Maybe I'll take a look.

[Lydia]

I participated in the playtesting of DB. I enjoy playing it and four other people who I showed the game to (including the illustrious Kingo) did too.

I’ve not played FOG but I don’t see much similarity. It’s not helpful to say that the game is like any other one game because that instantly makes people think it is just like that game. There are elements of the game that I recognise in others but the one time I mentioned one to Dan, he had never heard of that other game so there is much parallel evolution at work.

You roll dice to move groups or units, or to stop them from charging impetuously if your warriors are close to the enemy. So a turn where lots of your units do what you want them to is like a DBA turn when you roll high PIPs. Leadership points (LP) are not identical to PIPs, they are used to influence die rolls or cancel hits. But having lots of LPs means that your troops tend to do what you want them to more often.

In combat there is no lining up – you stop where you touch. There is one main attacker and one defender, and both sides roll a number of dice, trying to beat the other side’s armour value. But the defender can choose to attack a unit that is not the main attacker, so piling on with light troops that we like doing in DBA can get you hurt.

Army lists are point based, and there is chrome you can buy for your troops (javelins for your heavy foot, bigger horses from the continent, mead (increases aggression and reduces cohesion), aggressive sheep, etc etc), so you can have tiny and very tough warbands, or loads of not so terribly good stuff.

The game is scenario based. One I really enjoyed was a dawn attack, where the defender starts off with 1 LP and gets 1 more each turn until they reach their maximum. I got a few grey hairs that night!

On the TMP there is someone who has ‘refought’ Civitate with it. Not my cup of tea because the troop scale and ground scale would not really allow that (that's what DBA is for), but he had fun and no one got hurt.

I’ve got a couple of game reports on my Blog and this thread http://www.fanaticus.org/discussion/...ellorum&page=3 has a bit more detail.