More Dark Age War and Conquest, the Battle of Arngill Moor, 1068.

 I made a few 'Shieldwall' markers and double sided Charge/Flee counters for our games of War and Conquest. The shieldwall markers are made from some of the many spare shields you get with plastic figures. 

Moving on to today's game of more fictitious battling based around 1068 in the North of England.  Ian as the Irish King Cathal regrouped his forces and those of his ally Aelfric (Nigel) with his Anglo-Danes. Following some of the guidelines for deployment etc... in the rules I came up with the map below. As I had set the table up Ian and Nigel had the choice of which table edge/deployment zone they wanted. We also decided to try the Battlefield Objectives for the first time. 

The first action was on my left flank where I moved forward with my light cavalry but they were chased away by the Irish Light Cavalry. 

Ian then had 11 shots at my Norman Knights needing 5's or 6's, scoring 9 hits. At this point it looked like the gods were with the Irish. My dice throwing was the opposite of this!   

Nigel advances his Anglo Danish with Ian's Irish Warbands also moving forward in the background. 

My Knights chased off the Irish light cavalry and then proceeded to rampage around behind the Irish/Anglo Danish lines. All sorts of mayhem and melee happened. 

Nigel turned his Huscarles to face the Norman knights trapping them near the table edge and so a mighty melee ensued but my Knights were defeated and fled the table.  

View of the Norman Cavalry getting around the allies rear. 

My battlefield objective was to try and secure the centre of the table but in the mix of everything going on I forgot about this. Ian and Nigel's objective was to destroy my two most powerful units and they had already got one of the units of knights. 

From this point I forgot to take any more photo's but Nigel rushed his Spearmen forward and with my Knights getting trapped behind the Allies things looked bad for the Normans. However my luck with the dice took a much needed turn for the better and with the Normans having better armour values  they were able to fight their way out of a tight predicament defeating an Irish warband and two units of Anglo Danish spearmen and the huscarles to win the battle. Great fun, particularly as the start of the battle did not go well. 

Next week we swap to 15mm ECW using the 'Victory without Quarter' rules.