Vikings Vs. Skraelings - LOTR SBG Battle Report

I fought a battle tonight between my newly painted skraelings and a band of vikings that have just sailed over from Iceland to explore the new world.

Setting the Stage for Battle:
The vikings arrived on the shores of Vinland several weeks ago. They have been trading amicably with the skraelings since landing, exchanging cloth for pelts. Some of the natives do not approve of trading with the strange newcomers and ambush a viking patrol, killing them to a man. In retaliation, the vikings decide to completely destroy the nearest native settlement, leaving no one alive.

The vikings have only a small crew with 2 captains, 10 hearthguard with mail, and 8 lightly armored warriors. The skrealings have a warlord, 2 bodyguards, 12 warriors and 6 archers to defend their land with. The natives are unarmored and their stone weapons are not much of a match for mail and shields. This battle will depend on the natives using their defensive position, archers and extra man to beat the vikings.

The vikings start the battle on the beach next to their camp. They will have an initial 1D6 moves before the game starts to represent them sneaking through the woods towards the natives. The natives have a 6 man group watching the vikings from an outpost and the rest of their men in the walled village. The stream and fields can be crossed regularly. The wattle fence around the village is defensible. 

The vikings earn 2 initial moves and win the first initiative, letting them reach the skraeling outpost before they can react. The archers manage to fire into the rampaging vikings but do not cause any damage with their stone tipped arrows.

The first combat of the game is surprising. Despite the advantage of surprise and their heavier weaponry, a viking falls to the spears of the skraelings.

Winning priority again, the vikings swarm the outpost, giving no chance for a retreat to the village. 

The Vikings overwhelm the outpost this turn, killing all but the two archers stationed on the tower. A viking captain stays behind to deal with them. Despite his rank, it takes him the rest of the game to dispatch both archers. This ongoing combat keeps these three men out of the battle for the duration. 

As the outpost falls, the vikings split into two groups and head at full speed for the village. One group aims for the chief and his shield wall defending the gap in the fence, while the other charges at a weekly defended flank. Archers behind the fence fell a running viking. 

The vikings reach the lightly defended wall and push back the skraelings. A lucky priority win means that the skraelings are able to quickly get back into position and prevent the vikings from capitalizing on the opening. 

The viking shield wall on the left hammers into the gap, killing the chief and overlapping both sides of the skraeling shield wall in the first combat. 

As the chiefs warriors crumble, the viking right breaks through the fence. The skraelings are broken and flee the field.

The battle ended as expected. the heavily armored vikings were able to win priority most turns, preventing the skraelings from consolidating into a large group. If the skraelings at the outpost could have retreated to the village and helped to defend the fence the battle might have turned out differently. Alternatively, the chief could have led a shield wall in a sally to try and isolate one wing of the vikings and overwhelm them. The skraelings static defense and inability to react to the viking moves led to their demise. 

Viking raid on a Saxon town

This is a pseudo battle report for a battle I fought in order to try out the wharf I built last night (see previous post). The battle uses the Lord of the Rings SBG rules with soldier profiles that I created.

This is the layout of the table. The Vikings goal was to raid the inn, church, and sheep farm and then return to their ship. The Saxons had to stop them. The Saxons began with 5 guards on the wharf itself while the Vikings began with their whole force on the ship. The remaining Saxon troops would enter from the top of the table. A D6 was rolled to determine how many Saxons entered each turn. 

This is the sheep farm the Vikings are require to raid. To be successful they must contact 3 groups of sheep.

To raid the inn the Vikings must contact 5 barrels.

To succeed in attacking the church the Vikings must enter it.

The Saxon wharf guard was able to defend against the Viking attack by forming a shield wall on the wharf itself. This gave time for the remaining Saxon troops to get on the table and form a large defensive formation in the town, defended on their flanks by buildings. After the wharf fell, The battle quickly degenerated into a scrum between the church and the inn. The Vikings tried to hammer through the shield wall that formed there but were unable to. As the Saxon numbers came to bear the Vikings began routing.

It was a fun game that ended quickly due to the Saxons getting on the table so fast and the wharf guard putting up such a stout defense.

DIY 28mm wharf

Last night I decided to try my hand at making a simple wharf to go along with my longship. I figure the wharf can be used to add to a riverside settlement, or even used alongside a tower as a small riverside outpost that needs raiding. These are the materials that I used:

Not pictured is a drill with a 1/16 bit. I simply squared off three tongue depressors and used some spare pieces glued to the back to hold them together. For the piers I drilled holes all the way around the platform and inserted toothpicks into them. The toothpicks are trimmed above and below the platform and then fixed in place with glue. The ramp is made the same easy as the platform, and attatched with a piece of fabric so that it can hinge. The whole assembly is then spray painted brown and finished with successive dry brushing of lighter browns  and yellows. Here are a few pictures of the wharf in action!

The Vikings use a conveniently empty Saxon wharf to launch an attack on a small town. The Saxon theign leads a motley shield wall of peasants to try and defend the innocent town.

Introduction

Greetings to anyone actually reading this! I am bored at work and decided I needed a platform to share all of my limited knowledge of wargaming and the history that goes along with it. I play 28mm napoleonic skirmish games (sharpe practice) and 28mm dark age games (saga, age of trebuchet, Dux brittanarium). Most of my games are inspired by Bernard Cornwell, who if you haven't read you should. Especially as he is about to become the new George Martin when the TV show "the last kingdom" premiers in a couple of weeks. All of my gaming is solo, by choice as a loner and isolation from a gaming community . I am an avid do it yourselfer and build the majority of my own terrain. My painting is amateurish so forgive me that. Most of my posts will be reviews, battle reports and tutorials and I hope that someone somewhere eventually  reads something and gleans a little bit of information or at the least entertainment from my writing.
When it comes to dark age miniatures, I am pretty much sold on gripping beast. Both their plastics and metals are great, however i do prefer metals just because the details are crisper. I have tried the wargamers factory plastics and they are just terrible. It is difficult to pose the figure so that they look realistic and the detail is so shallow that paint will often fill it in creating a smooth texture less look. I've never had either problem with the GB plastics. Dark age figures from any manufacturer paint up really quickly due to the limited palate and general lack of equipment.
For napoleonics, I am a huge proponent of Front Rank miniatures in the UK. Their somewhat chunky men are easy to paint and very detailed. My favorite aspect of this company is that minis are ordered individually. Very few companies will let you order exactly how many you want of each particular figure. Their prices are very competitive when purchasing from the US, with each figure running 1 GBP. I also have Perry plastic British and French line as well as some plastic dismounted dragons. These figures are cheap and work well for filling out bigger armies. The detail is okay for plastic and they paint quickly, especially the French line.