Friday 30 August 2019

Harald the Barrel Victorious but bloodied...

The Swansong of Harald's campaign against all comers.  This time he was attacking the Bretons, a mixture of Scots and Frank's. 


Harald and the boys line up against the Celtic Fringe.


At a conservative estimate there were 250 figures on each side, and probably nearer 300.


Harald comes on, violently assaulting the centre.


The Frank's charge in their cavalry, unsuccessfully...




That has to hurt


The big brawl for the village


And looking from Harald's side as he assaults



King Pepin deserts Lord Oliver, and joins Lord Roland.  It's not going to go well.


On the far left the Vikings assault the bog




And the Frank's hold that wood.


Harald's right is threatened.


But he turns on the Frank's sweeping away the sink unit.


Meanwhile those Scots struggle.


Until the turn of the battle, Brave Harald falls...


The Frank's have another go, with predictably catastrophic results...


And it's officially declared a massacre for both sides.  The Scots Cavalry undertake a magnificent charge routing a warband.  It seemed to me that the Scots had two units remaining, the Frank's three, plus skirmishers and the Vikings five units.



Friday 23 August 2019

The Reluctance of Pepin the Fat

From "a concise History of Frankish Viking interaction" by Professor Sir James Coxpole of the University of North Durham:
King Pepin the Fat, interesting bloke, very hungry.  Fought the Vikings of Harald the Black and Egil of the Variable Dice Luck for Normandy.  Pepin's big mistake was calling in Earl Odda of the Saxons as his ally.


The Franks line up, ready to face the Vikings


Across the valley the Vikings appear.   Is it just my imagination or are there a lot of them?


Harald the Barrel, fresh from his success in bullying the British 






King Pepin, accompanied by man with picnic hamper.


Lord Oliver charges home as the Frankish Panzers roll.

Earl Odda leaves half of his army in the village


Count Oliver and his men perish, as Pepin refuses to charge up that hill for the second time.


Earl Odda gets stuck in, with the very centre of his line, leading in person.  He is soon killed and  two thirds of his army run away.
Still looking for my photo of that event,  sadly lost to the memory card of time...
Captain Martel attacks and rolls nine hits with twelve dice.


Martel bursts through and routs the warband opposing him.


Whilst King Pepin refuses to move for the fourth time.


Finally Pepin goes for it on the fifth try, up the hill breaking through the Vikings.  He may be fat, but turns out he is also Mighty.


But he reaches the summit a weakened force.


Captain Namon gets stuck in too, routing and destroying a Viking band.  


With Bishop Turpin killed and their levy all but holding out the Franks survive until pub o' clock.  
Turns out the Franks are rather handy, and well capable of hammering Vikings.
Next week we turn to the Celtic fringe.  How will they fare against the Viking horde?

Tuesday 20 August 2019

Death of a Scotsman

Once again Lucky Jack Quilp has demonstrated a knack for locating wrecks; last month it was The Dutchman, this month The Chancellor. With the aid of  a couple of longboats it should be easy to liberate the stricken vessel of its cargo of contraband whisky.  However, unknown to our hero, the leader of the Scottish militia, Ebeneezer Balfour, has had his spies and informants abroad and has wind of Quilp's intentions. Raising the miltia, he intends to get to the whisky first.

The first game of turn two in my Blood and Plunder solo campaign was to be the 'Plunder' scenario from the 'No Peace Beyond the Line' supplement. It was also to be the first outing for The Chancellor - kindly donated by Uriah the boat-builder.

The Chancellor - stuck on the shoals

The Scottish force consisted of Ebeneezer Balfour with 4 European Soldiers and 4 European Sailors in one longboat. A second boat carried 5 European Soldiers and 8 European Militia. This was a 100 point force, as calculated by the nifty online Force Builder on the Firelock Games website.

The Scots


This time I experimented with the number of figures: for 15mm games, on land, I prefer to substitute bases of two  figures and just count the number of bases. I usually revert to counting actual figures for games involving boats due to space restraints. This time I went for bases; it almost works for my newer figures on square bases but unfortunately the older figures on rounds don't quite work.


