The Saxon left wing advances

We played the Saxon/Viking game last weekend and this weekend. Last week Pete and Mark commanded the Vikings and I led the saxons to a crushing defeat. The Holy Dice Cup of St Leo was malfunctioning on that occasion. This week I commanded the Vikings in a win over Mike's Saxons.

The impending clash in the center

The rules are basically DBA mechanisms customized for 9th Century Europe and loaded with lots of Dark Ages 'chrome' . The elements (all infantry in this case) are twelve 28mm figures on a 6"x2" base. We had over 1500 figures in action and in both cases were able to play to a decisive finish in about 3 hours.

A panoramic view of the battlefield

The scale is one figure = one man. 1500 men was a pretty good size battle in the 9th Century. The 'chrome' includes a very large Viking Sea King with an extra factor in melee, Christian monks whose prayers occasionally allow the Saxons to reroll a bad die outcome, opportunities for leaders to stave off impending collapse with Heroic Action (or die trying) and a randomized organization phase at the start of the game that allows some wings of an army to be ready to step off before others. Each player starts with a hand of 5 cards drawn randomly from a deck of about 50. Each card has a brief, colorful description of an occurrance that will have a defined effect on morale, melee, movement or archery. When a card is played (or discarded if it isn't useful) the player draws a replacement to bring his hand back up to 5. The cards add a bit of extra period feel and another layer of decision making to the game.

No way is the Viking right wing going up that hill