Down in the Valley, A proper old school Dux Bellorum mullering ...

Mullering, verb, present participle.
To grind down, in a pestle and mortar
From the Middle English molour, probably from mullen, to grind, to charge Romans uphill, to get your arse handed to you in a wargame...

Devious and sneaky, just two of the kinder epithets attributable to Quilp Esq, the Petain's Secretary.  Neither fully explains the devil inspired low cunning he produced for this game...  The terrain rules under Dux Bellorum allowed him to choose hills in both deployment sectors.  No matter what we did we would be attacking uphill.  "Its a valley" he claimed...

Well the truth is that if we had been repellers in this game it would have been a clearing between two woods as we maximised the terrain for our own armies.  An issue with the terrain rules I think...

Once again I was the Saxon King Tossa, son of Vank, this time leading a land raider foot army; My Foot Companion Warriors, two groups of nobles, lead by my henchmen Jarl Skvirt, the King's Hand and young Tugga, Son of Tossa, Prince of the Vanking Saxons.  These were supported by three groups of  ordinary Warriors.  The army is heavy on nobles since land raiders would maximise their best warriors.  The Saxons of Tossa, Tugga and Skvirt are a formidable force.

 The McWhitmore, Thane of Pelton, Lord of the Hairy Picts (but not the smooth ones) also took land raiders.

Due to a slight oversight on the part of the McWhitmore he had deployed four units of nobles plus his Companions and two units of archers (I was much impressed by his use of these but more of this later...)  That was exactly one group of nobles too many...

Of course the truth is that the Pictish King was struggling to order me an XXXL Durham Wargames polo shirt, and that is a lot of X rated shirt.  He was probably concerned that I would never fit into such a shirt and more correctly a specialist order to a purple tentage company would be needed.

 Tribunus Richus had deployed opposite my over aggressive Saxons. That meant I had 10 points of Noble cavalry on my flank.  
I sent out one of my Nobles with a Warriors to attack with maximum aggression.  It was about all I had.  It almost worked too...

In the centre the McWhitmore advanced his skirmishing archers.  
Quilpius Maximus had loaned his praying monks with their additional Leadership points to his Tribune.   That was going to cause me huge headaches, but it did mean that the archers stood a good chance of hammering that shield wall. 

The Picts went forward in echelon.  Their noble general still insisting on using cows to indicate leadership points.  The single unit of Roman Noble cavalry on that flank danced backwards in moves worthy of the Roman version of Strictly... 

I launched the Saxons against the hill top position of the Roman shield wall.  

As tactical choices go it was a pretty poor one, but manoeuvring Dark Age warbands onto a flank position in the face of aggressive Noble cavalry didn`'t seem like an option either.  

Meanwhile I had troubles.  The Noble cavalry on my flank got stuck into me, hitting flanks and taking down my cohesion.  
I had actually whittled one of these units down to one point, so whatever happened it would be close.  It was also the Roman Tribune himself, so I could possibly have taken all of his LPs if I had managed it, but alas, they gave me a proper mullering...

 The fight on the hill was equally bloody, and I suspect that my hard hitting Warriors may have actually won this but for the effect of the additional Leadership points provided by his praying Synod of Monks.  The Saxons attacked and were pushed back time and again, in a slogging match but I just couldn`t get any results.

In the meantime, back on my flank the Saxon War bands dancing with the Roman cavalry were finally killed, releasing that cavalry behind my lines. 

One of these units was of course almost finished after the battle with my nobles, but even so this wasn`'t going to end well.

 Down among the Picts things were going equally badly.  The brilliance of the archery in the centre could not cancel the uphill attack disadvantage.  

It was touch and go as to who would be killed first, the McWhitmore or me!

I lost over 50% (3) of my units but passed the bravery tests to keep fighting.  Finally however I was left with only my Saxon Warlord surrounded by his Vank-Guard.  The Saxons needed to lose 5 of their 6 units to go over the 75% rout level and I managed it!

The end of the game, and with Tossa surrounded and the Picts reeling it was a huge victory for the low trickery of the Romans. 

Actually it was a game I really enjoyed.  A proper fight to the end and Tossa went down like a Dark Age Wargames King should; struggling to stay upright on the slope of a stepped hill!

Tossa's end, surrounded by enemies.

In true Petain style I shall sacrifice a d6 to Vectron and plot my revenge!