Saga Campaign - Death at sunset

The Winter sun disappeared over the treetops as Rufus led his warriors back to the homestead where they had quartered themselves.  The men were tired and the horses in urgent need of fodder in a land which lacked both rest and food.  The Saxons had burned or hidden that which the Norman conquerors had not already found and fought hard for the meagre remains of their homes.

Fighting down what little pity he had for his enemy the Norman warlord had taken his best knights plus a few of his archers to make a lightening raid into as yet unoccupied territory. However, the pickings were lean, the villages so desolate already from the winter that it seemed hardly worth setting them alight and their inhabitants long fled.

With what little light remained the weary troops forced themselves on as they began to look forward to the small comforts of their billet.

A shout startled the crows from their nests and the men in their saddles.  In front of them, and as alarmed by the appearance of the enemy as their Norman foe, was a Saxon warband, on foot and equally as fatigued. “Archers to the front”,  Rufus called and the warriors of both armies fought to see who would form their battle lines first.

This was 'Battle Twilight' and quite honestly during the game I dont think I really understood the concept of this scenario.  This had a lot to do with the fact that we didn't deploy correctly as per the requirements for the game which would have made more sense.  In the rules the armies are all over the place as two forces are intermingled, attacking and being attacked from all sides.

So using our standard deployment the game lacked the tension the game designer intended but we made a good stab of it.

My flanking manouvre was a disaster wiping out half of my men and accruing too much fatigue in the process

Needing to force himself into my quarter to score points the huscarls exposed themselves to withering and surprisingly accurate archery

In the end I won based on points - the first to 6 conquering victory points, wins.

I felt like neither of us had done anything special and I had a slight advantage due to the manouverability of my cavalry.

The relief that he and his men had ‘escaped’ relatively unscathed from the contact was deeply felt by Rufus who chastised himself for being so careless in allowing themselves to be nearly caught by the Saxon rabble.

Using the advantage of falling darkness and the confusion spread by the minor casualties inflicted on the enemy, the Normans decided not to push their luck in staying to complete their ‘victory’.  Pah! A victory?  If he heard any of his men mention this evenings debacle he’d cut their lips off.