Shieldwall Campaign 1/24/09

Report on a mini-campaign held at the Edgewood Bunker today (1/24/09). This was GM'd by Adrian using rules from Age of Arthur; although the armies played are from Shieldwall lists. Briefly, there were two successive games with armies of 2,000 points each. Within the two armies, there were 1,000 points each of Normans and Welsh. The armies were pretty close in composition thanks to Dan splitting his Welsh evenly in two. The scenario pitted an invading army of Normans with Welsh allies against a defending army of Normans and Welsh allies. The first game started with a Comes from the invading army issuing a challenge of single combat. Both he and the defender's Comes ended up killing each other; but the battle started nevertheless. The invader's objective in the first game was to get three units across in good order and not be locked in combat. This, however, was not achieved and the defenders were declared victors. The second game's scenario had the invaders regouping after licking their wounds, and finding another area of the river to cross. The objective for this game was to have control of the bridge and fordable crossing area of the river. The invader's plan was to concentrate their forces on the fordable area and initially disregarding the bridge entirely. This almost worked, but the defender's Comes audaciously challenged the invader's Comes to single-combat. The defending Comes' audacity paid off; the invading Comes (aka army general) was slain and the greater part of the invading army failed their subsequent panic tests. The invaders wisely accepted the GM's offer to end the game then and there. I should mention that I played the invaders for both games (Adrian played the first game with me and Wes showed up for the second game). Dan and Bruce D. played the defenders both games. If anything, I hope I learned what not to do next time. Some pictures from the game follow: