Alfred the Great - The Great Heathen Army 871 AD, April Turn Eleven

When a massive Viking army comes down the road from London with five Kings and fifteen Jarls there is really only one thing to do - RUN AWAY!!!!!!

Or as we say in the Wessex army "make a tactical withdrawal". I don't have the strength to risk a field battle with the Vikings and my recourse has to be to try and take advantage of my force multipliers, namely the fortified hexes that force the Vikings to fight for their victory points and hopefully lose a lot of warriors in the process.

With just one Viking resupply period left, I have to hope to do enough damage between now and then whilst husbanding my own forces to allow me to still be contesting issues at the end. So with that strategy in place I put the army into garrison throughout Wessex, even sending off forces from Welengaford to occupy the vacated hexes at Dorchecestre and Abbendun to force the Vikings to fight for them if they want the VPs, which I think they will.

My Royals have pulled back into Wiltunscir to form a reserve, hopefully to take advantage of any Viking slip up whilst taking my defences apart.

Well I can't say I'm surprised, but my Temes forward defence took the brunt of the initial Viking attacks. So lets take the fighting one at at a time:

Assault on Walingaford
The five Viking kings, thirteen Jarls and seventy-six warriors hurled themselves at the walls with the scaling ladders to the fore. My brave garrison of one Earl and twenty warriors threw them back twice inflicting twenty casualties before being overcome on the third assault and dying to the last man without causing further losses to the invaders.

Assault on Dorchecestre
The Vikings send in a paltry force of one Jarl and ten warriors to attack the garrison of five warriors, but fail to get over the walls on the first attempt losing four of their warriors and falling back to Walingaford.

Assault on Abbendun
Again one Jarl and ten warriors move in to attack the walls and fail at the first attempt but my garrison fail to inflict any losses on the attack. On the second attempt they successfully scale the walls and in the subsequent fight wipe out the garrison for no loss.

So the balance sheet shows two fortified hexes lost to the Vikings that nets them five Victory/Resupply points and inflicts casualties on the Saxons of one Earl and twenty five warriors for the loss of twenty five Viking warriors and four moves to go.

I think that is a good result for the Vikings as I would have hoped to have inflicted at least another ten casualties in the fighting, but instead hung on to Dorchecestre for another move which might be almost as good. The Vikings will look to replace these losses in their last resupply so I have to hope to do much better in the next set of combats if I am to stay in the game to the end.

There are forty points available and the Vikings need twenty one of them to get a minor victory.

So the Vikings now hold
Lundene (4), Walingaford (3), Abbendun (2) and three villages (3)
for 12 VP/RSP (Victory/Resupply Points)

Whilst the Saxons have
Wintanceastre (4), Basengas (3), Readingum (3), Cippenhamm (3), Wilton (3), Dorchecestre (2), Malmesbury (2) and eight villages (8)
for 28 VP/RSP

Note; The Vikings have to garrison Saxon areas to get the points, whilst vacant areas revert back to Saxon control.

We will see what Ragnar has to say about things, once he has washed the blood off!

Viking Commentary Turn 11

First I would like to answer the hundreds of you that have been asking about the delay in seeing my Turn reports. Because the Vikings move second in the turn and I am also not stupid, my turn report gets delayed until after I have received the Saxon following move. For example, I have just completed my turn 11 move and after sending it back my next action is to write up my thoughts on what happened. When I receive JJs move 12, I will send off my move 11 for adding into the blog.

Well surprisingly the Saxons have completely dispersed sending their army into garrisons, My initial thoughts are that this is a mistake, I know he has another re-supply turn next go so he might be trying to maximise his forces and he has also sent the Kings as far away from my army as possible to keep them safe, lets wait and see.

So I have to attack something. Checking out the garrisons of the Royal Estates leaves me with Wallingford as the obvious target so the Great Horde head that way and attack, The Saxons have also put five men into each of the Religious Sites to the North so I detach two groups from the London Garrison each consisting of a Jarl and ten men and sail up the Thames to attack them as well. I also send out a warrior to re occupy Saches and Leobriban and what I assume is now called Lambourn by using my Thames movement ability.

I have spent a little time considering what went wrong previously in attacking towns and in fact it was more bad luck than anything else. Royal estates are in fact a 33% option for both attacker and defender so it’s not that bad; if I get in of course I have an even greater advantage so it’s got to be worth a punt,

As it happens I fail the first two goes and the defender hits both of his attempts!! I lose ten men each time One more go, hooray, I'm in , as it happens I get lucky/unlucky , my warriors and Jarls hit and just score enough to wipe the defenders out , my army of Kings who really pile up the casualties Miss! on the only roll that could do so. Never mind as I didn't actually need them, The Saxons miss in return so I capture Wallingford.

