WAB Raiding Season: Bassa's Ford

As the seasons turn and the leave take on the golden and amber hues of Autumn so have the minds of the Sherwood Hucknall and Ilkeston Team moved on to the Dark Ages.
This time last year Steve and I were frantically preparing for the Peterborough WAB Age of Arthur gaming day so clearly something about this time of year puts a man in mind of blokes in drab clothes stabbing other blokes in drab clothes with pointy sticks.

As General Ballroom has been struck down with Lazyitis (get up!) Steve and I have agreed on a campaign. Specifically the excellent Raiding Season campaign from the Age of Arthur book. He's painting up a Saxon army, I'm going to use my Late Romans.

Game One sees the attackers attempting to force their way across a strategic river crossing to invade enemy territory. Saxons v Romans - clearly the hairy Germanics will be the attackers.

In heroic Dark Age style the game begins with a duel of champions in the ford.
The Romans, not wanting to get their togas in a twist have hired a hairy barbarian of their own to do the dirty work.

The duel raged for several turns but eventually the sell-sword was chopped down and the Saxon returned triumphant to the attacking force.

The fight had given time for the Saxons to catch up and most of the invaders were on the starting line.

 Gedrith. Yikes.

Whats Latin for "You shall not pass!"?

The Saxons formed The Bus of War and headed for the ford.

But stout Romans marched to meet them.

Sell-sword Saxons crashed home too.
A few failed warband tests also meant the ford got a bit congested at this point.

Unfortunately the Saxon allies, being only youths, were no match for their big brothers on the opposition and eventually fled. Causing the first Panic Bomb of the game as milites and slingers also broke.

Luckily the Roman spear rallied and turned to face the hairy barbarian horde.

Back at the ford the Roman Magnate had got his lads blocking the passage.

The unit they'd defeated duly rallied mid-stream. Blocking the ford again. How we (I) laughed.

Then Steve remembered they were light infantry and they scuttled aside.

Leaving the Gedrith free at last to charge home.

The remaining Duguth also took advantage of this lightness and spread out along the river bank and began peppering Roman's with javelins.

At this point the cavalry arrived!

Charging home into the archers.

Easily defeating the Sagittarians they turned to pepper the rear of the spear.

This was all rather too much for the stout spearmen who headed off home at pace.

The Gedrith then did what Gedrith do best and murdered the Magnate in the face to claim the field for the pagan hordes!

A great fun game. This scenario is a challenge for the attacker but the Saxons stuck at the task and are now on the loose in Roman territory!

In the campaign wrap-up the Saxons accrued a fair bit of glory, and the Gedrith are now veterans (!).

All my characters survived, though the Roman pair are now carrying injuries.

Looking forward to the next game now.