The Battle of Olivento, 1041

 For the last game in our current Lion Rampant dark ages series we fought Olivento, 1041. The switching of sides from Roman to Rebel Normans of a Lombard compelled the Romans send a force to crush the rebels alliance.  William Iron Arm commanded the Normans with Harald Hardrada, future king of Norway, leading the Varangian Guards.

Romans - CinC = Blessed

• Left = 2 x heavy Cav, 2 x heavy spears, 1 x light spears, 1 x bows
• Centre = 2 x light cav (bow), 3 x heavy cav, 3 x heavy spear (Vet), 1 x Elite foot
• Right = 2 x heavy Cav, 2 x heavy spears, 1 x light spears, 2 x skirmisher

Normans - CinC = Strongarm

• Left = 3 x heavy spear, 1 x crossbow, 1 x elite foot
• Centre = 5 x elite Cav, 1 x light Cav (jav)
• Right = 2 x heavy spear, 1 x bow, 1 x elite foot

The only special rule was that the Normans had to remain on the defensive for 3 turns, after which they could attack. This was to reflect the Normans approach to the real battle. The stream was purely for visuals with the marshes counting as flat difficult terrain.

The game began with the Romans advancing across the line and pushing their horse archers forward to harass the knights. The activation dice proved fickle and the Romans did only limited damage, whilst their skirmishers were roughly handled by the crossbowmen in the east of the field.

Roman horse attack the knights

Roman left attacks the Norman right

The Normans retried to avoid combat on the flanks as they were out numbered and focused on a central attack with the knights. This crashed through the Roman heavy cavalry and bit deeply into the Varangians forming the third wave of the attack.  

Norman knights counter attack 

In the west the Romans managed to vanquish the Norman and begin to move troops to the centre to support the Varangian Guard. In the east the Romans got drawn away from the centre and suffered loses to the Norman spearmen.

After about 2.5 hours play the game ended with the Romans having lost about 2/3 of their point and with only the left flank (west side) having broken the Normans. So a Norman win.     

Another fun game and the rules held up well with about 75 points a side. The game ran close to history with the Normans largely resisting the Roman attack before before their knights punched a hole in the centre.  

  

The Battle of Dyrrhachium (1081) - a scenario for Lion Rampant.

To close-out the Dark Ages gaming we've done a large game (90 points a side) of Romans vs Normans. In 1081 the Normans under Robert Guiscard invaded part of what is now Albania and took the city of Dyrrhachium. Empower Alexiou I lead a force including the Varangian Guard to recapture the town, resulting in the battle. Interestingly the Varangians contained many English refugees from Hastings. 

To simulate the impetuous nature of quite a few units we adopted the following scenario rules:

• All Norman cavalry (Heavy and Elite) counted as having Wild Charge in effect, regardless of the range, until they had fought a melee. The same applied to the Varangians
• The Normans must deploy a single unit of Knights in their centre to represent Guiscard's feint
• When one side had lost half its points they would need to  

Romans

• CinC: Alexiou I (Impulsive) + body guard of 1 * Heavy Cav (Bloodthirsty)
• Left: 5 x Heavy Cav, 1 x Lt Cav, 2 x Lt Spear
• Centre: 3 x Heavy Spear, 3 x Lt Spear (Jav), 2 x Skirmish
• Right: 1 x Archer, 2 x Elite Infantry, 2 x Heavy Spear (Veteran)  

Normans

• CinC: Robert Guiscard (Aggressive)
• Left: 3 x Heavy Cav, 1 x Elite Cav, 1 x Crossbow, 1 x Heavy Spear
• Centre: 4 x Heavy Spear, 2 x Elite Inf, 1 x Crossbow, 2 x Skirmisher, 1 x Elite Cav
• Right: 4 x Elite Cav, 2 x Lt Cav (Jav)

The field from the Roman left

Norman knights on their right

Roman centre

Norman left

As the scenario dictated there was a general advance by the Normans. The Romans hung back on the left and centrally while the Varangian Guard surged forward.   