At Dorchecestre I fail on a 50/50 to get in and the Saxons hit killing six men so I retreat (I think I might have just made a mistake and that should have been only three) Oh well.

The reverse happens at Abbendune, I breach the walls, kill everyone and the Saxons miss.

This experience tells me that I need to disperse my Kings more to make better use of the easier “With a King”  hit table and that having  thirteen Jarls in one group is pointless as the table only goes up to eight plus.

Alfred the Great - The Great Heathen Army 871 AD, April Turn Ten

So that big hoard of Vikings is set to land at one end of the Temes and I don't have a lot to stop them doing pretty much what they like, so my only hope is to hold what I have for as long as I can and try and force a stalemate.

The towns nearest the Temes are likely to end up besieged and so they need troops to help them hold out whilst still leaving the field army a threat in being to manoeuvre against any weak spots in the Viking offensive.

The dishing out of thirty warriors to the Royal Estates has forced me to recombine the army and I wait in the middle ground to see where the Vikings will strike. I will have to make the best of what I have as I wont get any reinforcements until the end of April (two moves time). Let's hope that wont be too late.

Interesting Viking move swinging their forces to the right, calling in their outliers and using their river mobility to mass with the Great Summer Army, forming two large forces. I suspect using one to lay siege to a tempting target whilst the other makes sure my field army and garrisons behave during the process.

I thought the left would have been moved on trying to get at my weaker estates before they could reinforce. The Viking move has given me a bit more time to prepare a welcoming party and possibly put a stop to their sailing activity. I have to be careful though not to spread myself too thin for as the saying goes - "he who defends everything defends nothing".

I wonder what Ragnar thinks about his situation as he sounded overly concerned in his last musings. The game is presenting problems for both sides as the Saxons aren't quite powerful enough to risk a full on battle and the Vikings have to take some very strong positions to get a hold on victory or corner Alfred and Aelthred and kill them.

Viking Comments Turn 10

Guthrum arrives at last, Halfdan and his army sail down the Thames to join up and together they set off after the Saxons, I leave sufficient troops in London to both defend it and to continue raiding wherever possible.

With only four Viking moves after this to go then I need to force a decisive battle and or start taking towns which is probably the more likely option. This does mean that I will lose men both to storming actions and to garrison duties so this will have to be closely watched.

Hopefully I can force the Saxons apart and negate the problem of weakening my army.

Alfred the Great - The Great Heathen Army 871 AD, March Turn Nine

The next turn in the first turn of April and heralds the arrival of the Viking Great Summer Army consisting of Kings Guthrum, Oscetel and Anwend, seven Jarls and fifty warriors.

With a large and intact Viking Army already in situ on the Temes, King Aethelred and his Wessex army is very much on the defensive if it is to survive the upcoming onslaught.

This turn also happens to be the last Saxon resupply phase before the great Viking army arrives and therefore an opportunity to add to the defences in preparation. I therefore move the main army closer to Basengas in the central position and reinforce my garrisons on the Temes to await events as the initiative shifts to the Pagans.

Well that was interesting. The Vikings do nothing and are content to wait until their massive reinforcement turns up next month and then I think we will see some serious action!!

At this critical stage in our game it might be worth re-stating the victory conditions.

First with regard to the "Great Summer Army"
Kings: Guthrum, Oscetel & Anwend, Jarls 7, Warriors 50

The Great Summer Army (GSA) arrives in Turn 10 and can land in any Fortified Hex (FH) that the River Temes runs through (including Lundene), not manned by Saxons. They can then move their normal movement in the same turn they land.

Vikings-
Major Victory
Is achieved if both Alfred and Aethelred are killed and Wintanceaster has been captured.
Minor Victory
At the completion of the 15th turn Viking victory points are greater than the Saxon victory
points.

Saxons-
Major Victory
All 5 Viking Kings have been killed before end of turn 15
Minor Victory
At the completion of the 15th turn Saxon victory points are greater than the Viking victory points.

So with the initiative very much with the Vikings it is important that one of the Saxon leaders is alive at the end of May to lead the resistance and if we can keep hold of most of the real estate then that will be a bonus.

