Norman Conquest

Another Friday night games session came and went last week.

Just a short session for me as I had an early start on Saturday morning (you'll have to wait until my next post to find out why...).

Saga was the chosen game for the night, so I'd have time for one quick game.

Since my Saga forces are unpainted, I borrowed Nick's Normans for a 6pt game vs Paul. Paul would be fielding Anglo-Saxons.

My force consisted off:

Warlord
6 Mounted Hearthguard
6 Mounted Hearthguard
8 Warriors
8 Warriors (crossbow)
12 Levy (bow)

I think Paul had...

Warlord
8 Mounted Hearthguard
10 Warriors
10 Warriors
4 Warriors

To keep things simple (its been a little while...), we played Kill the Warlord.

Set-up began. Paul's Saxons...

The Normans...

We tied with the roll to see who would go first, but since I had been lazy all week, I was unshaven.

Therefore, I had the most facial hair winning the tiebreak :-)

With only 6 turns, we'd have to get to grips with each other quickly if there was any chance to kill a Warlord.

It was time for my hearthguard to advance.

I'd also spotted a couple of interesting abilities on my battleboard. After a volley from the Levy bows, my hearthguard galloped towards, and then charged into combat with a unit of the Saxon warriors.

The result was quite a few dead warriors. Sometimes withdrawing is ones next best move, so I activated the hearthguard unit again to move them back. But... Paul pulled out a dirty trick of using the fatigue on the unit to half their movement. Nicely timed.

And the inevitable result...

Destruction at the hands of the Saxon hearthguard. The Saxons promptly moved up next turn to deal with my crossbow armed warriors as they had moved up to try and pepper the mounted unit with bolts.

Luckily one of the hearthguard was killed by a crossbow bolt, as that ended some of the Saxon key abilities (requires a certain sized unit). Two crossbowmen survived the ensuing melee somehow!?

With the Saxons sitting there in from of them, my warriors just had to charge. After some epic saving on my part, my warriors mostly survived whilst the remainder of the Saxon hearthguard were destroyed.

This allowed my remaining unit of hearthguard to gallop forward and deal a blow to a second unit of Saxon warriors. In the final turn they were able to charge the Saxon warlord... who was cowardly hiding in the forest! Come out and fight we yelled! :-)

Unfortunately not much was done my either my hearthguard or the Saxon warlord. So ended the game.

All good fun, and after counting the number of casualties caused... the Normans were victorious! Not bad for a first outing with an unfamiliar battle board.

Now... we did actually think at this point that Paul had gone first, but you'll remember my comment from earlier on about not shaving. I think we either went 1 extra turn (so I was starting my 7th turn or Paul missed his 6th turn). We probably should have used a turn counter....

Overall, I don't think it would have changed the result. There weren't many Saxons left.

I don't think there is too much I would do differently other than I don't think I needed to hide the crossbowmen in the woods. They would have been better off in the open. That would have allowed me to deploy my hearthguard behind them and better utilise their gallop ability.

Still all good fun.

Finally, just a couple of quick shots of the other games in action.... Vikings, Strathclyde, Skraeling and Byzantine:

Thanks for reading.