The Romans had the better of the skirmishing in the centre, pushing the Romans back and causing damage on the main line. Meanwhile the Romans cavalry launched a series of multi-unit attacks on the Norman Knights, weakening them and nullifying that attack.   

The Varangians attacked the Norman cavalry opposite them with heavy losses on both sides. This was strategically in the Normans favour as it blunted the Romans main attacking force.   

Varangians engage the Normans

Centrally the Normans had the stronger infantry with Elite and Heavies facing off against Heavy and Light. The greater weight enabled them to bludgeon through, with crossbow support, and out damage the lighter Romans.         

Varangians slug it out

The Romans were the first to hit 50% points loss and the dice gods saw the centre lose several key units in the resulting courage tests. So we called it a Roman win.    

The Roman centre yields

The game worked well despite its size, with three players a side completing it within 2.5 hours. The result was fairly close to history with the collapse of the Roman centre the decisive point. The Roman flanks did a little less well than history but did hold Norman advances.   

Dark Ages - Defending the Indefensible

With the dark ages campaign now over we are doing a few one-off games until we start the planned 1815'ish Napoleonic's. This weeks scenario was one where the Romans and Anglo-Normans had to capture and hold a road junction and a hill. It was progressive scoring with 1 point for each per turn. You could win by scoring 10 points or routing the enemy. 

Roman horse

Anglo-Norman Knights

The Romans were the faster force and managed to grab the objectives but the Anglo-Normans moved quickly to threaten them. Disaster struck through successive double-1's for the ANs mean the CinC died and then his bodyguard routed, trying to retake the road junction.    

The AN's fought on but were unable to claw-back the Roman's lead. Roman win 

We also finished-off the game of Britannia we had started over the holiday break. The Angles had an good few turns for the blue faction and the expected Saxon attack for red never really came off as they got hung-up on the Romano-British. We got to turn 11 but had to stop at that point with blue leading. It was decided they would win as they had nt yet had their major invasion (Normans) and this would score heavily for them.   

The board after 11 turns

 

Sand and snow - New Years round up

With a couple of weeks off this Christmas, and limited distractions,  I've managed to get some gaming and painting done since the festivities.

WWII Desert (the sand)

I popped over to Fishponds for a go at V for Victory from Tomahawk studios, a WWII platoon-scale game. We played DAK vs Indians. All their games tend to have a few innovative features and V for Victory is the same. 

Unit activation is done alternatively using cards, seven in your hand at the start of a turn.  Each has a different balance of move, shoot and special / rally so you need to plan carefully at the start of the move what you want to do but leave some flexibility to respond to the enemy. 

Indians advance

It also distinguishes between suppressing fire and shoot-to-kill. The former is easier and can pin-down or eventually rout units, but not maybe as quickly as the harder fire for effect.   

DAK exchange fire with the Indians

The Indians won 2-1 on objectives held, helped by the German MMG in centre table disappearing from a  single round of Indian MMG shooting.  

Rule Britannia

I don't generally play many board games but was tempted to have a go at Britannia, which simulates the events from the Roman invasion up to the Norman invasion. Players each play a colour, with each faction controlling several tribes through the game.  

Combat is very simple but the victory conditions are complex so you need to think hard about where to attack/defend and how to use your leaders. Rome (purple) starts very strong and can quickly conquer most of the map before then facing waves of invasions that nibble away at their control.  

Turn 1 - the Roman invasion gets going

We're 5 turns (from 16) in at at the point the Romans are about to withdraw and the Saxons (red) / Angles (blue) are invading. Rome is a long way ahead on the victory tracker but with few armies and forts left to hand over to the Romano-British, so must hang on as best they can.  As the blue faction my time will come when the Normans (blue) invade towards the end of the game. 

Turn 5 - Rome is spent and the Saxons / Angles are poised 

 

Great North Wars (the snow)

Finally I've got some painting done and have been focusing on my GNW Russians. I've managed to complete some Line Infantry, a Grenadier battalion and Light Gun. The first of the cavalry are glued to together and more stuff is on order to round out the army. Its likely to take the rest of the year to complete the pile of figures I've amassed for this.  

Great North War Russian Grenadiers

Great North War Russian light gun

Great North War Russian line infantry