About a week ago we played a Viking vs. Norman skirmish game using the Skjaldborg rules. We've been trying out a number of skirmishing rules for the period, and this was our first attempt with Skjaldborg. There were two players, myself using my Norman force and the other guy using his Vikings. The scenario was a Viking raid.
I've laid out the rest of this post into two sections. The first is a narrative of the fight for those that are interested, while the second is a look at the rules and technically how the game went.
Narrative
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The morning was cold. Just like the day before, and the day before that. Just like all of the days this time of year this close to the North Sea. The wind came in off the water and strange though it seemed, for the life of him, Camille d' Rouen couldn't remember the last time he had seen the sun.
About thirteen days ago, Camille's lord's lands had first been raided by the Norsemen. They had come in shortly after mid-day, or so he had heard, and attacked a small fishing village, slaughtering it's men and rampaging till the left just before evening back to the sea. Two days later there was a similar attack, and then a week ago the Norsemen raided right up to the walls of Avranches. Now they had to be dealt with.
It was decided that the Normans would split into 4 forces, each marching towards the sea north of Avranches to cover the avenues of approach the Vikings may taken next. Camille commanded the southernmost force, taking with him 4 knights, 8 spearmen and 5 archers. Word had been that the raiders didn't number more than 10, and with his 4 heavy cavalrymen, Camille wasn't too worried.
Still, day after day had passed. The journey had been miserable due to the cold and near constant rain, made even worse by the bickering mood his knights were in. Finally the Normans had come upon their assignment, a small settlement to unimportant to have a name. Their welcome was a little underwhelming, the townsfolk had seemed to abandon their miserable huts to the Norsemen, though they left behind some livestock what Camille thought was a somewhat futile attempt to placate their attackers.
It had been early this morning when, just to relieve himself of their complaining, Camille had sent off the knights to patrol the dirt road to the coast. "You should never have allowed yourself to make that decision, especially with such a stupid reason." Camille thought.
The Vikings were coming. One of the archers on the hill west of town had spotted them. They appeared to be coming in two groups, a large band to the north and a smaller band to the south. The Norman had dispatched his archers as lookouts, and now frantically tried regrouping his spearmen before the onslaught arrived.
No sooner had Camille returned to the center of the town with his second, a cry arose from the archer watching the south road. More Vikings were coming from that direction. Quickly Camille split his foot soldiers into two groups, throwing one at the northern most raiders and one at the southern most, for the time being trusting in the rougher ground to the west to slow the third party.
The first Norsemen to arrive hit the Normans from the south. The few foot soldiers positioned there precariously held, but were heavily outnumbered and after a valiant stand, cut down. The archers proved worthless, panicking on the very sight of the Vikings and fleeing into one of the larger building, apparently hoping not to be found.
Before the last Norman had fallen on the south side of town, the second band of Vikings came crashing into the north. Here is where Camille had determined to make his stand. Pulling with him his most trusted men available, he rushed forward and formed a hasty line between two buildings. Recognizing his importance due to his armor and commanding presence, the Vikings rushed the Frenchmen who engaged in an improvised duel with the Viking leader.
For a moment, things seemed to have turned in his favor. Not knowing the fate of the Normans to the south, the Normans on the north side fault ferociously against their Northmen opponents. Camille himself drove back the Viking leader, and after being encouraged by the sound of approaching horsemen, Camille steeled himself and dove at the pagan.
…
Camille wasn't sure what had happened. The Viking had been open to the attack. His balance had been poor and his sword had hung low at his side. Perhaps he had slipped, the ground here was covered in pebbles, each slick with the blood of the warriors who fought here. He knew though that he had missed entirely, and had felt the Northmen's blade driven into his chest just over the top of his hauberk. He was on his knees now, with death rapidly approaching. Only the arrival of his knights had delayed his end, and in his last moments he watched his knights pull up before the Vikings. One fell to a berserkers blade before the other road off, abandoning their lord's now dead body.
