Longships - mini update

Today witnessed the first practice game for our summer Longships campaign. The first Viking army is completed (bar the basing) and the Saxons are all finished except for the flags. As both armies were  in a good enough state to get them on the table we cracked on with the first test game.
The idea was to not only learn the rules but also get an idea of all the accessories we would need - i.e. terrain, markers and that sort of thing. As a consequence the table was a bit rough and ready as it just utilized whatever we could lay our hands on at the time.

The table laid out for a raid

We tried a couple of ways to mark out the grid. which was fine but in the end we concluded a bespoke gridded mat would be better. We also concluded that templates were needed to delineate the building squares.
We puzzled over a few aspects of the rules, as expected for a first game, but we think we got there in the end. We were caught out a few times by the odd mechanism that was similar but subtly different from the other Peter Pig rules of which we are more familiar. We also made one or two fundamental errors but I'm fairly confident that the game will crack on at a good pace once we have a few more games under our belts.
As for the game itself, my Saxons were sadly thrashed in their first ever game. We played out the raid pregame which determined that the Saxons would be the defenders.
The game begins with a single defending unit (plus general) on table and the remaining four off table. Although the initial unit is depicted on table it is actually hidden at this point. Unfortunately, I was only able to bring on one other unit all game!

Saxon 'hidden' unit

In contrast. the attackers begin with four units deployed on the table edge and one off table.

Vikings appear in 'march' formation

Whilst the Viking right advanced upon the 'hidden' Saxon unit, the remaining two units were free to plunder the outlying buildings. They never needed to bring on their fifth unit!
The Saxons did bring on another unit fairly early on but that was to be their only reinforcement all game.

Saxon reinforcements arrive by road.

Normally arriving units are subject to a random displacement but these arrived precisely where expected because of the road. The road also confers bonus movement.

Saxon reinforcement advancing into the jaws of defeat

Using the road bonus, the Saxon reinforcements  advanced to support the lone Saxon garrison unit. Unfortunately this left them in march formation within striking distance of the nasty Vikings. Sure enough the raiders pounced on the unfortunate Saxons.

Saxons receive a thrashing

After one round of melee the Vikings were 'hacking through' and the Saxons broke and fled.
As the winning Viking unit was left fatigued I threw my remaining Saxon unit into the fray.

The Saxons final fling

This time the fight went in the Saxon's favour and they were soon 'hacking through' the Viking lines. However, rolling for casualties they lost both the unit leader and the general (anything but a one - twice!). Inevitably they were in a very bad position when it came to the second round of melee. No surprises then that they routed.
This was turn five which signaled the potential end of game (turns beyond five are optional and our offset against victory points). With no units on the field I decided to allow the game to end there and then.
Calculating the victory points at the end gave a convincing win to the Vikings - hardly a surprise really!
In summary, a good game and we're keen to give it another go.