Dark Ages - week 2

This week's scenario was "The Stampede" - the defender starts with some troops encamped in the middle of the table whilst the attacker's army features a unit of stampeding animals being herded towards the camp. 

Game 1 - Norse (def) vs Welsh (att)

The Welsh army has lots of fast moving skirmish units so can muster a fair bit of shooting but is not very durable in combat. So a good contrast with the rock-hard Norse. The Norse put their archers and leaders unit in the camp.  

Norse camp

The Welsh moved forward quickly and once in shooting range open-up a barrage of missile fire while the sheep attacked the camp and gnawed at the defenders. 

Norse approach the camp

The Norse proved unable to come to grips with the elusive Welsh and with casualties mounting they could nt land the killer blow they wanted too.    

At the end of the game the Welsh ran out 12-8 winners. 

Norse chasing shadows

Game 2 - Anglo-Norman (att) vs Flemish (def)

The Flemish placed their heavy infantry in the camp and looked to move their crossbows into a supporting position. The Anglo-Normans attacked straight up the middle but their elite cavalry were slow to get going.     

Flemish camp

This tardy start allowed the Flemish to pull back their encamped units and form a strong defensive position that the Normans could not break.  

The Flemish managed to win this one.

Tally ho

Game 3 - Irish (def) vs Franks (att)

The Irish began with their Gallowglass in the camp but these quickly withdrew into rough terrain as the Franks failed to move for the first 2 turns. 

This tardy start left the Franks having to pursue the Irish into rough terrain where they were isolated and ambushed. Irish win. 

Irish lying in wait

 Campaign situation

The diagram below shows the current position with each armies cumulative total and the number/size of one-off  the "boosts" available from winning games.

Dark Ages - week 1

This week's scenario was "The Fugitive" in which the defenders must find an escaped prisoner who is hiding in one of six rough areas and escape. The first area searched needs a 6, the second a 5+ and so on. An attackers win is worth 3 valour and defenders 5 valour. 

Games 1 and 3 - Irish vs Anglo-Norman

I've listed this as two games as we managed to play through the game twice, swapping roles for the second game. Both had a similar result with the defender finding the prisoner in a wood closer to their base edge and managing to escape for a 5 point win.   

Irish Warriors escort the prisoner

In the first battle the Anglo-Norman attackers were slow moving so the Irish were never really under pressure.  

In the second the attacking Irish moved rapidly and came close to at least engaging the fleeing prisoner. In both game the Irish Warriors proved effective in attacking the Norman infantry.   

 

Irish and Anglo-Normans clash

Game 2 - Norse vs Frankish / Saxons

The Norse were the defenders in this much longer game. Initially they did well with their archers and hurt the Frankish cavalry, but failed to find the prisoner. 

Frankish horse

The Norse only found the prisoner in the very last zone searched and so close to the attackers baseline. Once found the attackers (mostly Saxons) quickly converged to attack the berserkers guarding the prisoner.    

Saxons lie in wait

Crucially the berserkers became "battered" (low morale) and started fleeing towards the base-edge and a possible escape. When only 1 move from safely their morale failed completely and they routed, handing the win to the defending Franks/Saxons right at the death.      

The decisive moment the berserkers rout

So after week 1 the scores are:

• Stu and Chris - 5 valour
• Roy and Mike - 3 valour 

Cotswold Wargames Day 2024

This year saw a change of venue to Big Battles in Cirencester.  As a purpose built wargames venue it meant we didn't have to struggle with tables this year and we were made welcome by genial hosts Derek and Andy who spent the day mingling with the players.

We staged a large French Wars of Religion game, starting with the battle of Dreux in 28mm.

There was a large Lion Rampant game based on the Crusades.  

 

A Dead Man's Hand wild west game, which also one an award for best looking game.   

Two WWII games, one a late-war 1/300th  and an early war Startline game in 15mm.

The Stuart Asquith trophy winner was a Franco-Prussian game in 28mm featuring some hand-cast figures in the toy soldier style.  

There was 10mm Napoleonic's

28mm French vs Ottomans from the 18th century

And finally, we ran a second game in the afternoon depicting the battle of  Vergt.  

The Dark Ages

For our next campaign we're going back to the Dark Ages for some mass skirmish action using Dragon Rampant Version 2. We've played a few of the rule sets using the same system, most recently doing some ACW and Sudan games. 

Between us we can field quite a selection of British / North European armies so we should have some interesting show-downs. 

This week we used Anglo-Normans vs Saxons for a practice game at 32 points with 3 players a-side. The target though is 3 * 24 point games running at once. 

   

September roundup

I've not blogged for a few weeks as I've been busy playing more games than usual. So a quick round-up of the last few weeks.

A visit over to Fishponds saw me playing the Humans in a battle with Twilight Kin (evil elves) and Abyssal Dwarves (evil dwarves) using Kings of War. It was a tough day for the humans who killed some dwarves but struggled with the elves.   

I've also been working on some home-brew fast play rules for the French Wars of Religion. We plan to use them in a seriously big game at the Cotswold Wargames day on the 20th Oct.  

Continuing the testing theme I played Keith Flint at a test game of his new WWII rules, Startline. It was his first game using the US and Normandy. No major kinks so I look forward to seeing them in print.     

Finally some Great North War - in this case a battle from 1702 between Sweden and a Polish / Saxon army, giving a chance to field some colourful units.