Pics from last night...The Defence of the Chapel of St Cadwyr

As is now customary, here is the second of the batreps from last night, this one with piccies!!

I was really glad we rolled for the 'raid the church' scenario, as it allowed me to use my recently purchased PMC games Dark Age church (now with 'lift-off-able' roof!!)

Here is the table at the start of the game after an uneventful set of terrain rolls...

Aahhh...how peaceful... Monks blissfully undertaking morning prayers, tending the animals, totally unaware of the mayhem about to unfold...

Here are a few pics during turn one. The Saxons only got one turn of movement before I arrived. However, only 2 groups could actually be brought on as the British vanguard... Luckily, most of the Saxon movement was slow in the first turn, giving me some time to organise a hasty defence!

This time I tried a different tactic: 3 formations.... The first had the commanipulares and a group of milites; the second, a group each of milites and levy and the last (under his noble tinyness, Maximus Minimus - cue fanfare!) of two groups of levy. This latter group woul;d take the long way round to the chapel while my main force fought off the key Saxon threat in the centre. I knew Mike had sent 'Leofric the somewhat inebriated' to sneak along the neutral long table edge nearest the chapel intent on some serious plundering, but I also knew that the mass of Gedriht in the centre couldn't be ignored (or left to anyone other than the best of my troops, so that was why my main force fought in the centre leaving the 'crap' to try to head off the looters...

Here's my advancing warband at the close of turn 2...Maximus Minmus front & centre for your viewing pleasure!

My strategy was to attack the Saxon centre early, as I was fairly confident that Mike didn't have too much of a card hand. I was holding 'aggressive charge' so knew I could at least apply that in an early assault on the Saxon lines. Here I am shaping up for the attack...

...while Maximus Minmus keeps sneaking round the back.

My strategyu in the centre was working well. Mike seemed unsettled by my aggressive tactics, evading my charge in the first instance, although ending up being caught by the 'Aggressive Charge' card next turn. He was clearly worried at having only 2 groups of Hearthuard facing 4 of my groups, as the milites and levy under Geraint ap Urien was by now in position to join the attack, so I understand his concern. Alos, when my attacks went in, the initial 'Aggressive Charge' didn't do me many favours. However, in subsequent turns, I was aided by some of the most atrocious dice rolling I have ever seen on Mike's part. It pretty much could have lost him the game there and then, as groups suffered excess shock and then misplaced amphorae all over the place, plunging his force morale dangerously low.

Where HAVE all the Saxons gone???

at this point, however, it finally came together for Mike! He FINALLY rolled the second '6' he needed to successfuly loot the chapel, just as Maximus Minimus formed a rather flimsy shieldwall on the neutral table edge (it was as far as he could get, bless 'im!) Typically, mike had by now amassed a killer carpe Diem hand and the Saxon charge totally obliterated the Britons in two round of combat, with poor old Maximus receiving a wound!! At this point, with his characters running to escape the battle (they had escaped from their routing units) and with my best units largely intact, Mike opted to exit the table with the loot via the neutral edge and risk the  extra casualties...

Below, Leofric 'the permanently bladdered' with his looted barrel of communion wine, shortky before exiting for home!

I was glad Mike won the game, as I made a couple of errors early on with movement in shieldwall and with forgetting to reduce combat dice due to shock on one occasion. This may have made little difference due to Mike's abysmal dice rolling, but nonetheless, I felt bad about it and was happy to lose by 1 point, suffering moderate casualties (that final Saxon charge tipped it over from 'light casualties'). However, Mike had suffered 'heavy casualties', so at least next time he comes for us, we'll be ready!!

Overall, a few errors aside, we played with much less reference to the rules, despite it being at least 3 weeks since the last game. We still got a bit confused over multiple group combat, but are happy that we resolved the queries sensibly. Both of us agreed that we'd been waiting for this game for days and have agreed to reconvene in 2 weeks for the next game. It really is seriously addictive and we are loving every minute of it - I'm sure that come across from our batreps!!

Look out for more in a couple of weeks...