Disaster in Bernicia

As part of our ongoing Dark ages Campaign I fought the last battle of the year (autumn) against the invading Scots and Icelandic troops The sneaky Icelanders sent two armies against me- one joining with the Scots, the other moving through Norfolk’s territory of York unopposed and capturing it on their away to battle.

So massively outnumbered the army of Kent decided to stand and fight (10 elements vs 22!). Our only hope to attack and maim a couple of armies before we were overwhelmed so we aggressively attacked the Scots and smaller Icelandic army. There were a lot of them but they were fragile and a couple of quick kills could swing things in our favour!

The plan went well until about the 4^th turn when I managed to turn the Icelandic line but was driven off (5-6) rather than destroy the offending spear which having turned to face would have been destroyed on a recoil result- and thus exposing the entire line to being outflanked and rolled up!. This gamble meant I had been unable to deploy a Cav stand that was still behind my general (1 pip too short) and the Scottish Cav swooped in for the kill and closed the door on my general who promptly died and my army imploded. We continued a fighting retreat (well technically a rout as we fled as fast as we could) but the Scottish cav ran amok killing another two stands of veteran Cav (+1 in combat- but everything was no fighting at a -2!) and an element of spear. Our retreat did take us into the newly won territory of York which we reclaimed for ourselves!

A very cunning plan by the Icelandic and Scottish side. We have winter to lick our wounds and rebuild our shattered army.

There is one more battle to be fought this round- in Cheshire, with our Welsh/Wessex allies ready to win some glory for the Southern Alliance!

DBA- Games at last

I managed 3 games of DBA at the club tonight- 3 wins!

All games were played Norse-Irish vs Pre-Feudal Scots.

Game 1: Pre-Feudal Scots (me) vs Norse-Irish (Stephen) 4-3
Game 2: Norse-Irish (me) vs Pre-Feudal Scots (Stephen) 4-2
Game 3: Norse-Irish (me) vs Pre-Feudal Scots (Lewis) 4-1

It was also the start of our DBA ladder with 9-10 players registered. I have started ranked 6th. Onwards and upwards I say. Game 3 I beat the top ranked player (Young Lewis) who's dice usually hate me and run hot, but not tonight!

Game1 :


Irish on the left, Scots on the right. For some reason Stephen deployed his general in the middle of the woods and spent most of the game rolling 1s for pip dice!


Scottish spear advance towards the woods and then spent the rest of the game glaring at the Auxilia in the woods- the Scottish warband and Psiloi tangled with the Norse-Irish blades and psiloi at the top of the picture.

The carnage in the marshes- got to the point where the next element lost lost the game. Somehow I managed to lose all 3 warband vs the blades!

The confused fighting continues.

And yes, that is the Scottish general retreating (fleeing!)


A few turns later there wasn't much left!

Game 3: Vs Lewis

The lines advance.

The most amusing first contact I've seen in a long time. There were four combats and all resulted in a dead element! It all started when a Norse-Irish blade got taken out by a warband (6-8- I rolled 1, he rolled 5) and then 3 Spears which had charged into the woods vs the auxilia all got doubled and destroyed (down to 2s, then 1s), from there it was a matter of mopping up the survivors!

Well, okay it wasn't that easy. The warband kept driving my auxilia back and the surrounded warband in the centre stayed in combat- but luckily fell the next turn.
\

Thoughts
I really, really liked the way the Norse-Irish play. Before hand I had written them off as an amusing force but not one that was likely to be competitive, but was proved wrong. Definitely an army that needs terrain to help out but fun to play!

Craig

Disaster in Cumbria

There are reports coming in that the combined Wessex/Welsh army has come to grief in Cheshire in last week's battle against the Scots. Apparently Wessex lost 7 elements and the Welsh another three or so. So it looks like the Southern Alliance will need to go on the defensive as it recovers from this crushing- and totally unexpected- defeat.

DBA Dark Ages Campaign

For the past year Stephen has been running a DBA campaign at TAG- we started out with about 7 players and currently are in the third campaign year.

The Southern Kingdoms- Wessex, Kent, Anglia and Wales have signed a non-aggression pact and are currently campaigning against the Scots and miscellaneous Northerners. Most of the action has been taking place around Bernicia (the kingdom of which was totally crushed by the Southerners), the Pennines (recently captured by Anglia) and Cumbria. We are in the summer turn of the third year and Wales and Wessex are due to fight against Douglas and Skye for posession of this territory. My victorious armies have invaded Bernicia but it has been ransacked by the departing Scots.