Stand by for a comment from Ragnar the inscrutable.

Viking Comments Turn Nine

The Saxons have moved towards the centre and are now placed to be able to protect all the major towns preventing me from laying siege to any of the big VP sites ,also they have beefed up the defences as well therefore stopping me from trying to assault them (also any siege would take forever !).

Quite frankly I have no idea what I am going to next even when the Great Summer army arrives in London next turn.

I did consider moving west again towards Chippenham or moving to four hexes north of the Alfred stack thus offering it battle and also possibly moving east to be four hexes away from the Aethelred stack but if the Saxons strip out their garrisons I could get swamped.

So is doing nothing better than doing something for something’s sake? Either way I decide not to move this turn. I suspect the Saxons will do the same.

Alfred the Great - The Great Heathen Army 871 AD, March Turn Eight

Well the Vikings are doing exactly what I would do in this situation which is carefully biding their time and building up their strength whilst awaiting their massive reinforcement to allow them to bring on a battle with little concern for the losses they might incur.

With their fall back to the Temes, there is little I can do to stop their resupply by occupying vacant Saxon religious buildings and villages and their holding of Lundene enables them to make full use of the river to swing their forces from one flank to the other very quickly, whilst my Saxon foot sloggers trudge about the countryside.

I thought that might have been the case and tried to take out Lundene early in the campaign, but the city cannot be laid siege to and assaulting any fortified hex is a huge gamble and as seen can be very costly for nothing gained.

The Wessex army is now moving towards the Temes in two mutually supporting battle groups, one under the King and the other under Alfred. The next turn is the end of March and another Saxon resupply turn which explains the Viking moves to occupy secluded Saxon villages in the hope of restricting my reinforcements before the arrival of the Great Summer Army in the following turn, so the next move will be quite important if the Saxons are to be able to resist the coming storm.

The Viking position along the Temes is strong and gives them a good position to descend on any Saxon force detached and vulnerable.

As always the Pagan remains inscrutable, but I feel we shall here from him soon! His last thoughts about his position from turn seven are up on the last post and were recovered from a naked gibbering monk from the monastery at Abbendun who had unspeakable atrocities committed against his person. Is there nothing these pagans wont stoop to!

Viking Comments Turn Eight

The Saxons move up the road as I had expected and then split into two forces but neither of these groups threaten Abbendun so I can still occupy this area and deny him resources, the two little villages will have to be abandoned as I foresaw.

My Supply turn gives me 11 extra points which I spend on another Jarl and 6 more Warriors which have to be placed in London as it’s my only Fortified Hex.

My Army move is reasonably straight forward, I can now re-combine the army into two groups and occupy the two Religious sites either side of the River. As Turn 9 is yet another Saxon supply turn then I keep the warrior in Saches and move another one down to Leobriban.

My final position now gives me several choices on what to do next however it all depends on were the Saxons move so I don’t have an actual plan at the moment. Its time use the advantage of Cyberboard and try out all those possibilities.

Now why did he split into two groups? Lets have another look at the map, oh yes the Reinforcements from Chippenham couldn't move any further; I need to take this into account.  

Alfred the Great - The Great Heathen Army 871 AD, March Turn Seven

If you have been following this thread of posts up to now, you might like to have a look back at the preceding ones as I have added "Mr Steve Blood-axe's" pagan Viking thoughts about his plans and preparations to the end of those previous postings and will add his comments from the other side of the hill as we go on from now.

Alfred the Great- The Great Heathen Army 871 AD - Introduction
Alfred the Great- The Great Heathen Army 871 AD - Turn One
Alfred the Great- The Great Heathen Army 871 AD - Turn Two
Alfred the Great- The Great Heathen Army 871 AD - Turn Three
Alfred the Great- The Great Heathen Army 871 AD - Turn Four
Alfred the Great- The Great Heathen Army 871 AD - Turns Five & Six

With the start of March, turn seven of our game, Aethelred calls out the shire-men and three Earls and fifteen warriors join the Earl and seven warriors of the garrison at Cippenhamm. I was hoping for seventeen warriors until I realised those pesky Vikings had sailed down the Temes and occupied Abbendum, top right on the map. The only way to stop that kind of thing is to occupy the key sites along the river from Lundene but I don't have enough men to spare from the main army.

King Aethelred then takes his army north towards the town ready to confront the Viking army if necessary. The Royal Estates form the bastions of Wessex and as well as acting as recruit depots form a key part of the defence allowing the main army to create forces to support it in a given area where they are needed.

