Battle of Pinhoe 1001 AD - Dux Bellorum

In 1001 a Viking force estimated to have been around 4-5,000 men strong marched on King Ethelred's burgh and fortified city of Exeter led by the infamous Viking raider Palig Tokesen who was supposed to have been preventing such activity for Ethelred, having been paid by the king and granted a manor for his services.

The campaign area in 1001 AD and my home town front and centre in the history

The force set out from its landing point on the beaches of Exmouth and rowed up the River Exe to attack the city but found it well prepared and with the defences able to rely on the protection from the old Roman walls, built by the Legions and kept in good repair since those times.

Failing to intimidate the city to surrender the invaders fell back to Exmouth burning and pillaging the local area on their way but also spreading out further afield so that Lympstone and Topsham went up in flames and Pinhoe, a little village to the north-east of the city, was next on the list of targets.

It came as a bit of a shock to the Vikings to then find that the county army of Devon supported by men from Somerset had gathered on a hill just north of the village.

Kola the High Reeve of Devon and Viking leader Palig Tokesen go toe to toe in our mid-week test game

Dux Bellorum are really very good and I have always enjoyed playing them

Exact and precise details about this battle are not available but what is reported allows some assumptions to be made to try and piece them together.

The likely place for the Anglo-Saxon force to have gathered is Beacon Hill above the village with commanding views out over the surrounding countryside and estuary, perhaps relying on the natural strength of the site to deter any sudden attack.

The army is reported to have been led by the High Reeve of Devon called simply Kola and his deputy Eadsige indicating that the main army of Devon was gathered.

Based on the 8,000 population of Devon available to be taxed it is estimated that the county could have mustered some 2,000 properly equipped warriors plus a few extras added in from across the county border with Somerset.

Beacon Hill with its Celtic Cross where the burial pits would be dug close to Pinhoe Church that stands near the battlefield today

Thus it is thought that the Vikings would have had an advantage in numbers by about two to one and experience given that these Vikings had been making a nuisance of themselves around the south coast of England and East Anglia for a number of years previously so probably knew their stuff when it came to a bit of sword, axe and spear play.

The Vikings on arrival in force attacked immediately, uphill without hesitation and seemed to have caused havoc in that first charge.

However the local forces fought back bravely and although eventually forced off their position and to retreat back to Exeter seemed to have given a good enough account of themselves to have managed to break off and not loose any of their leaders in the process.

The two forces gathered before our game - so nice to get the collection out again and I must plan to get some more!

In addition to that and despite, as one chronicler reports, 'The heathens had the power of the battlefield' the result gained them little and they immediately returned to their ships and Exmouth splitting their forces and with Tokesen hurriedly making his way to London to make his peace with Ethelred.

The game was the first chance to try out my new hills

Thus with this amount of information I thought it might be fun to re-fight this local battle which was fought only about a mile or so from where the Devon Wargames Group meet at next month's club gathering and give myself an opportunity to get the Dark Age collection out in 2019.

As before, my rule-set of choice is Dan Mersey's Dux Bellorum and to help sort out trying to capture the key aspects of this fight in a table-top encounter, before taking it to club, I enrolled the help of my regular wargaming partner Steve M who offered himself up in the role of the Viking leader as we both got reacquainted with the rules.

Kola and his force of Devon Fyrd

With Beacon hill being the key feature of this battle and that the Vikings charged up it in spite of its commanding position I simply put out my new modular hill terrain as seen, sprinkled a limited amount of terrain in the form of the odd set of open woods, small copses and sorted out two armies to fight the standard 'Annals Battle' scenario which is basically a line em up, go at it affair.

Tokesen's veteran Vikings with all those pesky archers

Both armies arranged for battle with Steve's Viking force arranged in three distinct groups on the left of picture 

I opted to set the Anglo Saxons up as per the army list in the book but with 49 points rather than the suggest 32 and with a predominately warrior based force , with only a couple of noble warrior/foot companion bases. In addition I made the Saxons up as a Shield-Wall force.

