28mm Normans v Anglo Danish and Irish (using War and Conquest).

 For todays game using our growing collection of 28mm Early Medieval/Dark Age figures I 'borrowed' a scenario idea from a 'Wargames, Soldiers and Strategy' magazine. One force is split in half and so deploys half facing the enemy and the other half coming in from one flank. A quick dice throw from Ian soon decided that his newly painted Irish Warbands with their Anglo Danish allies would deploy as a group meaning that my Normans had to divide their forces between the two other deployment zones. 

Deployment:Normans left and top right, Irish and Anglo Danes to the right. 

Big block of Irish warband (on the left) heading my way. 

The Norman flanking force. 

Norman infantry battle line. 

The Irish did not hang around but came straight for the flanking force. 

The Anglo Danes decided to hold whilst they saw what happened on their right. 

White gem tokens represent 'SIP's (Strategy Intervention points). 

Norman light cavalry chase away some Irish skirmish archers. 

The Irish light cavalry at the top tried to break through around the warband but my skirmish archers caused just enough casualties to cause them to flee all the way back to their base line. 

The Norman Knights and skirmish cavalry clash with the warbands.

The left hand warband breaks in the second round of melee.

Next turn both cavalry units turn towards the next Warband.

There was then a big clash of units on my right. My dismounted Milites broke some Anglo Danish Spearmen but could not break the Huscarls. The Norman archers fled from the other opposing spearmen.

This was quite a complex melee to work through and sadly we ran out of time. With the Irish having lost a warband and a unit of spearmen fleeing compared to just the Normans having lost no units and just their archers fleeing we called it a Norman Victory, especially as the Normans also had their cavalry now free on the left advancing rapidly towards the enemy. 

It is a shame we ran out of time as this was lining up to be a great clash in the centre. It was our scanty understanding of some aspects of the rules that let us down. We have both vowed to read up on the rules ready for next week when the two sides will clash again.