20th October - 19th Oct Saga game (Vikings) vs The Brother (Welsh) AM game

Finally got a game in with The Brother. It's been a year of odd hours and various other game delaying issues but we've finally managed to get together for a game. Up at 5:30am for a 7:00am meet up at the markets so the girls could have a bit of a wander with there cousins (although one did have a sleep in) we got back to his around 9. A cup of tea and a catch up with his wife and we sent the wives off to the beach with all the children (five between the two of us now) and set about getting the board ready. This was pretty much his first game and I'm now up to my third game so we started with some rule book flicking but as the game progressed we got a bit of a flow happening.

Left Flank

Right Flank

 We settled on the Battle of the Ford scenario or for our game Battle of Cooper's Ford (thanks to accompanying Coopers Pale Ale, cheers mate). This is a seven turn game with VP awarded for gaining the opponents side of the river (Cooper's Creek).

The Welsh taunt the Vikings over their lost deployment initiative

The Brother won deployment so I was deploying in response to his initial half deployment, then he got to finish off in answer to mine. I opt'd to split my force to cover both fords, with him leaving a more central unit to respond to any breakthroughs.

The Viking warriors push back the Welsh levies

I'm starting to get a feel for the Viking play style I believe but I still make a few errors, one of which was rushing my warrior unit forward a little early, but to be honest if I had have rolled better and taken out a few more levies I might have been happier with the result. The following counter assualt be the Welsh Warchief with a Side by Side activation of his Hearthguard took the unit out of play and lost me an order dice very early in the game

The Welsh response destroying the warriors to the last man

Finally we're across..... not for long though

The next lot of combat action occurred at the other ford with a back and forth struggle between our warrior units on that flank finally ending with the welsh pack reduced to a single man, although that gave the central welsh unit an opening to push me back over the ford.

More Welsh taunting as the come across the ford

The hostility on the other flank had not abated though with the welsh pushing forward over the ford to meet the combined fury of my Beserkers and Warchief. This allowed me to leave their broken corpses littering the muddy banks on my side and push over the ford, littering it's banks with hastily raised levy bowman although my Beserkers didn't quite have the momentum left falling to the Welsh Warchief.

The Warchiefs lock horns

The closing chapter of the game began with a cinematic climax, the two Warchiefs facing off with the waters of the ford flowing around their ankles as they trade off blows along the bank. Many mighty blows were exchanged as these titanic men struggled with each other. The Vikings fatigue laid heavily on his shoulders slowing his defense ever so slightly (The Brother spent a fatigue token to lower my armour) although he still managed to lay three blows upon his enemies shoulders. He took a countless amount of punishment in retaliation though (eight hits!!) and the end of the combat saw both foes falling into the foaming water and their rapidly fading bodies being swept downstream.

The rivers again flow clear, nothing left of the combatants
but blood and muddy footprints

The final few moves saw the lone welsh warrior killed off and my remaining hearthguard unit pushing over the ford and throwing the last remaining welsh unit back with a horrific amount of casualties finally securing the opposite bank, but a what a cost....

Have a look at The Brother's blog post over at Stand and Deliver for the welsh perspective on this clash.

It was a great game and we're going to be making an effort to get in some more of the next month or two, which should be aided by The Brother going on holidays. I also had Toby come round that night once I'd gotten back from The Brother's and we had another game of Saga, his Anglo-Saxons vs my weary but rebuilt Viking force, I'll get that report up in the next couple of days hopefully.