A game - an actual, slightly unexpected, game of Midgard in Midgard March.
I'd tentatively arranged a game for after Easter with author James, but that would fall into April - and when Martin and I agreed to a game I was expecting him to continue with Billhooks, but he suggested either Blitzkrieg Commander (we both have armies that have never seen the table) or Midgard. Caught off guard I thumbed through the BKC book and decided that it was too much for me to get my head around in time and so we settled on Midgard.
I took my Saxons who now have rather splendid Midgard magnetic bases that James made for them when he borrowed them for a show - thanks James! Martin had his Arthurian style Britons which he's rebased onto diorama style bases. They looked great and I immediately regretted not taking that approach with my Picts!
A straight up pitched battle would be the thing. I took the standard Saxon list that will be available either in the book or as a supporting download at release time, whereas Martin got creative and built his own version of the Arthur list, heavy on the cavalry and with a wizard - Marlon - along for the ride.
We diced to see who would be attacker and I won, which seemed appropriate - hairy invaders attacking peaceable British natives.
My characters are based for WAB, on square 20mm bases, so I improvised some round ones with washers to make them stand out.
Behold Martin's very lovely diorama type bases.
This was his cavalry wing.
The bulk of the rest of the army was spearmen, with a single unit of skirmishing archers.
The field of battle! (Note goblet containing my reputation)
King Aelle of Deira leads his hearthguard on.
While more hairy barbarian warriors start to surge forward.
Pretty soon Arthur had crashed home on my right flank and begun butchering Saxon invaders.
He hurled out a challenge and chopped down my champion with nary a backward glance
Aelle meanwhile set forth to deal with the other cavalry (mainly because he couldn't manoeuvre onto Arthur's flank).
In the centre one set of hairy youths failed to get going and hung back a bit.
Their brethren charged home, but had very much the worst of their encounter with a Romano British shield wall.
Behind them Hussa urged the other hearthguard onwards.
However they were charged in turn by more British spears.
Arthur was massacring Saxons on my right, whilst Aelle was making heavy going of killing more horsemen.
Left behind by Aelle a unit of Duguth failed to charge home to aid their brethren and kill the British hero.
In the centre the geoguth were all soon wiped out and the hearthguard were being whittled away.
Hussa stood firm with his men, but the tide was against them.
A lone unit of Saxon skirmishers played cat and mouse with British spearmen.
Arthur killed one unit of Saxons and then faced a second.
The Saxon centre was crumbling.
Arthur's men were slaughtered around him but his Legendary Weapon was drinking Saxon blood for fun.
He fought on alone against the last of the invaders.
Finally the dance ended and the skirmishers were caught.
The British closed in and let their javelins do their killing work.
An overwhelming British win!
This was the first time Martin or I had played for quite a while and the first time either of us had played without James to explain things to us.
Please to report the rules were nice and clear when we did have to refer to them, and most of it came flooding back by turn two.
I had some poor luck with some terrible dice rolling but also didn't really play to the Saxon strengths.
Good to get another game in as the release draws (slowly) closer.
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