Mortem et Gloriam - The Battle of Dik's Mount, Later Picts vs Norse Irish and allies - Early Medieval bash

 Dik and I arranged a game at Leighton Buzzard Wargames Club, so I gave Dik the choice of what to use and fight (it can be fun) and he plumped for my Later Picts vs his Anglo-Irish Vikings.

My Later Picts, or any of my Picts, don't see action as much as they should, having been superceeded by my Early Scots, so it was nice to build a list for them again and get over 1000 10mm figures on table! I would post a picture of the list, but it's too big for snipping tool to make a clear copy of!

Basically, it's 9 TuGs of Tribal, flexible, 8 bases, 3 protected, 5 not (shudder) all Devastating Charge, nothing else. Great on teh charge, but berittle, especially one it takes losses. An 8 of Attacoti who are Tribal loose unprotected superior dev charge (yes, they basically count as superior dev charge, but then normal blokes in combat), a unit of formed loose protected, short spear, melee expert cavalry, and then 6 6s of unprotected aerage skirmishing archers and 2 6s of javelin armed cantabrian light horse! Two talented generals, two competent subs, 6 scouting and 4 PBS cards.

I defended, and with a very dense mountainous table, we had a secure wooded flank (left) which also had rocky ground, and swallowed three other terrain pieces! Dik chose a mountain, which landed centre table, and I was able to move back into the centre of his deployment area on a 5, jut to be realy annoying. A small forest and a lump of rocky ground on the right scured that flank. Dik chose a piece of open ground, but that fell off too!

 

 

Deployment, and it soon became clear I had loused up my plan and would need to sort that out! The good news is with 8 units of skirmishers, I was almost certain to out scout the one card Norse, who were without a horse, and was able to put down my 6 foot skirmisher units as my first deployment, so I effectively knew where the heavy units were before he even put down the juicy stuff! My Attacoti, and two foot units and a bow went left, with the intention of sneaking through the woods and dealing with Dik's Irish allies. On the right, two skirmish bows fall out of shot as they are tasked with clearing the forest to their front. My light horse awkwardly hold the right, the cavalry sits behind my main battleline, and my other three units of archers hold up the line to the front. 

Dik's army was also 11 fighting TuGs and two SuGs, but his were rock hard Huscarls, a selection of Hirdmen, and a mix of Norse-Irish and Scots Irish supporting troops, quite a large and nasty force! It took me by surprise rather, as I was expecting the usual small, but rock hard, Viking list. It's a clever mix of troops, and one that was going to be difficult for my forces to fight. It's also a very pretty army, like all of Dik's forces, so a pleasure to fight,.

 Unfortunately, there was a mountain that would slow down the bulk of his force! 

  

Turns out the Irish get experienced javelin with shoot and charge! That's quite nasty! Especially when you move your unprotected cavalry too close do they can use their javelins and the shoot and charge use them before my cavalry, so all losses and slowing counts! Dik killed a base and a half, and being unprotected, fleet of foot, had a strong chance of catching my evading horses. Not what I needed with two slows against me! I had put my unit of light horse in two, not the usual three, ranks, to give me more shooting, and knowing Dik's Irish were unprotected (so giving me a +1 in shooting) I am glad I did as the extra width discounts one shooting slow, allowing the horse boys to slip away. Also helping was three hits on three dice. White as I am a single rank shooting but cantabrian, and then two greens (should be yellow, but three greens vs 2 yellows was too tempting). Enough to slow Dik by two too, so we could slip away and my cavlry had killed two bases from the 8 already (Dik illustrates where the two losses will come from, or is just being rude, you decide)!  

  

 

General situation at the end of turn two. My four left had units are realising that facing five on their own was probably not their greatest ever idea! 

On the right, of front line of mine it is amost entuirely skirmishers, who are starting to shoot with effect on the Viking huscarls and hirdmen. To their left, three units of Picts are facing down Dik's centre, which not only is mainly Huscarls, but Huscarls with embedded berserkers: extra nasty!

 

 

In the woods of Dunsinane to the left,  the Attacoti, Pictish warriors and archers close on two units of unprotected Irish, while my Pictish foot wonders why it drew the short straw aganst the rest of the horde, especially as there are two units approaching fast (fleet of foot again) from the right threaten flanks, and a unit in reserve behind the Irish!

  

To the right, Dik's very effective storage system can be seen just sneaking into shot. Oh, you wat game commentary - sorry! The bow line is pinning back three Norse units, while the long line of Huscarls to my left greedily eyed up my Pictish horde. To the right, two more units of 6 of my archers were about to meet a 9 of poor javelinmen in the forest for tea and biscuits. The second line is fun, one command of three Pictish warriors I was just not moving as I had a feeling I would need to reposition them, while my last unit and cavalry were swapping postions to allow the heavy cavalry to move out to the right.

 

Crunch - whimper!

Dik charges, I charge Dik. Charge I am as good as the superior two-haded-cut & crush Vikings with Devastating cage, but after that, I am only so many tiny pieces of confettii as Dik completely out classes me. "Why?" I hear you ask. Because... If I did not do this, he would swamp me with better troops, it's called a holding action (or stupidity on the part of the author).

 

In the woods, the two sets of skirmishers mutally retire to observe things from a distance while my Attacotti and a unit of Picts meet the Scots-Irish head on. The Attacotti suffer from reactive fire as they are unprotected.

 

 

The devastating charge actually hits! That must be a first!

  

 

In teh left-hand woods, the Pictish numbers are telling against the Scots-Irish, both are unprotected, but his are melee experts! Ouchies!

  

Those other charges...  A few wounds but not much going in my favour here, especially as the Norse Huscarls expand and will be throwing reds and yellows against me in short order (especially as they kill the front rank and receal the soft underside, plus have shove). My archers and light horse are enjoying themselves though!

 

Short moments later, disaster approaches. Join ed by the High King, the Norse-Irish chew lumps out of teh Picts, and two units collapse,and one of my generals perishes with them.

(0-4) 

 

However, on the right my guard cavalry (gaurd -as if in the only decent medium or heavy cavalry I have; therefore they must be the guards) crash into the weakend Irish foot (thanks to the light horse doing an amazing job with their shooting), they burst through, leaving me grinning despite losing a base to javelin fire as they closed. (2-4)

 

At the same moment, Dik's poor, combat shy javelinmen charge my average archers.

Yes please! No shooting as we are in a forest, but the melee was rather in my favour and then as poor they took a KaB test on a red for seeing my caalry run over their frineds and legged it too! (3-4)

 

In the centre,the last unit of that coommand shatters inti thoiusands of tiny pieces (3-6) leaving Dik in certain command of the area. Embassingly, I had dented all his units, but no kills here.

  

As night drew in, the Norse-Irish, although ahead, realised that things were not quite going their way.

On the left, two of their units perished in a turn, while one more Pictish unit succumbed (7-8) while a further Pictish unit had avoided being flanked and was holding up two Norse-Irish units single handedly!  In the centre, despite losing three units to the Huscarls, there were still four untouched Pictish foot units waiting, while the Huscarls had all taken losses, and the Pictish bowline, now assisted by both cantabrian light horse, was about to break two units of Hirdmen with shooting, while the Cavalry having broken through was trurning about to charge the Hirdmen in the rear. This wuld almost ceratinly have netted the Picts another two units, and maybe a break on the Norse-Irish army, if my left did not collapse first!

  

At (9-10) both sides agreed that it was an hourouble fight, and withdrew to clense their wounds.

Hell of a game, great laugh and a real nail biter all the way through! Dik's army is superb (and beautiful) and I look forwards to meeting it again soon.