Stripped Down for Parts: Shakos two-fer, Part I – Rex Britannorum

  

 

French publisher Shakos came onto the wargaming scene eight years ago with Napoléon 1806 (Shakos 2017 – for what it’s worth, I’ve written several AARs and a review here on A Fast Game). The company has a reputation for publishing interesting games with novel mechanics, or with familiar mechanics with a different spin. Every title they produce is at least worth a look I haven’t hunted down every last title the company has produced; I’m still on the fence regarding Border States (Shakos, 2022), but I own all three of the Conquerors series released thus far (word on the street is Napoléon 1870 (FB link) should be going to crowdfunding later this year). Shakos sets a high benchmark for production quality and playability.

I stumbled over Shakos’ Gamefound campaign for Rex Britainnorum (Shakos, 2025) while looking for Carl Paradis’ Battle Commander, Vol. I (Sound of Drums, ~2025), which I anticipate seeing before the year is out. I wasn’t initially sold, but the more I read about it, the more intrigued I was. I’ll confess that a significant selling point for participating in the campaign was the chance to nab a copy of Breizh 1341 (Shakos, 2022), which has been out of print until now.

Rex Britannorum is a one- to three-player game of intrigue and one-upmanship between tribes under Roman rule in Britannia, designed by Stephane Brachet, who was also responsible for Border States, so I may have to have another look at that. I’m not going to get into the “Is it a wargame?” debate here; I’m merely going to present the rather lush components for your edification. Breizh 1341 will get its own unboxing post in a week or so.

The box cover illustration sets he scene; a Roman officer seems to be adjudicating over a land dispute between the tribal leaders of the Iceni, the Reganies, and the Brigantes, the three playable tribes represented in the game. This encapsulates the themes of Rex Britannorum quite well; the key to victory is area control, a theme we’ll come back to when we look at the map.

Personally, I don’t dislike the box art; I just feel like more could have been done with it. But the target audience for Rex Britannorum isn’t just cranky old grognards. It’s bright and striking, and should pop on game-store shelves, and I think it deserves a broad audience (and corresponding sales).

The box back offers a paragraph on the historical context of the game, and two more briefly describing the game play. One of the things that sold me on trying Rex Britannorum was that it can be played with two or three players, or solo. I didn’t want to add another game to my small collection of three player-only games. Another factor was the game running-time of 60-90 minutes, which makes it playable on a school night. 

The rulebook is printed on a nice weight, low-gloss paper and runs to 28 pages. Of those 28 pages, the first five are taken up by the cover, introduction and component roster, and the two-page set-up guide. The three-player rules run to fourteen pages, with the remaining pages covering the two-player and solo variations, historical notes, and a handy rules summary on the back cover. The rulebook is well illustrated throughout, and very easy to read and comprehend.

The game board, showing Britannia (England, South Wales, and Cornwall),
the extent of Roman rule. As always, apologies for the lighting. These photos
don't do the components justice.

Rex Britannorum comes with a with a 50cm x 50cm (roughly 20” square) mounted map-board representing Britannia (modern England, Wales and Cornwall), the overall region subdued by the Romans by around 40 AD. This area is divided into three playable areas; the North (red), Centre (blue), and South (Green), the colours corresponding to the three faction colours of the players. Each area is subsequently divided into regions with their own cities, and one is designated the fief (that player’s seat of rule). The cities (defined by castle shapes) are connected by roads (strings of circles linked by connecting lines) within their areas and across borders. Scoring in the game is measured by control of Regions, Cities, and Roads, control meaning numerical supremacy within an area (cities).

The board is really quite nice. Normally I’d balk at the big blocks of rich colours splashed across the map of England, stark wash-blue and winter-white background, but here it works.

The Scoring boards. The Location Control cubes do double duty keeping track of the
Stakes scoring. The Stakes progress for each player are determined at the end of each
turn, then marked up on the score track on the board. On the reverse side of the
score boards are the Bot instructions for each Non-Player Kingdom (NPK) for the
solo and two-player games. They operate in a similar manner, but
each one's priorities are a little different.

The rich, saturated colours carry over into the other components. There are three scoring boards, one for each player. These are colour-coded to the areas on the map. These are the same for all three players and facilitate the scoring process. On the reverse side of the boards are AI directives for playing solo or two-player against bot faction(s).

