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| Angles on the Left and the Saxons on the Right |
England C. 590AD
The South Angles and the Middle Saxons of the South West of England began to dispute over the borders of their respective kingdoms, so it was decided that these matters would be settled in the old ways...
Saw the skirmishers of both sides move out and take shots at one another, the Saxon Skirmisher (top most) takes an arrow to the abdomen (non fatal) from the Angle Archer, the Angle Archer in turn also takes a arrow to the abdomen (again non fatal), courtesy of the Saxon archer, the skirmishers with Javelins from both sides move even closer to one another and exchange deadly missile fire, the injured Saxon skirmisher already physically disadvantaged takes another hit to the abdomen area, this time with a javelin, this shot still doesn't kill him but the combined effects of both injuries put him out of the fight, he lies there with his life draining from him and wonders what could have been... meanwhile the other two skirmishers with javelins (two bottom guys) exchange fire and this time its the Angle skirmisher that takes a shot to the abdomen (non fatal) from the Saxon skirmisher, the Saxon seeing that he injured the Angle, draws his Seax from his belt and starts to rush the injured Angle, hoping to finish him off in an act of bravery.
Turn 4 to Turn 6
These turns see both warbands start to move towards one another while the skirmishers attempt to finish each other off, the Angle skirmisher (top of pic) sees the Saxon warband move slowly forward and decides to retreat a little, while the archers turn their attention to the incoming warbands, the Angle archer fires at the Saxon warband, bypassing a ceorl's shield and penetrating his right thigh, this injury slows the Saxon down to half speed, as he winces in pain, the Saxon archer also fires but into the oncoming Angle warband, unfortunately not getting any further than the fronts of their shields, in the meanwhile the Saxon skirmisher (bottom of pic) with seax in hand is charging the injured Angle skirmisher, he finally gets to his intended target, and in the ensuing struggle he manages to add another abdominal wound to the Angle, but it seems that he just doesn't want to die...
Turn 7 to Turn 9
The inevitable finally happens, both warbands finally clash in a violent bloody mess, in one round alone 7 people were either killed in action or were put out of the fight, some notable deaths include a spear to the throat, a hand axe to the head and an axe to the collar bone, slowly but surely the Angles start to run out of troops, by turn 9 the Angle standard bearer takes a two handed axe to the shoulder which collapes him to the ground in a bloody mess, the two Local Lords finally face off but come out evenly matched and the Angle Lord then looks around him and of his 6 men that still were standing 3 of them were heavily injured, so he calls a retreat, and gives the victory to the Saxons.
The Saxons managed to capture the Angle battle standard and either kill or injury most of the Angles, it wasn't all bad for the Angles though, as one of their Thegns killed three Saxons all by himself, it was a fun little encounter and a good way to test the core combat mechanics of my homegrown rule set, there were no formations used, or any battle tactics that resembled how they fought in the Dark Ages, it was purely a test to see how realistic the projectile and hand to hand combat felt, it turned out ok, it was fast, bloody and fairly well balanced, but there is still much tweaking to be done, thats all for now, more later.
End Results: Saxon Victory
Middle Saxons
2 KIA
3 Wounded (2 died later from their wounds)
South Angles
4 KIA
8 Wounded (2 died later from their wounds)
