Wednesday 31 October 2018

Battle of Hereford 1067

In the last of my pre holiday games and in what seems like, but wasn’t intended as, a tour of all my historical gaming genres I decided it was time to see if I had enough figures to mount a reasonable full scale dark age battle. Through necessity this would likely need to be a Saxon vs Norman battle as that is the bulk of my figures. Anyway step up Eadric the Wild, living in and around Hereford and Shropshire like any good Anglo Saxon he wasn’t happy with William simply taking over and fought a series of raids and battles, around the welsh borders. He allied with the welsh which is even better so I could squeeze in some welsh type mercenaries. Surprisingly little seems to pop up on the Internet about this period, however, it appears he fought and lost a battle at or close to Hereford Castle in 1067 to William fitz Osbern, who the Duke had made Earl of Hereford. This was enough for me....
Eadric the Wild has amassed his Forces on a small rise close to a village on this, his left flank, is his only cavalry a contingent of mercenary welsh light cavalry, the rest of his ‘rebel’ army is a mix of infantry and small units of welsh skirmishers
Earl Osbern as befits his status has several units of the dreaded Norman heavy cavalry
Well armoured Infantry and a couple of small units of cross bowmen
Eadric is here to teach in invader a lesson so orders his army forward
Worryingly Norman heavy cavalry can be seen on the flank
On his left flank the welsh cavalry using hit and run tactics hold the cavalry back for a while
Annoyingly for Eadric the wood in the centre of the battlefield forces his attack line to break up slightly
The first unit of knights has been chased away but ominously a second unit is advancing to the charge
The battlelines have met in the centre, some unlucky morale rolls (seem to be a regular feature at the moment) mean a couple of key units fail to get stuck in for the Anglo-Saxons, but this central clash will be key to the outcome 
Good to see those Norman knight fleeing the battlefield 🙂
Eadric has stabilised his left flank but as the centre weakens he is forced to move troops across to support
Encouraged by Eadric himself the centre is holding
But then suddenly the centre unit collapses !
Another Saxon unit is pulled away from the left flank but it is holding just
As I guess one might expect the central part of the battle field turns into a massive melee but the Saxons are being overpowered and out flanked
Eventually the Saxons are trapped and surrounded their defeat is inevitable and the majority of  Eadric’s troops begin to run. Easric manahea to get away so will fight another day
Earl William inspects his newly conquered village, not sure how the residents would take their new overlord?

A splendid run out for the Dark ages collection, obviously I need to get the movement trays painted. We played with Kinhs of war which worked reasonably well, at the end of the day they are mainly men in armour/mail so there isn’t huge subtlety in the combat.

21 comments:

  1. excellent, I still have loads of Normans to paint, one for the challenge and I have loads of Picts that will double a Northern Saxon types, mainly unarmoured but they need to have a proper run out. One for next year i think

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    1. We can certainly combine and will just need to find a suitable battle ?

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  2. A fine battle tale, Matt! Do your Normans see double duty in your Crusades games?

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    1. Thanks Jonathan, yes the Norman’s are very much designed to be multi purpose, and will hopefully see active service in the first crusade, I also hope they will see service in the Iberian peninsula in and around 1000 AD. As always I look to stretch them to the historical limit, but from what I understand with a little licence they should be able to fight from about 950 AD to 1100

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  3. Great figures, terrain and battle report. A shame the wrong side won.

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    1. Thank AJ I can only agree Eadric wasn’t at all happy when the centre of his force rolled rubbish morale and collapsed !😱

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  4. Daily posts? I can't keep up! Great looking battle, unfortunate that the nasty Normans won!
    Best Iain

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    1. Sorry for the excess, this was catching up. I was disappointed by my morale tests as well 🙁

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  5. Very impressive, Matt! Terrain and troops look excellent.

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    1. Thanks Dean but too kind 🙂 need to get those bases painted up and need some more fearce Norman Knights i think

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  6. Lovely looking and a fave period - enjoyed, thanks. I have the Kings of war Historical (Ancient) book, but not looked at it yet. I picked it up at the Phoenix show for a fiver! :-)

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    1. I like the rules although they can feel a bit too simple. Always looking for, that perfect balance, it if you want something quick to play they are great

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  7. A delicious slice of dark ages delight.

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  8. Great to see a dark age mass battle. It’s been years since mine came out to play. It makes sense the Normans won: they were the dark ages powerhouse for a reason but everyone likes to root for the underdog. 😀

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    1. Thanks Stew, it has taken a while to move from small skirmish games to something a little grander but worth it in the end. The Saxons were quite unlucky with their morale tests !

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  9. A great looking game Matt.

    All the best. Aly

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    1. Thanks for looking Aly....I just need to get those bases sorted out 🙁

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  10. A fine battle there Matt, though a shame about the end result.

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    1. Thanks David..... the Saxons just couldn’t hold it together in the end ☹️

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