Deorham scenario - recommended for dark age fans

[ahuyton]

I recently finished a pair of games with Stockwellpete, the designer, using this dark age scenario. It sees a force of quivering British medium foot (light spear armed) facing off a mass of Saxon warbands. The warbands are mostly average but have superior Generals.

As the British player, you have a couple of advantages. Firstly, some light horse and more foot skirmishers and even against warband these can be useful. Secondly, a nice ridge to stand on and gain height advantage. I moved my forces up to the ridge and tried to get some medium foot around the enemy flank. I also slipped the Light Horse around the flanks and they did quite a bit of harm late on in the game.

As the Saxon, you know that you need to get into contact asap and you get a big advantage in impact. Because the enemy is medium foot, if they lose a melee then they get a further disadvatage in the cohesion test. We had quite a number of double drops of morale, creating chaos. However, at the start of the game you see no enemy forces, due to the ridges. Then gradually, they appear out of the mist and take up a position in front of you.

Both games saw an atmospheric shieldwall clash and predictably, the Saxons got the better of things in both games. The follow-ups after combat and the pursuits after breaking the enemy caused problems for them. The forces started to disperse and in both games this allowed the Saxons to get flank attacks and to achieve some notable successes. A couple of moments stood out.

My British CinC, Conmail the Cautious, was quite tardy in getting into the fight. Despite being a superior warband (I think), his first contact saw his troops lose against an average warband and the general himself die. An unhappy and short-lived adventure.

Pete's Saxon superior CinC, with some guttural barbarian name, then managed to lose a combat against some British peasants, die himself and then disrupt two adjacent superior warbands. Nasty and, to his credit, there were no complaints from my pleasant opponent.

So two good games, full of action and unexpected events. Both games went to the 60% mark, or close, and the final score was one win for the British and one for the Saxons. This suggests a well balanced scenario with plenty of opportunity for both sides, which is credit to the designer.