The Card Holders. The pockets open to the left to allow Troop cards with special powers
to show their graphic reminders unhindered. Both the Scoring Boards and the Card
Holders are produced from the same heavy board-stock as the Unit Tracking boards
in the Conquerors series games.

The Cards Holders are used for concealment and simultaneous revealing of the forces each player has committed for battle in a particular round. They each have three little pouches on the reverse side, each designed to hold a Force card and an Allocation card.

Faction marker: Oppidum markers (top row) for indicating City control; cubes for Road
location control and tracking success on your score card, and circular tokens for
tracking Players' progress on the three-pronged Score ladder on the board.

The playing pieces are all wooden stock. These are small marker cubes, city markers (shaped like turreted keeps) in red, green and blue – these are used to indicate faction control over individual locations – and plain wooden discs printed with the area colour and location details and the Roman occupiers (a gold Aquila on a black background) on the back.

Sample Location tokens. These are drawn at the beginning of each turn and placed
on their corresponding map locations. These locations will be winnable during that
turn. Any that are not won by any player will be flipped to their other side
(The Roman Eagle, top-left) and remain in possession of the Romans.
The yellow piece (top-right) is the Turn marker - the game plays out
over seven turns. Crown or palisade? I'm not sure.

In a given turn, seven of these are drawn out of the velvet bag (also included in the game), and placed on the board in the positions corresponding to the cities and road positions on the map. These are the locations that can be contested over and won over the course of the turn. If a location isn’t secured by any player, the marker is turned over and it that location falls under the control of the Romans.

The game comes with two decks of cards; one of them is very small (in dimensions and number), and I’ll come back to those. First, we’ll talk about the regular-sized cards.

Sample Troop cards, with the Roman Mercenary cards (bottom row). There are
fourteen cards in each faction deck and six Mercenary cards The latter
are are shuffled and placed face-up in a holding space on
the board at the beginning of the game.

Each faction has a deck of fourteen Troop cards, each deck bordered in the faction’s colour. These are the players’ currency for battling for control of the locations on the board. They run from 1 to 7 in value, but the four lowest-value cards each have their own special abilities, some of which are neutralised by an opponent playing the same card. There is also a six-card deck of black-bordered Mercenary (Roman) cards. I’ll get more into how these all work when I write up an AAR for the game. The cards are beautifully illustrated, and will help to immerse players in the game’s historical theme.

These mini-cards are tucked into the holding pouch along with a Troop card to
indicate the Area in which the Troop card has been allocated (the top half will
be visible and is both initial and colour-coded).

When the targets for the rounds are allocated, each player selects which area they want to fight in and which units they want to use from their hand to battle in that theatre. Each player will select two cards to place in their battle board from their hand of three cards or from their three-card Reserve on display in front of them and allocate each card for a theatre (North Central or South). That’s where the smaller deck comes in.

Sample Objective cards.

There are also three sets of Objective cards, one for each faction. The are comprised of two cards each for Areas, Cities, and Roads. At the beginning of the game, each player selects one of each of type as their supplementary goals for their game, discarding the other without revealing them to their opponents. These are a significant part of the game, contributing more nuance and some unknown factors, but the rules recommend leaving them out for the first game or two, until you’ve got the hang of the basics, or if you’re playing with younger players.

A very thoughtful storage model.

Now you need to understand that, because this is a Shakos game, all the non-flat components and the sets of cards all fit nicely into a moulded plastic insert which is itself a picture of efficiency. The Conquerors series boxes are the same, and this isn’t some thin transport-weight blister plastic to stop the contents from bruising each other during shipping, but a nice  frame that also appears to be recyclable (at least I think this is suggested by to the EU-mandated infographic in the bottom corner, but my high school French is a little rusty).

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So, that’s Rex Britannorum in a nutshell. Sometimes it’s impossible to show the contents without delving a little into how it all fits together. There are instructions for two-player and solitaire play, but I think this is one of those games that will shine brightest with two other participants. And unlike some three-player games, this one feels like there won’t be a lot of incentive for two payers to gang up on the third; it’s not a knock-out game, which is a big plus in our household.