1066 & All That - Part 1

I now have enough Anglo Saxons for the Battles of 1066 games planned for October this year (it being the 950th anniversary and, what-have-you). I'm also painting a bunch of Normans too and I've almost finished the actual Norman contingent which leaves the Breton and Frisian/Flemish mercenary contingents to do. At this stage I'm not sure if I'll be doing those but I might.

I'm not sure about the figure I have for Harold. I don't think he fits the part. I think the other commander figure (white shield with red cross) looks more Haroldish. Besides that, I did model the standard bearer with Harold's banner. But I'll see what happens between then and now.

Both the left and right wings have:
2 units of Heavy Infantry (thegns),
2 units of Fyrd, and
A small unit of skirmishers.

Harold's central command has:
1 large unit of Huscarls with Dane Axes,
1 unit of hearth warriors,
2 units of Danish Mercenaries, and
A small unit of skirmishers.

When if comes to playing the games I'm sure that changes will be made but so far, so good.

The Godwinsson's

Gyrth Godwinson

Harold Godwinson

Leofwine Godwinson

Warrior Priest

The priests are only for morale purposes.

The Anglo-Saxon Shieldwall

I couldn't fit all of it in the pic!

International Viking day - NWA Style

As noted in my post below we at NWA celebrated International Viking Day by playing a bunch of Dark Ages games. I only managed a few photo's but I've collected a bunch of photos from other folks and here they are:

The sheep ended up being used as 'Battered" markers.

Don't look behind you Thorgils, but I think we're being followed.

The Wisdom of Normans

Today at my club NWA (Nunawading Wargamses Association) we had a day of Dark Ages gaming because tomorrow is International Viking Day (even though today is actually International Nude Gardening Day).

I helped to organise this event and it went quite well with four tables set up and over a dozen games played all together. We used the Shieldwall Rampant  rules adapted from Lion Rampant that I posted a couple of days ago. They worked well and most folks seemed happy with the results.

I spent the week painting up a bunch of Normans for the day and they were a roaring success of the battlefield although I used my Saxons for my first game. They looked nice performed well and did all the things that Normans should do (ie: shot guys with their crossbows and the milites charged guys.

I played both games against Ben of Monsieur le Rosbif & Johnny Frog fame.

His doughty Saxons were caught in a storm of wild charges by the Norman cavalry (the special rule that makes knights charge you)which ended with them wiping most of the Saxon host from the table. However, a group of Saxon archers on the other side of the river who resisted every command roll to cross ended up picking off the Norman knights one by one and turned a smashing victory into something less impressive.

So was there wisdom in paining up a bunch of Normans for today. Too right it was. They look nice they work well and now I have to think up an appropriate, yet stupid, name for my Norman commander.

I didn't get many photo's because I forgot my camera and my phone was running short on power. Ben took lots of photos and will probably write up some after action reports so go over to his blog and have a look.

Comes Richarde la tête

Count Richard Head

(I think that name might work)

Shieldwall Rampant Rules

At NWA (Nunawading Wargames Association) we've been playing a lot of Lion Rampant which invariably lead to a desire for a Dark Ages version. So I came up with Shieldwall Rampant.

I did a first draft which was pretty basic and it was quite good and a lot of fun to play. However, there were a few things that needed fixing as well as a bit more definition required for cavalry. So I worked on it a bit more and tested them out. A bit more tweaking was done and the result are the pdf that I'm hoping to post here (I don't know how to do it).

Anyway, they work well and add the flavour of the era. Cavalry is limited, as is archery. On the other hand an alteration to the Schiltron Special Rule into that of Shieldwall adds an extra bit of tactical decision making and the addition of another special rule: Thrown Weapons gives a static Shieldwall defence a bit of offensive power (not much though - Hitting on a 6 it took me 3 rolls of 12d6 to inflict 1 casualty).

Anyway, here's the download (I hope):

https://www.dropbox.com/s/6fdqfvwevtvu3ub/Shieldwall%20Rampant.pdf?dl=0


P.S. If you do happen to download these rules let me know what you think!

Cheers
IanKH

Some Allies for Rome

I finished some British cavalry to aid their Roman overlords in hurling back the Saxon threat.

The four riders on the right are from Eureka with head swaps from the Gripping Beast Saxon Thegns box. I think they look nice (although I doubt they are 100% historically accurate). I might add another stand of these chaps but we'll wait and see if this thought comes to pass.

The two on the left are Arthur and his standard bearer from Footsore Miniature. I have some of their British infantry in the post and I;m looking forward to painting them up. Footsore make lovely figures.