Through the early morning mist, the folk of Hooktun can be seen going quietly about their daily tasks, with only a few warriors visible on watch.
As the ship beaches and the first raiders reach land, the villagers man the feeble defences of home, whilst the womenfolk rush to the shelter of the church and the monks run to arm themselves.
The bells ring out to summon the fyrd, and the armed monks rush to meet the invaders.
As the first vikings reach the village, they wonder how long they have before the fyrd arrives
The villagers fight bravely and manage to hold the fence line, for quite a while, before numbers and skill tell and they fall .
The monks fight well and only retire when the bishop falls seriously wounded, leaving Haralds men to loot their fair town.
A horn is heard in the distance and Haralds men rummage desperately through the huts to find something worth the bloodshed and effort.
As Harald tries to rally the troops in the village to attack the church and defeat the monks and remaining villagers, before the fyrd arrives.
But, too late for as the fyrd arrives, he must form a shield wall and retreat to the ship.
The men in the village scramble to escape as the fyrd attacks, only to be repulsed.
But as more men of the fyrd deploy through the gateway, Hagars men must make their desperate escape, before they are cut off.
Soon dropped loot and wounded vikings are left to mark the trail of the retreat.
The shield wall cannot be broken and the fyrd follow to the beach, able only to pick of a few men at the last desperate scramble into the surf.
The vikings sail off into the mists leaving the fyrd to count the costs and prepare for next time. Harald will return.
2 comments:
Nice battle report! Looks like fun :-)
It certainly was great fun. The first encounter between our Saxon and Viking 'forces'. We tried out our simple rules, which seemed to work reasonably well.
We've just played another Viking raid scenario, piccies etc hopefully posted soon.
-- Allan
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