With a Viking resupply due in the next turn I expect the army will fan out to occupy as many sites as the safely can to gather in the resupply points even though they currently hold ten points. King Bagsecg and his force will probably move to one of the villages nearer the Temes rather than invite attack from my army. He could move to Clere and be beyond my reach but that would separate him from King Halfden's force further north.

Saxon Comment - Post the Viking move.
Well the good news is that my expectation was proven correct and I am in my opponents mind. The bad news is that my expectation was correct and the Vikings are content to build their forces in anticipation of the arrival of  the Great Summer Army. I have a feeling it might be a difficult year!

Not much heard from our Viking friends, other than a comment made in some Norse gibberish from a straggler we picked up and roughly translated by my tame Viking Ealdorman, Uhtred along the lines of "run away and back to the boats". Oh I tell a lie, look what turned up in the Wessex post

Viking Commentary Turn 7

The Saxons end their move sitting directly below Chippenham , this position means that I will not be able to concentrate my army and attack them so I need to think of another idea.

The Viking Resupply is next so instead of staying around Chippenham as I planned, I will move back to the next highest collection of points available which is along the Thames.

Unfortunately given the terrain I cannot get everyone into nice little groups as the forces that were in Malemsbury are limited to how far they can reach due to woods etc so I do the best I can and strengthen this group up a bit just in case.

The reinforcements that sailed up river last turn to occupy Abbendun cross to the other side to occupy Dorchecestre instead for another two points and I push out a single warrior to grab another point at Sashes ?. A shiny new penny to anyone who can tell me what town this is supposed to be. (Warning. Promises involving shiny new pennies will not be honoured)

Next turn I will combine everyone into two groups and I will probably have to abandon the two little towns which is no problem. Hopefully the Saxons will predictably trundle up the road towards me and not go across country as this will mean me having to evacuate Abbendun as well before they score for re supply.            

Alfred the Great - The Great Heathen Army 871 AD, February Turn Six

The start of turn six and after the failure to take Lundene, Aethelred has left garrisons at Readingum and Basengas and brought his forces together in the forest west of Basengas under his and Prince Alfred's leadership and marched south west towards Ethandun.

The Vikings have in their turn been busy laying siege to Cippanhamm causing the loss of three Saxon warriors from the ten in the garrison whilst bringing in their reinforcement of a Jarl and four warriors at Lundene.

With the Wessex army still one move away will Cippanhamm hold out to allow Aethelred to break the siege?

Saxon moves turn 5 & 6

The march by the Wessex army south west has had the desired effect of forcing the Viking army to break its siege of Cippanhamm, but the sneaky Vikings with one eye on the resupply chart have moved into as many villages and Saxon sites as they safely can to restrict the additional Saxon units able to be created next turn.

The Re-supply and Turn Record Chart - A key part of the game's engine, that determines
when reinforcements can be organised

In addition their careful placement means they cannot be reached by the Saxon force in one move.

The Vikings break their siege in turn 6

With the arrival of their Great Summer Army only weeks away, the Vikings can afford to bide their time and limit the Wessex army's ability to build up to meet the threat, or better still overwhelm their force before their comrades arrive. Likewise the pressure builds on the Saxons to risk forcing a battle to weaken the Viking main force and hope to re-coup strength later to contest matters with the second Viking army. The game does pose an intriguing situation.

And now a word from the Vikings

Viking Turn Five

I had to wait a turn for the siege to take effect,

First turn, I can now throw 1 dice needing a 1, a 3 or a 5 to do damage. The damage will then be 1, 2 or 3 casualties accordingly.

I throw a 5, result is 3 dead Saxons.

This could take a while and the main Saxon army is closing in. Let’s see where they end up before deciding what next to do.

Viking Turn Six

If I continue the siege then I get to throw the dice twice this turn for casualties, three times next turn etc. He’s still got 7 men left and an Earl with another Saxon supply turn coming up, better have another look at the rules on supply.

“Can be Placed in any Royal Estate not held by the Vikings “That doesn’t sound very good, better look at sieges and see if that stops him reinforcing. Nope nothing there, Hang on what’s this:

“Counters cannot be re-supplied into a Fortified Hex that is under siege”

Right so I can stick it out if necessary.

The Saxon army is, let’s see, how far away….

Four hexes from my southern most stack so he can attack and easily break the siege.

