The Battle of Cyddingastun ....

The Vikings organise themselves ...

Then they advance, the Saxon shield wall seems unperturbed

Both sides exchange javelins, spears and archery ...

The Viking centre charges forward with their axemen in the front row ...

The rest of the Vikings pile in and the battle hots up ...

The Vikings have cut their way through the sheild wall in a number of places and are moving to attack Thegn Rodor and his retinue ....

Thegn Rodor orders his reserve of amoured men to fill the gaps and push the vikings back; Rodor has to fight off a mad viking axeman - he is wounded in the arm as the axe splits his shield but with one blow of his mighty sword arm he cuts of the viking's head.

Slash and cut and splitting of helms and shields continues. As the numbers of men left standing falls theViking find themselves hard pressed ....

The Viking right has been mostly cut down but the Saxons are exhausted ...

The Vikings fall back, the Saxons reform their sheild wall ...

Sven Erikson rallies his men ...

The Viking retire back to their boats, the Saxons hold their ground, a few men move forward - some archers

With the light fading; Thegn Rodor and the Saxons are satisified with watching the Vikings leave and busy themselves dispatching the enemy wounded.

Sven Erikson moves his boats back down the river out into the estuary, he has decided to head for a small island off the coast to make a base of operations there and allow time for his men to recover.

---oXo---

Some notes:
1. A great little solo game - had loads of fun playing
2. The rules I used were designed for smaller numbers of figures and one-on-one fighting, so lots of dice throwing.
3. I had Vikings fall back after losing 50%+ of their strength, close run thing though - the last round of melee went badly for the them and they fell below the limit.
4. start and finish numbers : Saxons 98 down to 61 (37 casualties); Vikings 77 down to 35 (42 casualties).