Friend Julian has found another set of rules he wants to try so off we go again! Actually, these seemed relatively simple., we may have misinterpreted a few things but it's not football (soccer!), baseball or rugby - we can suit ourselves how we want to play with our toy soldiers! I was happy with the era choice because it let me get a portion of my "Valkyrie" army on the table!
90% of the images are from our mate John, the close-up expert. I didn't take a huge number because as with a lot of pre gunpowder games, not a huge amount changes from turn to turn. Above and below, the initial layout, my army on the left, the two J's on the right
Some lovely Romano British archers from Julians collection
Shadowforge archers from my Valkyrie army
I think John got a bit carried away with his fashion shoot!
Hairy arsed Romano British heavy cavalry
Oh, more archers, in case you hadn't seen enough of them already!
We had balanced forces of four cavalry, four archers/slingers and two heavy infantry each side - J and J obviously split their force between them.
The white dice represent the "courage" value (morale) of the units
The first clash! One of my heavy cavalry units smashes into open order archers - you can probably guess what happened next - first blood to the Valkyries! They also broke through onto the open order cavalry to the rear and pushed them back
After a few turns, the Valkyries had managed to dispatch two of Johns light archer units and were advancing in a solid block in the centre, but things weren't quite as rosy on their left flank in the cavalry clash with Julian. Each commander had also placed a unit of archers in the forest, where they contented themselves exchanging volleys of arrows
John seems to have engaged in another shutter clicking photo shoot at this point - the Valkyrie shield maidens this time!
Back to the action, and the cavalry clash on my eight against Julians heavy cavalry
Julian carelessly allowed his open order light cavalry archers to be caught in front of his heavies
They were dispatched with alacrity - and my second unit of heavies crashed into Julians second line
There is a gap in my images now - I must have got too excited, playing the game! The Valkyrie army definitely had the upper hand, when the heavy units of both commanding generals engaged in a melee in the centre of the field. The results were inconclusive but we both had to take a leader casualty test - anything but a 1would be ok - so of course, both Julian and I rolled a 1!
The Valkyrie leader really does ride an enormous mount!
We got this next bit slightly wrong - we rolled one D6 per unit and they needed a 4 to stand - we should have been rolling the normal number of courage dice apparently - but I preferred the way we did it as it was far more dramatic!
The resulting butchers bill - I lost three more units I think ....
But J and J rolled worse than me, and when the dust settled, I had five units left facing off against three enemy - we decided to call it a Valkyrie victory at this point -YAY!
Some more of Johns close ups to finish off with.
Bondi Beach, Sydney
Melbourne Cup horse racing
They are tough, too 😉😚💪😂
