Ian put on a small battle for the boys between Christmas and New Year - which turned out to be the Battle of Hastings. It looked a very simple and drab affair - but proved to be anything but.
No photos I'm afraid. Not only did my son borrow the camera and not recharge the batteries, he also managed to delete the one photo I'd taken of the battlefield. Kids!
Anyway, myself and John took the Saxons and Mark and Russ took the Normans. It was using a set of house rules that focused on disordering units - as disorder increased, units became less able to fight or indeed do anything else, and also became a magnet for non-disordered units to charge them. It was also a timed battle (each order and fight added 5 minutes and this soon added up!). We decided that by 7pm it would be too dark to carry on fighting and it was the Normans job to clear the hill by that time.
The Normans made judicious use of archers and cavalry to create a hole in our right flank on the hill and only throwing in our reserves prevented the line from collapsing, Units would charge in at an advantage but soon find themselves increasingly disordered and get battered in their turn. Much of the Norman cavalry (including a general) were lost this way, at a high cost in huscarls.
Eventually the pressure told and the Normans got through on the right flank in numbers. It looked like they'd easily roll down the flank so we decided to make a charge of our own - with the left flank of Saxons charging the rightmost Normans and archers and inflicting plenty of damage in our turn.
This was matched by a brave Saxon charge - led by Harold himself - to clear the hill of Normans. This was quite successful - William had to get involved to save the day and we came within an ace of killing him. But the charge also resulted in many huscarls stuck in the woods and disordered. We had the chance of getting Harold out of the way into the same woods but left him on top of the hill where he was charged by every Norman unit in range. He fought bravely but was cut down with victory in sight.
There was still much to do as the clock ticked down. With the Normans disordered another charge off the hill was called for and it resulted in killing most of the Norman infantry - and then rushed back up the hill to create a defensive line. We only had one general left but he could still keep the troops together and the Normans realised they did not have enough time to make any major impact.
Result
Ian as ref called it as a minor Saxon victory. Historically there were reinforcements on the way and as long as there were Saxons still around it was felt that the Normans could not have pushed on to London without claiming the day. We had more units on the table than the Normans (albeit many were in the woods) and as we still held the wood, the day was ours.
A great little battle and I'd love to have a crack at doing the Normans next time. The lads have played this a couple of times and it seems the result is different every time.
Thanks for Ian for hosting - and no mention of the fun we had actually trying to find his new house (with the sat nav taking us to a farmyard 300 yards away!).