The English

The English force consisted of Lucky Jack Quilp with 5 Freebooters and 4 Sea Dogs in one longboat. The second boat contained another 5 Freebooters and 4 Sea Dogs. I had 2 points in hand so I added a musician to Lucky Jack's group; I actually had a buccaneer drummer that I used to represent the musician. The musician would give the command unit the Inspiring trait - although I'd actually forgot that Lucky Jack is inspiring anyway. However, all was not lost as the musician also inflicts Terror on the first turn - i.e. all the enemy units have to roll a resolve test. Mind you they all passed anyway - still serious drumming!
Also pregame, Lucky Jack had two tactics to play and Balfour one. Most of the tactics are more appropriate for land battles but I chose Undisciplined Louts and High Tolerance. I diced for the Scots choice and came up with High Tolerance - which effectively countered my Undisciplined Louts tactic (this would have seen the Scots have to test for drunkeness). Obviously the Scots are hardened drinkers -who said typecasting?

The English deployed with both boats using the sweeps with the Sea Dogs assigned to the task. The Scots had one boat with the sailors on the sweeps but the second boat, wishing to maximize its firepower, deployed with the sails set.

Turn one saw the Scots draw a Joker, thereby initiating a random event. A wind change - bad news for the Scottish boat under sail.
In the initial moves both sides converged upon each other and exchanged some long range musketry. The Scots sailing boat also began to turn away from the wind.


End of Turn One - Scots boats in trouble 
 Turn two also began bad for the Scots as their boats collided.

Make way - no you make way! 
With one boat struggling under sail, Balfour's men made an extra effort at the sweeps and surged ahead.

Balfour makes for the Chancellor

With one boat downwind and out of the fight, Balfour was surrounded by the English boats and his Soldiers gunned down, leaving him with a small group of sailors.


Balfour under fire
 The English then seized the initiative, boarding the Chancellor with the Freebooters and locating the loot. They then passed this overboard to the Sea Dogs in the longboat.

English about to board
 However, the Scots militia had eventually struggled up to a position downwind of the Chancellor from where they could bring their massed firepower to bear. A bit of nifty shooting and the Sea Dogs were wiped out - leaving the loot unprotected in the bottom of the longboat!



Fire as she bears!
 Not only that but Balfour had grappled the Chancellor from the bow and was about to lead his sailors in a last ditch boarding action. That is until Quilp, backing water, brought his longboat into a position where his Freebooters were firing at point blank range with ball and shot. With one final volley, the Sailors were no more and ex-captain Balfour was lying dead in the bottom of his boat.

Death of a Scotsman
Another victory for Lucky Jack who is now clearly ahead in the campaign.

All in all a good game and I think the best one yet,




Friday 16 August 2019

Egil's Raid on the Welsh...

With the Campaign season drawing to a close, and the long sail home beckoning there was time for a last raid.  Egil decided to pick on the Welsh.  What could go wrong?


The Welsh King decides that he is staying home today.
A magnificently placed palisade


Meanwhile down the road, the forces of barbarism loot and Plunder.


An isolated force of Vikings on the left.  The Welsh bring on their cavalry...


And the Welsh get some reinforcements on table, planning to frustrate the Vikings plan to plunder.


The Welsh King leads a big warband into the bog and gets it into schilltron.  Its proximity will stop the pillage of the village.


The Welsh charge their cavalry in a gamble to knock out the smaller warband.
Having used their skirmishers to annoy and frustrate the Vikings this was a bold or perhaps reckless plan.


Imagining they were Franks, lead by the Paladins of Charlemagne, the Welsh cavalry assault and break the Viking shield wall.  Glorious and a bit mad.


With the Viking's frustrated they withdraw, their only Plunder some pigs.  

And so to the Campaign scores, and it's only loot that concerns us!

Harald 40
Ragnar's 28
Ase  26
Egil 8


The Campaign season closes.




But a last great raid against the Franks is planned...