I have some newly painted dark age heroes along with tons of new armoured infantry, plus an update to the rules, so it was time to play Twilight of the Britons again. Chris and Adam were willing to give it a go.
Summary: Good game and very dark age in flavour. Chris overestimated the ability of his dark age warriors to manoeuvre and got into a bit of a tangle. Adam’s Briton cavalry crushed the English flank guard and hit the Great Fyrd at the rear of English line causing the English shield wall to collapse.
The Armies
I went for circa 500 AD, Briton versus English, and 60 point armies (medium sized). I use the term “English” to cover the Angles (Ængle), Saxons (Sahson) and Jutes (Kentings) from Hengist and Horsa’s arrival in Kent (about 429), through their amalgamation as the English, until Norman subjugation. Technically, Chris’s “English” would have called themselves Sahson.
Adam got the Britons and chose an army strong in heavy cavalry and armoured heavy infantry:
Briton Army
- 1 x Warlord: Epic(+2) Hero
- 1 x War leader: Brave(+1) Hero
- 3 x Comitatus: Epic(+2) Heavy Cavalry, Aggressive, Armoured, Undisciplined
- 6 x Pedyt: Epic(+2) Heavy Infantry, Armoured
- 2 x Peasants: Brave(+1) Heavy Infantry, Undisciplined
- 1 x Javelinmen: Brave(+1) Light Infantry, Javelin
- 1 x Archers: Brave(+1) Light Infantry, Foot Bow
- 1 x Druids or Magicians: Epic(+2) Light Infantry, Curses
- 1 x Christian saint or monks: Epic(+2) Light Infantry, Curses
- 2 x Heroes; 15 x Units; 60 Points; Breakpoint 6
Chris had the English army and went for a bigger all infantry army.
English Army
- 1 x Warlord: Epic(+2) Hero
- 1 x War leader: Brave(+1) Hero
- 2 x Hird: Epic(+2) Heavy Infantry, Aggressive, Armoured, Undisciplined
- 4 x Select Fyrd: Epic(+2) Heavy Infantry, Armoured
- 8 x Great Fyrd: Brave(+1) Heavy Infantry, Undisciplined
- 2 x Archers: Brave(+1) Light Infantry, Foot Bow
- 2 x Heroes; 18 x Units; 59 Points; Breakpoint 7
Table
I used terrain cards which gave a stream, large hill, small hill and large wood. I rotated the small hill and wood features to open up the middle.
Deployment
Then Adam and Chris rolled for who was attacking (Britons) and side edge.
Chris was defending and got the big hill so he deployed his Warlord there.
The subordinate hero on the flat.
Adam’s main warband was facing the English on the flat.
The Briton cavalry were on the Adam’s right.
This deployment left both right wings facing open space. The difference was that the Britons had cavalry on the open flank and the English did not.
The Battle
Both armies advanced on their right, as fast as possible. Obviously the Briton cavalry could go further.
Then both armies started to echelon further. Both Warlords split their warband into two and advanced one faster. The Briton Warlord advanced in the centre with half his warband.
The English were still going flat out on their extreme right near the stream, with the Warlord advancing cautiously off the hill.
In the centre the two shield walls slammed together with the right flanks of both armies curving in towards the centre.
Not all the heavy infantry were involved in this initial scrimmage and the English had weight of numbers.
But the Briton cavalry started chewing on the English flank. First to go with some light archers.
The unit of Great Fyrd behind them were more resilient, but clearly worried.
They quickly routed.
On the far flank the Briton clerics routed some English Hird. Clearly, for that moment at least, God was on their side.
Now the Briton cavalry slammed into the rear of the English shield wall. A unit of the Great Fyrd was first to crumble.
Then some of the Select Fyrd ran.
The battle had settled into a diagonal line with two focuses of action.
As a general approach, Chris was turning some of his infantry into the centre in an attempt to hit flanks of Briton infantry. This is quite a good tactic in DBA but didn’t work well in Twilight of the Britons. Turning meant his nicely aligned shield walls fragmented, and exposed his own flanks to more solid Briton formation.
The infantry fight looked pretty good for the English, but Chris couldn’t ignore the Briton cavalry lurking in his rear.
Then the Briton cavalry hit the rear of the English shield wall for the second time.
Select Fyrd near the hill routed.
If you looked at the battle from a certain perspective the English still looked strong.
But actually the English shield wall was now totally surrounded by Britons.
The English got to their breakpoint. Win to the Britons.
Observations and conclusions
Adam: “Good game. Good dark age flavour”.
Chris: “I lost but I think it is a good system.”
High praise from the guys.
One of the players mentioned that it was nice to play the rules with smaller armies. As it happens these armies are bigger than previous games. Clearly the game flowed better.
The game took 2 hours, about the same as previous games. Nobody complained but this is still longer than a DBA game of 1 hour.
The guys were surprised that no generals died. Perhaps a natural 2 is too rare.
With these sized armies on a 4’x 4′ table, the deployment meant both right flanks overlapped the enemy. I’m worried this will become a pattern. If it does then I’ll probably introduce a rule from Tilly’s Very Bad Day to ensure all heavy infantry deploy in the centre half of the table (so in the centre 2′ on the 4′ table). That would ensure more of a dark age shield wall line up.
The English army list bugs me. We’ve got two types of good heavy infantry. The Hird are “Epic(+2) Heavy Infantry, Aggressive, Armoured, Undisciplined” but the Select Fyrd are only “Epic(+2) Heavy Infantry, Armoured”. I now think this is overly precise – this is 1,500 years ago – and I’m tempted to make all of them the same. All of the other armies only have one type of good heavy infantry. In the next version of the army lists I think I’ll categorise the Select Fyrd like the Hird.
I also discovered that a few of my poor quality infantry stands have armoured figures on them. I’m tempted to rebase to separate them. After all, the presence of armour is the only way to tell the difference in the heavy infantry.
Adam set up with his infantry facing the enemy. Chris did this as well, but tried to swing his infantry into the flank of the Britons. This might work in DBA but didn’t work in Twilight of the Britons. The English infantry became fragmented, could not support each other and ran out of space to recoil.
Getting hit in the rear hurts. That seems appropriate for the period. The game mechanism is getting charged in rear (with modest modifier), taking a hit so having to recoil, then failing to recoil full distance and taking an additional hit. That erodes units very quickly. We liked it.
The Twilight family of games differ from most wargames because a player’s turn does not include offensive combat. Combat is simulated by testing morale of defending troops, in the defending player’s turn. This difference is fundamental and always takes us a while to wrap our heads around it.
The subject of PIPs came up. PIPs are a command and control mechanism from the DBx series of games. Each army gets a number of movement actions determined by a die roll. The PIP system of DBA is fast and simple, so Adam wondered if PIPs would enhance Twilight of the Britons. My feeling is no, it would just turn the game into a pale DBA imitation. The command and control mechanism in the Twilight family are the actions, which allow more nuance and flavour as the cost of slower play.
Looks good. What with my travel schedule and such, may be a while before the Fencibles get a game in. And we’re on track for a Napoleonic dust-up next, whenever that is.
Well that seemed to go well, always good to see this period being gamed independently.