Well I have two choices, Mass the army somewhere and offer battle or retreat back and occupy Supply points as he has another resupply phase coming up.

If I do offer battle it will have to be SE of Chippenham, then he will resupply first with another 35 points all no doubt going into Chippenham, marching out and joining up with the main army.

Run Away!

My groups are placed just out of range on as many supply points as I can occupy , I also send some warriors by boat from London up the river to Abbendun to prevent another 2 points of supply.

Meanwhile I run through several alternative strategies on what to do in the next few turns, all are fiendishly cunning. Cyberboard has some visual problems with playing, for example I would like a bigger full screen map for this game instead of half screen (not even that) or minute screen but it does let you freely move all the counters around in-between turns trying out lots of different options and all the counters will go back to their original spaces, as long as you don’t press save of course.

Alfred the Great - The Great Heathen Army 871 AD, February Turn Four

It is February 871 AD and with the failed assault on Lundene, Eathelred is forced to retire back to Readingum and regroup.

King Halfden has set his army to foraging in Wiltunseir and is set to gather in fifty-three re-supply points with the four villages each worth eleven points and the Abbey at Malmsbury worth nine points. thus allowing the pagans to reinforce with a minimum of fifty three warriors - dark days for Wessex!

As expected, the failure of the Saxon assault has allowed the Viking force to increase and use their force to surround and lay siege to Cippenhamm

A close up of the siege lines reveals what a lot of Vikings there are.

Oh dear, how sad, never mind!!

Viking Remarks -Turn 4

Just as I expected the tiny garrison of London throw the Saxons back with great loss, (is there no end to my tactical acumen). My total of nine supply points allows me to place another Jarl (5 points) plus four warriors into London to boost the garrison.
My army is now free to advance on Chippenham, with the skilful use of the road system I can just reach the last hex at the back which allows me to completely surround the town and with this achieved and remembering my bloody nose when last assaulting a town I place a siege marker down instead . The Saxons are at least three turns away so I can sit this out and see what happens

Alfred the Great - The Great Heathen Army 871 AD, January Turn Three

Well this was supposed to be the move when the war against the Viking invader shifted irrevocably in favour of Wessex, with the January third turn and the first Resupply turn in favour of the Saxons with the Vikings getting their first resupply next turn in February.

The resupply phase is an opportunity to reinforce your army and for the Saxons is dependent on holding Royal Estates and keeping them and other sites free of Vikings. With all the sites in Wessex free of enemy troops I could gather in 40 resupply points allowing me to buy Earls for five points a piece and warriors at one point per man.

I decided to go for it, buying an Earl and thirty-five warriors and reinforcing Aethelred  to two Earls sixty-five warriors at Readingum in preparation for a march on Lundene to assault and take the city.
As pointed out in the previous post you only have a 33% chance of breaching in an assault and Lundene is unusual in that I cannot lay siege to it, my preferred option.

Taking Lundene would be very useful in that it would remove all Viking presence on the Temes and stop them re-supplying next month, so hopefully the extra warriors I had bought would allow me to buy my way in to deal with the Viking garrison.

So after three failed assaults in which I threw a one every time my Saxon force is sat outside Lundene thirty-three warriors light and with the Vikings able to reinforce next turn. C'est la guerre.

The failure of Aethelred's attack on Lundene is about to reap its reward as the Viking army moves out into the countryside to occupy villages and monasteries to take advantage of their re-supply phase next turn.

Interesting game as the pendulum looks likely to swing in the direction of the Vikings.

The House of Wessex faces it's darkest hour!

Viking Remarks - Turn Three 

The Saxons have advanced on London but as there is not much I can do about that I might as well trust to luck and see what damage elsewhere I can cause.
Also this move the Saxons have announced the results of their supply turn so I take a quick look at the game turn chart and apparently mine is next so I read up the rules on supply. Hmm it looks like I need to occupy areas of the map with numbers on.
Fortunately my march West has brought me into range of numerous villages so I order the army to disperse and to garrison as many as possible. The one thing I check is to make sure each group is strong enough to discourage Saxon attacks from Chippenham.
At the end of my move I have London worth four points and five other points from the Western army.

Alfred the Great - The Great Heathen Army 871 AD, January Turn Two

Having heard of the move and attack on Welengaford by the Viking army and its subsequent repulse, King Aethelred took a large part of the Wessex army north, an Earl and thirty warriors, and re-took Readingum.

