The Road from Fulford.
Posted: Wed Apr 04, 2018 10:29 pm
First off, thanks to everyone who took part in the Battle of Fulford collaborative project, and thanks to Job for the loan of a mat. Even though the Saxons got a severe beating (which was historically the case), I had a lot of fun with this from start to finish. Assembling and building a horde of Dark Age warriors was surprisingly easy and seeing the two massed armies squared off on the table was awesome. The game played fairly quickly and even the players taking up Hail Caesar for the first time seemed to get the gist of the rules pretty early in the game. HC may not be the most in-depth set of rules, but it handles big games with a minimum of fuss.
So, with Fulford done, the Anglo-saxon earls of Mercia and Northumbria defeated and York in the hands of Hardrada's triumphant Vikings, let's have a chat about what comes next.
I'm keen to keep playing Saga, and will probably upgrade to the 2nd edition in the near future. There are no problems with 1st edition, but the new books look gorgeous and I'm a sucker for eye-candy. I imagine Saga will be a regular game for me at Joshin so long as I can get an opponent or two, as it doesn't need particularly big armies or a large gaming space.
Historically The Battle of Fulford was followed by the Battle of Stamford Bridge. This time around the roles of attacker and defender were reversed, with the Anglo-saxon force under Harold Godwinson achieving near total surprise on the Vikings outside York. While Fulford was some 6000 Vikings vs. 5000 Saxons, Stamford was much larger. Hardrada's force is estimated to have been about 9000 in total and Harold's Saxon army was even larger, somewhere north of 10,000. I'm very keen to try a Stamford Bridge game in the future, but it would probably require more time and effort on the part of the Fulford group (sans Yellowstreak, who is leading his hirdmen off to explore the rumours of even further shores). Using the same ratios as Fulford, we'd be looking at around 360 Vikings and about 400+ Saxons between us. Obviously new players would be welcome to join in if they wanted, which would take some of the load off. Stamford was followed a mere three weeks later by the Battle of Hastings, which saw the Saxon army face down Duke William's Normans. After that, there were smaller, but still significant battles as the Normans took control of the country and a couple more invasions by Viking forces. So there are more opportunities for Dark Age battles in the British Isles.
Finally, this project was started as a way to get a group of people all working on the same era and focussed on a particular battle. By that definition, it was a success and we managed to get a good, big game out of it as well as several smaller skirmishes with Saga. At some stage in the future, maybe it would be good to do something like this again? We had a lot of great ideas floated about during the discussion phase, and I'm sure that people have had even more wild notions and crazy inspirations for periods, armies and eras since then. If people want to do this again, I'd be keen!
Well, that's enough from me, over to you. Whether you were a Fulforder or just a bystander, what do you think comes next? What would you like to try?
So, with Fulford done, the Anglo-saxon earls of Mercia and Northumbria defeated and York in the hands of Hardrada's triumphant Vikings, let's have a chat about what comes next.
I'm keen to keep playing Saga, and will probably upgrade to the 2nd edition in the near future. There are no problems with 1st edition, but the new books look gorgeous and I'm a sucker for eye-candy. I imagine Saga will be a regular game for me at Joshin so long as I can get an opponent or two, as it doesn't need particularly big armies or a large gaming space.
Historically The Battle of Fulford was followed by the Battle of Stamford Bridge. This time around the roles of attacker and defender were reversed, with the Anglo-saxon force under Harold Godwinson achieving near total surprise on the Vikings outside York. While Fulford was some 6000 Vikings vs. 5000 Saxons, Stamford was much larger. Hardrada's force is estimated to have been about 9000 in total and Harold's Saxon army was even larger, somewhere north of 10,000. I'm very keen to try a Stamford Bridge game in the future, but it would probably require more time and effort on the part of the Fulford group (sans Yellowstreak, who is leading his hirdmen off to explore the rumours of even further shores). Using the same ratios as Fulford, we'd be looking at around 360 Vikings and about 400+ Saxons between us. Obviously new players would be welcome to join in if they wanted, which would take some of the load off. Stamford was followed a mere three weeks later by the Battle of Hastings, which saw the Saxon army face down Duke William's Normans. After that, there were smaller, but still significant battles as the Normans took control of the country and a couple more invasions by Viking forces. So there are more opportunities for Dark Age battles in the British Isles.
Finally, this project was started as a way to get a group of people all working on the same era and focussed on a particular battle. By that definition, it was a success and we managed to get a good, big game out of it as well as several smaller skirmishes with Saga. At some stage in the future, maybe it would be good to do something like this again? We had a lot of great ideas floated about during the discussion phase, and I'm sure that people have had even more wild notions and crazy inspirations for periods, armies and eras since then. If people want to do this again, I'd be keen!
Well, that's enough from me, over to you. Whether you were a Fulforder or just a bystander, what do you think comes next? What would you like to try?