Dark Age Game

I've been watching a few programes on Discovery about the Vikings and their
warrior ethos. This got me enthused to play a good old Dark Age slugging match
with their traditional enemies the Anglo-Saxons.

Both lined up and looked pretty similar, however, the armies have subtle
differences. On one side the rush of the warband, more mobility and the
integrated bondi archers. On the other the shieldwall (which in this game proved
to be decisive).

The Viking charge was concluded with the huscarls crashing into the Anglo-Saxon
nobles, however, the bondi held off and performed some rather useful initial
fire on the Saxon fyrdmen which was designed to soften them up a bit to get the
decisive base removal in the first round and perhaps trigger a morale collapse.
As it transpired the initial luck on missile fire was not consolidated in the
close combat rounds that followed and the superiority of the shieldwall as a
defence grew as the battle raged on.

I modified my pushback rules which are now simpler - the difference in bases at
the end of a close combat is the number the lesser unit is pushed back in base
depths. Worked well and made that snake like ripple up and down the battle line.

Back to the contest despite the Vikings getting one of their bondi to the other
side and forcing the Saxon general to make some hard choices regarding the two
units to remove, the Anglo-Saxons still had a preponderance in active units to
defeat the remaining Vikings 5:2 in the next couple of turns.

Great game, nice representation of a rush and attack tactic vs a solid defence.
In future games the Viking mobility should feature more with strategems to flank
or use terrain better. This would seem to adhere to their style where they
weren't renowned for seeking pitched battles but preferred applying their
seaborne strategy of surprise and speed to their land operations.