You can almost hear the shields being beat upon as the war-cry goes up heralding the Viking charge

The Vikings on the other hand were based on the Sea Raiders list with predominantly noble warrior/foot companion bases and a few basic warrior types to make up the numbers. To this force I gave the Viking one extra skirmish base with all of them counted as archers and an extra Leadership Point (LP) token bringing the total to 48 points.

The Anglo-Saxon line waits braced behind their boards

We played through about eight turns of play before calling it a night  with the Anglo-Saxons well on top having neutralised three Viking skirmishers and a warrior base for no loss at that point.

The two lines close and the Saxon skirmishers in the woods closest to camera prepare to ambush the Viking archers with a surprise charge of their own

As always, Shield-walls are tough to break down but the added rule we used to dice to see if LP's used to cancel a hit was effective on a 4,5 or 6 helped to reduce the effectiveness although all the set up is under review following this first test game and we will change rolls and a few set up rules prior to our next rematch next week.

The Saxon line fought in two parts with the bulk of the force on the hill with Kola

We both really enjoyed getting back into Dux B and if you are thinking about playing this set and haven't done so I would readily recommend getting them and playing them.

Crunch! The two lines come together as the Vikings make an impetuous charge on the Saxon shield-wall. However the Vikings are getting the worst of it with the figures behind the lines indicating where casualties have been taken

The decision points for the players throughout the game are many and highly entertaining with the playing of LPs at critical moments in the battle a real highlight that we both thoroughly enjoyed.

On the Saxon left Kola's foot companions met head on with Tokesen's 

Once I have worked out the right balance for this scenario and given the chaps at the DWG the first sighting and playing of it I will report back on how it played and share the set ups and orders of battle in full detail.

The end of this first test game with the Viking line looking battered and with Saxon skirmishers closing in on the rear of the left flank (left of picture)

Kola's companions hold the Viking right as their left collapses

Until then I thought I would share these pictures of out test game to whet the appetite.

Thanks Steve for a fun game and for your input into the scenario and looking forward to next weeks re-run.

References used:
Battlefield Walks Devon - Rupert Mathews

Next up - I'm off to Crusade tomorrow and plan to do my normal report on all the fun of the day plus the long promised Museum of Somerset and visit to Taunton post is done so I will probably get that out next week.

Wargames Foundry - Devon Wargames Group Day

As with last year the Devon Wargames Group trip up to Newark to take in this May's Partizan show also included a day out at Wargames Foundry and a big game of Dux Bellorum, following last year's set to using Musket and Tomahawks.
https://jjwargames.blogspot.com/2017/05/wargames-foundry-devon-wargames-group.html

Jason over at the Welsh Wargamer in Devon blog top-lined this game which saw our combined forces of Vikings, Saxons, Scots/Irish and Romano British troops taking to the field in a straight-forward scenario, 'End of Reign'
https://welshwargamesdevon.blogspot.com/

To quote from the rule book description of this scenario;
"A Warlord's life could be short and brutal, often ending on the battlefield. One sequence of events in the 7th century highlights this only to well: AD 633 at Hatfield Chase Cadwallon and Penda slay Edwin, AD 634 at Havenfield Oswald slays Cadwallon, AD 642 at Maserfeld, Penda slays Oswald, and finally AD 655 at Winwaed Oswiu slays Penda. Phew! The aim of this scenario is to kill your opponents Leader, with other casualties being almost irrelevant."

Once everyone had arrived after an early morning start, to travel from one end of the Fosse Way to the other, namely Devonshire to Nottinghamshire and a reviving brew, the troops were assembled into Dux Bel forces with Steve M  and Pingu commanding their respective sides.

Between the members of the Devon Wargames Group we now have a very large collection of Dark Age figures and the period gets a regular outing in club games.

Thus it was a good choice for allowing us to fill a good size table with figures.

As you will know I spent the last few months of 2017 early 2018 putting together my own Saxon/Viking collection and this was the first occasion that I had nearly all of them on the table with two Saxon and a Viking force fielded as per Dux Bellorum.

