Romano-British for Dux Britanniarum

The activation deck was shuffled and Saebert the Old’s card came up first.  He used both his command initiatives to order one group of Hearthgaurd and another of newly arrived warriors over a drystone wall to towards the left flank of Peredur’s warriors.  Garcianus came up next and continued his efforts to get the Comanipulares and Levy moving in an organised fashion down the road.  The British missiles continued their slog through the woods with a slowness that did no credit to their status as light troops.

The next card to emerge with Ceawlin who found himself facing Peredur’s shieldwall with a single group of his Hearthguard.  There was really only one option that an aspiring Saxon Warlord could take in that situation and Ceawlin ordered a charge.  This was not quite as suicidal as it sounds.  Although the British had more men, Ceawlin’s Hearthguard were elites compared to Peredur’s warriors, meaning they added extra dice to their attack.  In addition, Ceawlin would add further dice to the Saxon total as would his accompanying champion, Cenfus.  This put the number of Saxon dice slightly higher than the British.

However, Peredur had a ruse to play.  Not wanting to engage in combat just yet, he played the Bounding Leap card to have his men withdraw before Ceawlin’s charge commenced.  This they duly did, but again, the drystone wall impeded their progress.  Had they put enough distance between themselves and Ceawlin?

Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough.  Ceawlin and his Hearthguard smashed into the shieldwall.  The dice were rolled and each side scored 7 hits.  However, the Saxon strikes were far more effective.  Despite the shieldwall allowing the British to ignore the first casualty on each group, five British warriors fell dead at the cost of one of the Saxon Hearthguard.  The British fell back with one group reduced to three men and the other to four.  The British woes were not over yet however, as the Saxon missiles opened up.  Another British warrior fell dead reducing one group from three men to two.  That group had also taken significant shock.  This now massively exceeded the remaining number of men, meaning that the group was broken.  Beyond fleeing for the British table edge they would play no further part in the game.  In total, the last two Saxon actions had reduced Peredur’s force by two thirds!  The broken group of warriors brought British Force Morale down by two points to 5.

Fortunately for Peredur, his card came up next, giving him an opportunity to extract himself from this deadly situation.  Gathering his four remaining men around him, he ordered them to run a swift 13 inches to the road at the price of one point of shock.  He wasn’t out of the woods yet though.  Whilst Urien Cadwalldr continued to try to get the Levy to move down the road, Berthun the Devil started moving two groups of Saxon warriors around the side of the farm, hoping to head off Peredur before he could reach safety.