Game Review
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The forces we used for the game were:
Normans 326 Points
Norman Overall Commander 19 points
Foot 4
Mail armor 4
Shield 1
Helmet 1
Overall Commander 1
Elite 2
Stubborn 4
Solid 2
Norman Militia 19 + 128 = 147 Points
Leader - 19 8 Norman Foot 8 * 16 = 128
Foot 4 Foot 4
Mail Armor 4 Mail armor 4
Shield 1 Shield 1
Helmet 1 Helmet 1
Leader 1 Average 1
Elite 2 Stubborn 4
Stubborn 4 Nervous 1
Solid 2
Norman Archers- 19 + 35 = 54 Points
Leader 19 5 Standard Archer 5 * 7= 35
Foot 4 Foot 4
Mail armor 4 Helmet 1
Leader 1 Average 1
Master Shooter 1 Unreliable 0
Elite 2 Nervous 1
Stubborn 4
Solid 2
Norman Knights 22 + 4 = 106 Points
Leader 22 4 Knights 4 * 21 = 84
Cavalry 6 Cavalry 6
Mail Armor 4 Mail Armor 4
Shield 1 Shield 1
Helmet 1 Helmet 1
Leader 1 Elite 2
Elite 2 Stubborn 4
Stubborn 4 Impatient 3
Impatient 3
Vikings 332 Points
Viking Overall Commander 20 points
Foot 4
Mail armor 4
Shield 1
Helmet 1
Overall Commander 1
Elite 2
Stubborn 4
Impatient 3
Viking Warband- 20 + 84 + 144 = 248 Points
Leader - 20 6 Viking Berserkers 6 * 14 = 84
Foot 4 Foot 4
Mail Armor 4 Elite 2
Shield 1 Stubborn 4
Helmet 1 Aggressive 4
Leader 1
Elite 2
Stubborn 4
Impatient 3
9 Hirdman 9 * 16 = 144
Foot 4
Mail Armor 4
Shield 1
Helmet 1
Average 1
Normal 2
Impatient 3
Viking Archers 19 + 45 = 64
Leader 19 5 Standard Archer 5 * 9 = 45
Foot 4 Foot 4
Mail armor 4 Helmet 1
Leader 1 Average 1
Master Shooter 1 Unreliable 0
Elite 1 Impatient 3
Stubborn 4
Impatient 4
The victory conditions were:
Victory points
Norman VP's
Kill Ole 10
Each Dead Viking Leader 8
Each Dead Viking Berserker 5
Each Dead Viking Hirdman 3
Each Dead Viking Archer 1
Each living farm animal 1
Each intact building 5
Viking VP's
Kill Camille 10
Each Dead Norman Leader 8
Each Dead Norman Knight 5
Each Dead Norman Milite 3
Each Dead Norman Archer 1
Each dead farm animal 1
Each burning building 5
Review:
1) I deployed poorly. I didn't know where the Vikings would approach from, so I deployed my archers as pickets circling the town, each archer position at a high point or with a clear view. The problem was that this took all my archers outside of the range of influence of their leader, and almost immediately, they all panicked upon seeing the vikings. On the whole, my archers were worthless in the fight.
2) My spearmen I generally had deployed in the town center. With the approach of the vikings, hitting me in three groups from the north, west and south, I split my spearmen into two groups, throwing half at the north and half at the south. The middle group of vikings was a little further away and were all archers, so I was less worried about them.
3) Not surprisingly, the rules give you a significant advantage when you have multiple guys on one guy. This came up especially for me as my two forces were outnumbered by their opponents. My south held out for a while, by finally fell under the pressure. In the north things were more even, with my leader fighting his leader, flanked by buildings and armored men. In the end though, I rolled poorly at my one real chance at victory, when my leader had an advantage over his, and got my leader killed.
The rules worked out pretty well. They use a subtle chart to determine the effect of a hit vs. the protection of the armor, which gave a pretty good reflection (IMO) of the benefits of armor. Missile fire was pretty ineffective, and one thing we definitely learned was the important of morale. Things initially went bad for my spread-out force, which sent my men's morale plummitting while at the same time increasing the aggression of the Vikings.
The only thing I wasn't completely happy with was that the rules were purely you-go-I-go. It created one odd situation where my knights, having charged for a couple turns, suddenly got charged by the Vikings and it was if my knights had been standing still.
The one other odd thing was that there didn't seem to be any weapon benefits applied to cavalry, just to infantry, so from a rules perspective my lance-armed knights where just as effective charging as would be a light cavalrymen with a sword. That's not a huge deal, I think we could deal with that with some additional modifiers.
We both agreed that the rules would work out real well for infantry fights. I'm also looking for skirmish rules for my Crusaders, but I don't think this would be the one, as like I said missile fire is pretty ineffective and I wasn't thrilled with cavalry.
We're going to play another game this week, this time matching up all foot soldiering Normans against Vikings. We'll see how the lessons learned from the first game and some better Norman infantry fare against the Northern Horde!
Twitchy
looks at some new terrain products, which use space age technology!
