Pillage: trying the new Early Middle Ages skirmish game from Victrix.

 'Pillage' is the new Early Medieval/Viking Age set of skirmish wargame rules from Victrix, translated from the original French version written by Guillame Rouselot. Having had a couple of read throughs I like what I see; this should be a fast fun game set in one of my favourite eras. My initial thoughts before actually playing the game are the rules seem heavily inspired by the 'Middle Earth Battle Strategy Game' (which is fun) but tweaked and developed into something new. The searching or 'pillaging' for loot is certainly well within the games theme but is also reminiscent of games such as Mordheim and Frostgrave. 

"Looks like chicken for dinner tonight!" 

The book itself is beautifully presented and a joy to read. The author has obviously created a work of love and his interest and enthusiasm shine on every page. The book is full of photos of his own very well painted figures and lovingly created terrain. Guillame has also done some of the illustrations along with Leslie Bigo. There has been a bit of fuss online about some of the images that illustrate the book having been created by using AI. Apparently in the French version of the book this has been credited whereas in the English version it is not. Victrix have acted quickly on this by apologising for the oversight and by saying this will be corrected and credited in any future printing of the book. I am not too sure where I stand on the use of AI as I am largely uninformed about it but if the author has used AI to create unique work that does not infringe other artists intellectual property then I am OK with that and with Victrix now adding a short note to say that AI has been used in their creation it all works for me. 

"Oi! Those are my chickens!"

 I have been busy painting up a few more single based figures and loot tokens such as pigs, chickens and barrels to try and get ready for our first game.  Note that we will be using a variety of figures, not just Normans and Anglo Saxons but a few Vikings and Irish too. This is all we have just now but we will work at painting up some more.  

For our first game I chose the 'Pillage' scenario and enjoyed using my various huts and other pieces of terrain (and some pieces from Ian too) to set up a suitable table as indicated in the book. I was in charge of the Anglo-Saxon defenders whilst Ian and Nigel were in control of the attackers, an allied force of Normans with a few Anglo Saxons. My idea being that the defenders are rebel Saxons in 1069 with the Normans getting help from a few Anglo Saxon sympathisers. 

So onto the game, how did we get on?   

I chose a healer priest to help my Anglo Saxons, deployed him by his chapel and Ian promptly charged him with his one cavalry figure. The priest did very well by surviving for 2 rounds of combat before being killed. (So I didn't get to find out how effective a healer can be). The Saxon cavalry man was later killed as he entered the north side of the village. 

The villagers remain at peace, not yet spotting the approaching Normans at the top of the photo. The Norman archer shot the poor peasant at the top end of the village. 

We were soon to find out how deadly archery could be. 

My Anglo Saxons took up positions in the village centre. Nigel's nasty Norman archer shot one of my poor archers before he had a chance to get off even one arrow. Nigel's missile fire was quite deadly whereas mine was quite ineffective. 

Ian's Saxon huscarl led his men on a flanking action around the side of the village searching for lot and trying to set fire to the buildings. 

One of Ian's men having set fire to one building, grabbed a torch and went of on a pyromaniac style romp all round the west side of the village 

Here is 'Pyro' in action. 

My poor Anglo Saxons were in real trouble by now, down to half strength and two further figures fleeing from bad Morale left me in real trouble as the Normans and their allies began to grab the loot and set the much of the village on fire. 

In a last gasp desperate action my Chieftain (figure on the right) attacked Nigel's Norman chieftain  (centre) helped by the last two of my warriors. 

The Norman chieftain was boosted by his 'talent' that allowed him one extra hit point, putting him on 4 . Sadly I only managed to wound him 3 times and in return he had not managed to damage my chieftain at all. The Normans and Saxon allies even survived their morale test without losing any extra figures. 

'Pyro' was still setting fire to all the buildings he could reach. 

The end of the last of 10 turns saw the Norman chieftain survive plus half of his men. With only my chieftain left alive we decided he would run off to fight another day. The Normans had amassed 9 loot so victory was awarded to them. 

Pillage was great fun to play. My photos do not tell of my cowardly saxon warrior who refused to charge every time he was asked to do so. Nor do we see my unarmoured warrior with a dane axe who kept charging and took out two enemy warriors before being killed. These 'cinematic' moments are what bring the game to life with much laughter and also a few moans and groans when the dice let you down. All three of us really enjoyed the game and look forward to playing again, perhaps trying out a Viking faction next time? The game is easy to pick up and so flows well. We got a couple of things wrong during the game but I soon found out what we had done wrong on a quick check in the rules. 

One of the things I like about the rules is it's use of the good old d6 and no fancy tokens or cards etc...so common with many rules recently. Another positive is the simplicity of army/force selection. With force selection being a quick purchase of the equipment each figure actually possesses (WYSIWYG) and a talent or two for your Chieftains.  Agree a points total with your opponent and away you go. We played at around 450pts per side which gave 13 and 14 figures per side. Games or around 10 to 30 figures per side could easily be played in one gaming session. If my memory serves me right I recall mention of a 'campaign' system book and this can only add to the fun.