Dark Ages

Too Dark

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Dorset County Museum children’s art project – Prisma Filter, The Scream

It was 2000 and something and Too Fat Lardies had broken onto the miniature wargaming scene. They brought with them a simpler approach to the rule mechanics, focusing on degrading morale and leadership qualities, along with a passion for the history before the game.

One of the first sets our group settled on was Dux Britanniarum, a dark ages rule set with an abstracted campaign system. Perfect for our group! But like many things we quickly become distracted by the next shinny thing on the horizon, rinse and repeat.

I’ve been waiting to go back to Dux Britanniarum, perhaps someday I will. Fortunately in those heady days of collecting and painting a new scale I also prepared a quick reference sheet, available here.

Too Fat Lardies’ rulebooks tend to read a bit like historical essays. They meander a bit from subject to subject, key points buried in abstracted sections. Far different from the technical manual approach that I associate with the US tradition.

This quick reference should be helpful when finally returning to Dux Britanniarum.

To the Strongest

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Athens wrestlers – Prizma Gothic filter

My wargaming continues on the virtual tabletop – most recently & successfully with Table Top Simulator playing in the To The Strongest 1066 tournament.

Snapshot of completed TTS on TTS

For those not familiar with To the Strongest – it is a British rule set published in 2015 – covering ancient through medieval wargaming. This game is a played on a grid, uses playing cards instead of dice, and very well suited to Table Top Simulator.

I’ve played a bit of To the Strongest on the physical tabletop, struggled with some of the basic concepts, and wrestled with army lists that assume some basic knowledge of the rules. All difficult points when learning a game. Settling into the 1066 tournament with group of seasoned players was a challenge. Falling back on my go to strategy of creating reference materials I refined the quick reference sheet for clarity & made reference materials out of the army lists themselves.

A Clark TTS QRS & 1066 Army Lists, hope they provide you with a way to explore To the Strongest as well.

  • Revised QRS, adds: mono pallet, addtn’l detail for both easy & difficult activations, simplified terms, generals’ wounds, march rules, evade test,
  • Revised army list, adds: simplified color pallet, reduce number of columns, core rules to each unit

Post script – there are now 3 exceptional TTS modules covering 1066, War of the Roses, & 2nd Punic War.

Post post script – when I first experimented w/ To the Strongest I created to counters to replace cards, they are also available for download.

4 colors available

Update – September 14

Have pulled together an introduction to virtual wargaming with To the Strongest using Tabletop Simulator: TTS on TTS. Hope it will inspire some to try miniature wargaming in a virtual space.

Update – March 21

Recently I recorded an actual play session. This might be a good way to learn how to play or at least gain an understanding of the game mechanics

Update January 29

Have updated my QRS, cleaning up the evade section and the “advance & throw” along with “fire & retire” being restricted to Light Units.