Vikings Invade England and… NORMANDY!?

John was over again to play some more DBA. There was 100% less cheating than last time.

This time I wanted to try out Vikings vs Anglo-Saxons – to see how the flank support for spears works against the Vikings – which normally walk over them. I also wanted to try out the Normans again either against the Anglo-Saxons (with a little less cheating this time) or against Vikings to see if the ties = dead knights comes up often…

GAME ONE

FORCES

Middle Anglo-Saxon

1x Spear General

10x Spear

1x Psiloi

Vikings

1x Blade General

11x Blade

THE GAME

John took the Vikings, I took the Angl-Saxons.

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)

A pretty stretch of the English countryside with my Anglo-Saxons all lined up and ready to defend their home from the evil Viking invaders… with their new-found flank support rule they are so confident in their ability to do so they haven’t even set up on the hill…

The lines meet with a thunderous clamour of metal on metal and wood and flesh and the cries of dying men…

The first bounds outcome. Much shoving back and forth – no elements broken. John’s Vikings have started pushing back the left of my line towards the hill, determined to give me the uphill advantage.

One my follow-up bound I shove a few Vikings back to make a bit more of a mess.

But at the far right end of the English line we see the first significant losses – An element English Spear is lost!

The next bound more or less straightens out the line – John “closed the door” at the right of my line, but a desperate defense threw back the Viking attackers. AT the other end of the line the Vikings continued to push the spear up the hill to the point where next turn I’ll have a +1 up hill advantage… that’s when I figured it would all come apart for the Vikings…

Um… Okay… NEXT turn it’ll all come apart for the Vikings – we just wanted to retire a little further up that hill to ensure we were all well and truly on the hill and deserving of that uphill advantage factor…

Well it did not all come apart for the Vikings… despite my uphill advantage and flank support…. Not only did John not get pushed back down the hill – he doubled and DESTROYED me element of spear!? I can’t think of how… Oh I know, the other spear element went FIRST and was recoiled back up the hill losing me the flank support and gaining me a negative overlap factor +5 to my +3…

At the other end of the line things were not looking so good either – the Vikings had turned the flank of the English line and, despite a desperate defence the sturdy Saxons were eventually overcome.

I think John was determined to shove my spear OVER the hill to get an uphill advantage of his own… just to show off, or something… As it turned out he didn’t get the opportunity.

At the other end of the line an isolated element of spear was over run by the Vikings and that was the end of the game.

I like the flank support rule. When the Spear are in a nice solid line it lets them fight at even odds against blade… Once that line gets broken up a bit they become a bit more brittle – and if the Vikings can get elements of blade surrounded – by pushing into their line on either side of an element, losing them the flank support and giving them an overlap factor or two it’s suddenly +5 to +3 or +2 and that is how I lost most, in not all, of the elements I lost in the game.

GAME  TWO

FORCES

Vikings

1x Blade General

10x Blade

1x Bow

Normans

1x Knight General

7x Knights

2x Spear

2x Bow

THE GAME

John decided to stick with the Vikings, though I convinced him to swap out one Blade for the Bow option… I took the dreaded NORMANS… The Normans didn’t take kindly to this visit from their back-water, hillbilly, fjord-swelling cousins…

Not a piece of terrain on the Normans side… well… not a piece of bad-going…

It occurred to me that it could be possible for there to be a table with no bad-going at all… you are only required to select ONE piece of bad-going (I took the woods) and if it were diced for last and ended up in a quarter where there was already two pieces of terrain and couldn’t fit I would have to be discarded. Perhaps there needs to be a rule whereby bad-going must be diced for first! (maybe there is and I missed it!?)

All lined up and ready to rumble.

The bow did successfully break up my line on the approach and on this bound I rolled a one for PIPs… so I didn’t even get to send in my whole line…

Not that it mattered… One bound. Four dead. Including the General!?

Now I have to mention that all through the previous game with the English and the Vikings John and I were rolling a staggering number of ties – which I thought spelt certain DOOM for the Normans if that kept up – the whole point of this engagement was to check out the blade quick-kill of knights on ties… (should happen one in six times…?) I guess we got all the ties out of our dice in the previous game, because we didn’t roll a single tie anywhere along here…

Anyway. Fun games. I’d like to get in some more. I’d REALLY like to finish up some hoplites and try some spear on spear; +5 on +5 is going to be a huge shoving match… It’ll be all about the terrain and where that odd element of psiloi gets to…

Unfortunately production seems to be slowing around here as I’m trying to get to bed a bit earlier these days so I can get up and start going for early morning bike rides now that the suns coming up earlier and the weather’s getting nicer… well… maybe not THIS WEEK – it’s been pissing rain the last couple days… but soon enough..