Sunday, May 25, 2008
Warhammer Ancient Battles Viking vs Norman Battle Report
Miniatures Games
I recently finished the second phase of my 1066 Campaign project by basing and clear coating more than 300 Norman infantry and cavalry. To celebrate, I ran a large Warhammer Ancient Battles game featuring Vikings and Normans. There are some photos of the Viking, Normans and the table here.
The scenario involved a Viking attack on a Norman province. The Viking force was approximately half Hirdmen, and half Bondi, with a smattering of bows, Ulfhednar and berserkers. The Normans consisted of about 1/3 each of cavalry, knight infantry, and medium/light troops. There were also several contingents of mercenary crossbow.
The main body of the Vikings advanced behind a screen of bow and ulfhednar skirmishers. These took heavy casualties from the Norman crossbowmen, whose range was much longer.
Still, the skirmishers did their job, and the main body of Vikings advanced with little damage.
Then the Norman cavalry charged. The Viking players (myself included) were convinced that the Normans would sweep away all in their path. It didn’t work out that way. The Normans had some incredibly bad luck, and the cavalry actually lost all of the combats; they then failed their leadership tests and fled.
At this point, the beserkers in the Viking ranks ran forward and hammered a couple of Norman knight infantry that got too close. They didn’t break, but lost enough figures to lose future rank bonuses.
The main body of Vikings next came into contact with the Norman knight infantry. More incredibly bad rolling for the Normans followed, and the Norman infantry began to slowly fall back.
In Warhammer, however, the tide can quickly change. One unit of Viking hirdmen lost a combat, then blew a leadership test. Adjacent units flubbed their panic tests, and the entire left wing of the Viking army fell back.
The right wing, however, continued its slow, inexorable push. One by one the Norman knight units—both mounted and foot—fell back. They recovered, but always losing ground, and running out of table.
After several winning turns on the left, the Normans returned to form with their luck and began losing again. Two Norman medium infantry units were destroyed, as were two units of peasants.
By this time, the Vikings had a numerical advantage—not necessarily in figures, but in units. That meant that they could pin the Normans with one unit, while flanking them with others.
It was hopeless. We all agreed that at this point, the mounted knights would head for the hills, leaving the hapless foot troops behind to get slaughtered.
We all like Warhammer Ancients—its fun, but as one 30-year veteran wargamer said, “it’s very Games Workshoppy.” There are plenty of bits in the game that leave us scratching our heads.
The main complaint was with the armor saves. After rolling to hit, and then to wound, it was one roll too many. We had quite a bit of discussion about whether it’s really needed. A much more clean solution would be to adjust the toughness of the figure to reflect armor. An unarmored human for example, might have a base toughness of 2. Add a shield, and it’s a 3; light armor makes it a 4, heavy armor and shield is a 5; and so on.
Of course, the real problem is Games Workshop’s decision to base all of their games on the d6. The three different rolls are necessary to provide sufficient granularity distinguishing between troop types—especially with different races in the fantasy and science fiction games.
I’m kind of surprised that they haven’t switched to 10 or 12 sided dice. As part of their business model GW makes their old system obsolete every few years, introducing “new” rules, army lists and models. It would be easy for them to make a clean break with the d6 system and to go to two rolls (it also would cut out people like me playing with a Squat army painted twenty years ago, and still using the same stats; I’d have to buy a new rule book to play with current players).
One argument for keeping the armor save is that it keeps the defender involved. We rejected this; the defender could make the toughness roll as a “save.”
Finally, a few notes about the figures and terrain:
The vast majority of the figures in the game are Gripping Beast. The exceptions were a “horde” of Foundry Vikings that I had bought one year on sale. They’re all painted with Vallejo paints, and heavy doses of wash made from Future. My technique is to paint an area in its base color, then to apply a wash of a deeper hue.
Figures based on 1 inch washers, which are coated in superglue and then dipped in mix of several different shades of fine model railroad ballast. When that’s dry, I apply a couple more dabs of superglue and then dipped into green flock.
The movement trays were made of cardboard and magnetic vinyl. To speed play, I stuck small bits of paper with the unit’s stats to the rear of the bases.
The table is covered with carpet squares I found at Big Lots. The squares were sprayed with various shades of acrylic spray paint to give an uneven look.
The buildings are all Hudson and Allen. The roads are hand made from brown acrylic caulk. I squeeze some out on wax paper, then smear it to the proper width with wet popsicle sticks. Just before they set, I use the same sticks to put rut impressions in them, and doss on a couple of pieces of gravel and small sticks. When the road pieces are dry, I trim to size with scissors.
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