Saxons vs Vikings round 2

Or the tale of how I managed to snatch defeat from the hands of Victory.

So, Wednesday night, I had a game of Hail Caeser against Terry and John. They were using a combined force of Vikings and Normans, whilst I would be fighting off their unwarranted advances with a force of Saxons.

Get em lads.

I had two divisions of consisting of five units of thegns plus some slingers each. Terry had two division of Viking hirdmens and John had a mix of warriors on foot and a unit of mounted knights. I won the role off and my right flank marched forced as ordered and set out in traditional shieldwall manoeuvres. My left flank, heard the order, and then ignored it and possibly mishearing the order for a chant of Skulls for the Blood God or Waaaaagh decided to charge forward trying to get grips with the enemy as quickly as possible.

Terry and John's opening turn involved them moving forward and forming a shieldwall of their own. John's crossbow-toting warriors took aim and peppered a small unit of slingers, causing two wounds. Turn two began, and the first of my units made it into combat. Terry had the better of the dice rolling and inflicted more casualties on my men and they retreated to safety but Terry followed up and combat spilled into their turn two.

Terry's Vikings let out a roar and more combats appeared on my right flank. John tried to charge his knights into combat but a failed order role left them stranded in the open. Combat was a brutal affair with my Saxons inflicting wounds that Terry was unable to save. Terry did his best, but I was able to make my morale saves and I had gained the upper hand.

How many units are in this combat then. Answers on a post card to

My turn three became a brutal affair, I charge as many men as I could forward, arranging a string of combats across the middle of the table. On my left flank, I moved my skirmisher with javelins forward with a small unit of slingers and let rip. Inflicting four wounds on the mounted Knights which John was unable to save two off. Having rolled two sixes to wound, John was forced to make a morale save, which the knights failed and fled the table.

The combat was brutal with my men making short work of Terry's units. However, as their third turn began things were not all going their way. I had tried to hack my way through John's unit of foot knights, but they remained  resistant to my axe blows and my unit backed off, losing one of them in the process. As you can see from the photo to the left, it was a big swirling combat, which caused much discussion over the rules.

However, in their third turn things carried on as they had been left off with myself gaining the upper hands. Out of their three divisions, one had been wiped out and another was perilously close to collapsing. It was here I made a few mistakes.

During my fourt turn, I should have done three things that would have guaranteed my victory. I had to move one unit forward into combat and break one of Terry's remaining units. I got into combat, but in a rare flurry of dice rollsTerry won the combat and I was beaten off. The two things that I should have done, which I didn't do was to move my division commander into a unit to brings it's stamina down, taking away it's shattered status, and to move a unit forward into support.

Terry and John's fourth and final turn saw one of my shattered units wiped out, which broke my division and I lost the game. It was a highly enjoyable game, and I'm sorry for the lack of pictures. When you get caught up in the game it's hard to take time out take snaps. Terry and John were fun to play against and so, despite kicking myself for losing, I did have a lot of fun playing.