Sunday 20 June 2010

Dark Age Skirmish - Norse Raid

We kicked off our Dark Age Skirmish project last night. We're using Mordheim rules with custom warbands and scenarios (written by me with some assistance from the lads). The buildings are scratch built, the longship is a plastic kit (and a somewhat a-historical one at that) and the miniatures are a mixture of manufacturers including Gripping Beast, Foundry and Black Tree Design.

The first scenario is a Norse Raid on an Anglo-Saxon settlement. A "warband" of villagers attempts to hold up two warbands of Norse Raiders until the local Anglo-Saxon noble can arrive with his Fyrd warband. You can download the scenario here if you're interested.




The Norse came ashore on turn one and two. The alarm raised by the local shepherd boy was a while coming, meaning the Fyrd would not arrive until turn five. Was he asleep at his post? The shepherd boy was also slow to run and was eventually shot in the back, then caught and killed halfway back to the village. He'll never make that mistake again!





The Norse advanced relentlessly on the village in two groups whilst the villagers hastily brought in their sheep and formed a defence of sorts. How long could they hold out against such a well armed and ruthless foe?


Strung out in a line across the open fields before the village the defenders faced off against the Norse. Poorly armed and trained they were slowly isolated and killed in twos and threes. The Norse suffered hardly any losses.


As the battle progressed the Anglo-Saxon Fyrd arrived and began to make a difference. The villagers were killed to a man but the Norse were now suffering casualties at a much faster rate. Norse attempts to abduct women and steal cattle were thwarted by the need to continually reinforce the melee against the Fyrd. Eventually both Jarls were killed, one Norse warband fled and the other withdrew in disarray having failed in their raid.

On reflection we may have to make the villagers slightly cheaper or slightly stronger. They were almost no threat to the Norse and unbalanced the game to an extent.

Cheers,
Millsy

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