Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Impetus: Vikings vs Sicily Normans

Kent came up with a little scenario. Half his force was defending a vilalge the rest were to race on as reserves. We rolled to see where the viking commands deployed and then went for it- the scenario needs a bit of fine tuning but made for an entertaining game.

I had 2x viking commands each similar in size:
1x Housecarl general
2x large veteran vikings
5x Vikings
2x skirmishers

Defending the village Kent had
5-6 mercenary spearmen
3-4 bows (T)

Reserves
3x Norman knights
5-6 spears
3-4 crossbows and bows.

As well as the village one end 0of the table had a river and that is where one of my commands ended up deploying and so slogged its way towards the village but didn't really do much.

I managed to lose both my generals and eventually have one command overrrun by rampaging knights to be crushed. In my last turn I failed to break the defenders of the village (1 unit away and the general managed to just stay alive- 1 hit left!) for a rather convincing win to Kent. Next time we'll make the reserves come onto the table in column and make the terrain a bit friendlier for moving infantry.






Kent's Gripping Beast Church

The slow advance across the river begins...


Kent's reserves arrive.


Vikings turn to meet the new threat- Norman reserves.






Fierce fighting takes place on the left flank.


But in the end the vikings are overrun and the flank collapses.




Meanwhile my other command is finally fighting its way clear of the river.


The Norman general defending the village (banner jsut above the hut) puts up a heroic defence (and survives!)


At last the vikings fight our way into the centre of the village not realising that with both generals dead and the left flank crushed it is all over.


Thoughts
A fun game and a wee bit of tweaking should make for an interesting scenario.

Napoleonic Basing
Kent bought along his painted figures and we decided we were both happy with the look of 6 figures on a 5cm square base so the issue is now resolved.

6 comments:

  1. Great batrep, it does look like a fun and interesting game. I like the look of Kent's Saxon church, he made a great job on that.

    ReplyDelete
  2. While it is sad to see the good guys get crushed, I really like that scenario element.

    I like my VIkings but find playing them in a stand up fight to be relatively boring - but raiding a village while fending off Norman Knights would change that!

    I think tested scenarios would be of real benifit to 28mm Impetvs. Hmm.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I aggree. The only criticism I can level at Impetus is the lack of well tested scenarios. While the "stand up fight" is what I guess the majority of Ancients battles were it does tend to get stale after awhile!

    Raids, Flank Marches and Sieges would be super cool to work out. Even a "meeting engagement" style battle would be a fun change.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I much prefer my Syrians to the Dark Ages armies- the concept was good we need to work on deployment zones etc

    We've a few more ideas for scenarios. We want to replicate the disciplined march of the third crusaders, and also we need last stand, ambush and a meeting engagement (where the vanguard engages and the main body reinforces)scenarios too. And that's just off the top of my head from the Cusades book I'm currently reading

    Time to start developing some ideas...

    Craig

    ReplyDelete
  5. Great report Craig. I like the scenario idea. Very nice photos too.

    ReplyDelete