Dux Bellorum has been featured here and on the Devon Wargames blog and is a proven favourite set of rules which easily handles multiple players and gives lots of decision points during the game for commanders to decide how best to wield their particular army.

They are not a particularly complicated set of rules and I am still finding new ways of adapting them to the way we like to play.

One particular adaptation for this game that I hadn't played before was to roll a die to determine if a saving attempt was successful rather than allow it to be so automatically.

This small change requiring a roll of 4,5 or 6 on a d6 to confirm the saving attempt made the combats slightly less predictable and much more interesting particularly with shield-walls and I think is something I will use from now on.

The afternoon swung along with the good folks at Foundry keeping everyone fed and watered throughout the day and with the simple objective faced by the opposing armies meant that axes were swung and spears jabbed in happy abandonment with casualties piling up along the two lines.

Sadly Jason's Brits managed to get the better of my brave fierce Saxons out on King Steve's right flank with my warlord going down in a bloody battle that saw both sides in a terrible state at the end.

My warlord getting stuck in out on the right flank and trying to cut a way through to the 'God Botherers' at the back

Fortunately Steve and Tom managed to get control of the centre whilst Chas and Vince held the left flank and surround King Pingu with a wall of spears and axes that saw him fall just as both sides were starting to suffer morale failure losses.

Casualties and gaps among the bases give a flavour of the ferocity of our little battle

King Pingu the killer of kings falls in battle with the combined forces of King Steven

As with last year, this little pre-Partizan gathering at Wargames Foundry was great fun and with a curry in Lincoln that evening made for a thoroughly enjoyable weekend.

Thanks to Vince, Chas Steve M, Tom, Jason, Nathan, Pingu and Andy for all the fun. 

Dux Bellorum at Devon Wargames Group

I had great fun meeting up with the chaps at the DWG yesterday and getting to give the Saxon/Viking collection, covered here on JJ's there first run out using Dux Bellorum.

If you are interested in reading the AAR and my thoughts about the rules, then just follow the link to the club blog.

I thought I would share here on JJ's some of the ideas for running a game of Dux Bel I used yesterday and found added to the whole affair.

There are principally two aspects of a game of Dux Bellorum that need to be readily seen on table by the players to indicate the decisions they take and the results incurred.

These are the placement of Leadership Points against groups and or units to indicate where they intend to influence a combat or movement phase in the current turn.

The players can lay up to three of these chits against any one group or unit and I wanted something that was discreet but easy on the eye.

My choice was to use the SAGA Fatigue Chits that I picked up from Gripping Beast last year at Warfare.

https://www.grippingbeast.co.uk/SAGA_Measuring_Sticks__Token_Sets--category--104.html

Mr Steve later came up with the added idea that we could use them shield side up to indicate when they were being used in combat for defence and flipped over when being used offensively.

The other idea that I was really pleased with was the inclusion by both Steve and myself of sabot fillers to replace the unsightly gaps caused by the removal of figures during combat which we used to record hits against bases.

I really like the degrading this seemed to imply to the respective lines of figures and now feel I need to get several groups of casualty figures painted up to lay about the lines to give an impression of the casualties the fighting has caused.

Finally, one of the key aspects of Dux Bel is the design of the force and a record of its losses during the game to enable easy assessment against the victory conditions.

These list assemblies are very much left to the players to decide how to use, but for a simple pick up game I wanted to get things set around the collection available by listing a core group of units each side would have and then leaving it to the players to decide how the remainder would be structured.

Below is copy of the sheet I gave to the players based on an idea developed by Nick at the DWG which lists that basic core of figures plus the six Leadership Points and then allows a further 23 points to be added at the players choice.

I then added a set of boxes to record the 50 and 75% losses in warrior bases that required a test or caused a break with boxes to tick off as losses were accrued.

Finally I added the unit stats together with my base width measure as a ready reference tool.

If I were use a mounted force I would need to produce a similar sheet but with mounted troops indicated in the core list.

The other addition I think I will make based on yesterdays game would be to add a terrain effects chart on the back of this as a ready reference.

As you might guess I came away very enthused about this set of rules and looking forward to playing again.