Age of Penda; my playtest.

I like a new set of Dan Mersey rules, and Age of Penda is set in a period I enjoy.  His Dux Bellorum rules were a favourite at table E, and gave us a great campaign. Should be interesting.

The North Saxons of Saexred of the Red helmet.

(Panda son of Penda was another option)

1 Armoured Warriors with Leader (BR6) @10 points

4 Armoured Warriors (BR5) @ 40 points

4 Unarmoured Warriors (BR3) @ 24 points

1 Skirmishers (BR2) @ 4 points

4 Tactics tokens

78 points

The West Angles of Osbehrt the Obtuse. (A rare angle joke there)

1 Armoured Warriors with Leader (BR6) @10 points

3 Armoured Warriors (BR5) @30 points

5 Unarmoured Warriors (BR3) @ 30 points

2 Skirmishers (BR2) @ 8 points

4 Tactics tokens

78 points

Osbehrt the Obtuse and his West Saxons, flock drying in my garden.  I undercoated and then used an olive green followed by a nato brown wash.  The detail colours, including the metalwork, will be done after the bases dry.  I will also use dark tone shade, which stains some of the flock breaking up the green basing.

The rules require an offset grid, running baseline to baseline squares; 5, 4, 5, 4, 5.  Needless to say I didn't have one of these immediately at hand, however a quick visit to the local Jumbos at the Paphos Mall provided a green blaise poker felt that was so cheap, at €6, it was rude not to.  For figures I had the 15mm Longships rules collection, with some painting left to do on them.  Rather than the 40mm bases Dan Mersey uses it meant I would double up my elements to a 60mm frontage, but in a fit of enthusiasm I based the newly painted figures on 60mm by 30.

The terrain roll of 2d6 was a five, giving me two woods.  Terrain cannot go on the base line, which gave me thirteen possible squares.  I numbered these and rolled a d20, re-rolling anything higher than that thirteen, to give me square 5 and square 10 as wooded.

TERRAIN Roll (amended for my collection)

2, 3         2 x Hills. 

4, 5,        2 x Woods.

6             1 Wood, 1 village

7            1 Wood, 1 Monastary/church and village

8            1 x Stream, 2 Marshes. 

9, 10   2 x Hills, 2 x Woods. 

11, 12    3 x Hills, 3 x Woods

In a solo game I can't reproduce the tactical challenge of the bid and counter bid table at the heart of these rules.  For this playtest I wanted to go through the rules as written, and would swap my Saxon helmets between moves.  

In future I may use a random draw for this mechanism.

With his preponderance of Skirmishers Osbehrt would take the initiative, claiming the first tactical point.  

I deployed 1/3 of Osbehrt's lads and rolled a d6 for Saexred.  A 2 indicated he would focus on his left,  the next third of Osbehrts Warriors went down and a 4 meant Saexred was deploying in the centre.  When the last of the West Angles went down the North Saxons rolled a 6, and against all the odds had deployed evenly across my front.

Easier with a live opponent placing unit by unit

Next the Tactics phase.  I could number the boxes 1 to twelve, and just happen to have a d12, but instead gave way to my inner multiple personalities to play both leaders.  Instead of a grid I placed 12 tokens to be chosen and retained behind the baseline, to save my poor memory some work.

It strikes me this would be a passable play by email game, if anyone was mad enough to do that sort of thing.

In the best imitation of chess squares I labelled row A to E top to bottom, numbered 1 to 4 or 5 left to right.

Osberht has initiative.  He  has two "move", a "special tactic" and a "shoot."

Saexred has two "move" a "special tactic" and a "seize the initiative."

The grid.  Ink lines on 90cm square poker table felt.

The armies go down

Osberht has initiative.  He  has two "move", a "special tactic" and a "shoot."

Saexred has two "move" a "special tactic" and, crucially, "seize the initiative."  Having the initiative means you move and fight first.  But it also means that you get one less action because it has to be chosen first to avoid the other side choosing it.   Osbehrt messed up by missing that.

End of the first turn as the lines move forward.

Osbehrt's bowmen try a shot from the woods into an adjacent area, with a single unarmoured warrior unit.  

But Seaxred uses a special tactic and charges the unarmoured warriors in.  They fail to kill anyone.  The bowmen fight back but also inflict no hits.  Lost in the trees this lot.

The end of turn two.  Seaxred keeps the initiative.  

Seaxred opens with drive them back, a special tactic allowing an extra dice to be rolled in the attack.  Two BR are lost by Osbehrt's bows, shared between the two units.  I make a mistake and roll four dice in the "battle back," and a single hit is inflicted on the warriors..   

The next turn.  Seaxred moves.  He attacks in the two critical sectors.  

Somehow Osbehrt has allowed him to choose two "Battle" tokens and two move tokens.  I suppose Osbehrt was distracted by the fight on the flank.  It's a powerful attack.  

And Seaxred's dice are also powerful.  Nine hits in the central sector.

Osbehrt survives the carnage and battles back a respectable five hits.

The attack on the other flank is also powerful, with another nine hits.  Our North Saxon gains the title "Seaxred of the Nine blows."

Of course If Osbehrt had simply defended that would only have been five hits.  He battles back however and its a disreputable three hits, shared among the three attacking units.

New turn.  It looks like this is the crucial point of the battle.  

Seaxred hits hard in his attack.

He rallies from the battle back, with one BR added to his units.

But Seaxred's master plan for clearing the flank with shooting fails.  He only needed one point for goodness sake.

Seaxred uses "drive them back" rolling an extra dice, and clears the enemy from the sector he is in.  

The Angle line is destroyed.  Osbehrt himself is killed.  The Angles have two warrior units left (at three left they would have lost the game.)  

The end game position.  

I really enjoyed the game, although Osbehrt loss was due entirely to my own mistakes.  I allowed Seaxred to take the initiative literally, but at least that should have given Osbehrt an extra action each turn as Seaxred kept choosing to retain.  

In practice Seaxred used the initiative to force the enemy to keep reacting.  Its an interesting mechanism, although for Dark age warfare?  I`m not sure.  As a solo game it needs some work, but it has some promise.  

I`m tempted to try some Normans vs Saxons under these rules, but first its a rematch with Ossiebert son of Osbehrt and Seaxred of the Nine Blows.