Training Day 2

We had our second 'training' day on Saturday and I took the later Saxon army which although it had the shieldwall ability it meant I also had to take some of the troops from the lower end of the scale, which is annoying but realistic in my view, anyway I put a Shaman and a Thegn with them to boost their morale if not their fighting ability. I also however took two cavalry units as I had decided to give Stewart a more difficult time and a taste of what he might confront in November, it is difficult for the Romano-British to react to being assaulted by cavalry.

I had the Raid objective and was happy with that, Stewart didn't like what he got and spent a Strategic Initiative Point to change to Pitched Battle which meant he really had to go all out to attack and destroy my army. My plan was to use my large javelin units and my cavalry to kill his skirmishers then get around his left flank, Stewart wanted his skirmishers to weaken me before he advanced.

Initial Set Up.

I did manage to make him pull the skirmishers back but my big javelin units did not perform as well as I had hoped and ended up shot to bits and I lost one quite early, I then pulled the cavalry back and made a wide manoeuvre on his left to threaten his flank. All this was going very well when I managed to mistake my Ceorls for my Geoguth, which was pretty daft as the Ceorls had the Shaman not the Thegn, and I threw them in against his line. They were pretty bad although their morale held them up for a while they eventually failed and ran only to be caught and dispersed. The Geoguth when they went in did well but later as they faced the British Dux and the men who had slain the Ceorls they too went down in a bloody heap, I now realise I should have retreated them from the threat and pulled the Dux with them.

I move on the skirmishers.

The Ceorls go in, sigh.

 Stewart then had to attack to get his objective, his Comitatus met my Gedriht, I got twelve hits and thought game over, he saved nine of them! Although they made heavy work of it my pampered companions eventually routed the Comitatus.

The centre about to lock horns.

 Over on my left I had had great fun shooting his elite cavalry with javelins and eventually ground them down to 50%, now was the time to finish them, no it wasn't, my elite cavalry lost out and ran, albeit there was only just enough Comitatus left to form a fighting unit, but they were still dangerous. I had beaten the infantry on that side but my infantry were now pinned and in danger of exposing a flank to the cavalry if they moved to the centre. I think I should have taken the chance and moved.

In the end I possibly could have gotten my objective if the game lasted another three or four moves, Stewart was close to getting his 75% casualties on me, so we decided a draw was the best result. It had been a bloody struggle and there were a couple of times I cursed my dice luck but in the end my undoing was sending the Ceorls in.

As it is always me who lays out the battlefield for visitors I came up with a little table to take this chore from my shoulders so that I would not unconsciously give one or other side an advantage. You split the table into two foot squares then roll two dice for each, 2-4 no terrain, 5 large terrain piece, 6-8 small terrain piece, 9 large terrain piece, 10-12 no terrain, once rolled you roll again for each piece 1-4 uneven, 5 difficult and 6 dense. The players take turns placing the terrain pieces then a die roll determines who has the choice of sides.