Prince Alfred remained in Basengas and was reinforced by troops from Wintanceaster, giving him a force of two Earls and twenty warriors with an Earl and five warriors of Wilton marching to the Wessex capital to garrison the city.

The Saxon position looks stronger with most of the Temes clear of Vikings, but the options are limited with too few troops and no potential reinforcements until next turn.

The one thing that is clear from our first turn is that fortified hexes can be costly to assault, having to break in through the walls with a 33% chance of succeeding, only then can you bring your full force to bear against the garrison. If you fail to breach, that +3 or +4 defence factor will inflict casualties on you times the number of troop types in the garrison plus whatever the garrison can hit you with. That explains why King Halfdan called off his failed assault with nine men down. The siege option is much safer but the luxury of having the time to pursue it may only present once one of the armies is significantly weaker than the other.

If you go for the big battle or major assault, it had better be worth it and not leave you so depleted that you can't resist the counter-attack to follow, or that you can resupply soon after to replace your casualties.

I quite like the little challenge this game presents both sides.

King Halfdan's right hand man, "Mr Steve" seen cooling the Viking masses
outside of  Welengaford. That's quite a good likeness!!

After a rethink outside of Welengaford, King Halfdan leads the Viking army, King Bagsecg, eight Jarls and fifty one warriors off through the snow and into the county of Wiltunseir, towards the Royal estate at Cippanhamm, with its garrison of an Earl and ten warriors. I am sure they will enjoy the countryside with the odd big hill, often with a large white horse stencilled on to the side of it.

January Turn Three to follow and a Saxon resupply turn.

But first a comment from the Viking camp

Viking Turn Two

The Saxons continue to advance with their main army and occupy an empty Readingum , I wonder if I should have left a garrison ?

What to do, well given the example of Welengaford it would appear to be suicidal to attack them so let’s continue moving off to the West and see if they give chase.

Before I decide my move I better check to see if terrain has any effect on battle, hmm apparently not, only towns so it doesn't matter were I end my move.

 (This true account of events has been smuggled out in a dead Saxons skull in the hope that it will counter-act the anti Viking lies being spread in this blog). Ed. Comment - As if!!

Alfred the Great - The Great Heathen Army 871 AD, January Turn One

Turn one of our Cyberboard playtest of Alfred the Great - The Great Heathen Army 871 AD by Mark Sheppard.

Alfred the Great-The Great Heathen Army 871 AD - Set Up

So with the set up completed and the Cyberboard game box emailed to Mr Steve, I set about composing a Saxon move in response to the Viking threat.

It occurs to me that the Wessex leaders need to act swiftly to try and deplete the Vikings early before the summer army turns up and better still clear them off the Temes and kill the two kings. However the Vikings and their warriors are formidable fighters and I need to try and choose my ground carefully to offset this advantage.

The obvious choices are a swift advance on Readingum and either an assault on the walls and bloody fight within (risky) or lay siege  (less risky but more time consuming) and in time move on Lundene to prevent the summer army landing. However the royal army can't reach Readingum in under two moves and this assumes the Vikings will stay put on my approach, which I think is unlikely.

The next strategy would be to advance to the hills north of Basengas, collect a portion of the garrison on the way and invite open battle from the larger Viking army, hoping to so damage them that my remaining garrisons can come together and mop up. This option would allow a fall back to Basengas by any survivors should the need to retreat at some stage present.

The other option is to advance to Basengas and respond to the Vikings next move, which would likely be an attack on Welengaford, thus securing their hold on the Temes. I would assume an assault would be the likely attack which might cause enough damage to their main army for Aethelred to take advantage of.

So leaving a garrison of an Earl and ten warriors in Wintanceaster, King Aethelred and the Wessex army marched north to Basengas, to await events.

In true Viking style King Halfdan marched his host up river to Welengaford and attacked the walls. The brave Wessex garrison resisted this first attempt to break into the town and repulsed the pagans with the loss of nine of their warriors.

King Halfdan deciding discretion being the better part of valour and with his army now nine warriors fewer pulls back into the royal forests to regroup, ending turn one.

Viking Comment - Turn One  

It looks like the Saxons have advanced towards me, the army looks smaller than mine but apparently JJ wants:

a) A fight

and

b) To get his King killed.

So let’s do something else,

First, read the rules on movement and terrain costs, I can move '4' speed and it costs two points to cross woods and hills .There’s a smaller army in Welengaford so let’s attack that.

Ouch, that didn't work so rather than continue with this let's move off to the west.