The Battle of Stanford Bridge and Hastings

- By Russell Briant

On Saturday 20th as part of the clubs Octoberfest theme day there were re-fights of two battles that occurred in October 1066 that shaped the history of Britain.

If only the combatants had used DBM version 2.0, how different that history might have been.

Peter Dunn organised the event based on scenarios found in an old (mid 80’s) war gaming book. Peter, Mike Anastasiadis, David Kinzett, Sam King, Alan Knowsley and I were the re-fighters.

 Alan gets in the mood of things

For Stamford Bridge (the opening Saga) Harold Godwinson (Mike, Russell), uncrowned king of England had (approximately – the writer’s memory has been a little off since the battle axe to the head) 8 elements of Huscarl, Ordinary Blade and 48 elements Fryd, Inferior Spear. He also had one command dice with NO CinC bonus. These were deployed on a gentle hill facing a river and the bridge. Harold and six of his Huscarls were in the middle. Fryd, two elements deep on either side with a single Huscarl element closing off each end of the line.

 The Stamford Bridge armies set up and ready to fight!

The Norwegian Vikings were in two commands. Tostig (Harry G’s disgruntled brother – Alan, Peter) had 22 Fast Blade Vikings on the English side of the river supported to the rear by 3 javelin skirmisher elements. The blade’s were deployed in a single line in front of the bridge with the ends of the line bent back resting on the river. Tostig also had one command dice, no bonus.

On the far bank of the river was Harald Hardrada with 10 more Vikings which were only able come across the bridge at a maximum of one element a round. Victory conditions were 10 Vikings or 8 English elements destroyed.

Michael and I, after a short discussion on the merits of the Hanibal’s refused flank manoeuvre at Cannae and the Spaskie opening gambit, said ‘sod it lets rush them’….. Which the English did, after a fashion, surging forward on PIP dice of 2, 1, 1, 1.

Tostig was as keen and the lines met. The game resolved itself very quickly. A bit of push and shove to start with. When the Vikings lost a combat they recoiled out of the reach of the following up English. The next English round invariably left them with insufficient PIP (allowable moves for those unfamiliar with the DBM lexicon) to rejoin contact all down the line. In the Norwegian round the impetuous nature of the Vikings meant they automatically got every one back into contact.

An overlap or two here, a 6 to 1 dice result there and soon holes were appearing in both lines. The English deployment meant they had no reserves to plug gaps or stop pinning overlaps occurring and when they lost the Inferior spears it cost them two elements. The Viking cross-bridge forces hardly got involved. Hail Harold new king of England and Norway.

Norway 1 England 0

Double or Quits. For the rematch we swapped armies, England gained two Psiloi light infantry archers, the Vikings 4 elements of archers on the far side of the river who never effected the game.

Sam and I played the Viking. Same result only faster, now we have seen how to exploit the inherent speed and ferocity advantages of the Norwegians.

Once more for England and Harry… This time the brains trust has decided that historically the Vikings on the English side of the river had been heading to York to accept surrender and have a booze up and had been caught by surprise by Godwinson. We thought that if they were all Inferior Blade, this would be a better representation and remove their speed and impetuosity advantage.

And so it turned out… to a point! English (Sam, Russell) started winning on both wings. Harold cleaved his way through the middle only to get jumped on by the Viking (David) reserves who got over the bridge. Norway 3 England 0 - talk about a new coach mid season in the tabloids.

The last re-fight was much closer. Talk about creating some reserves to cover holes in the English line was thought to be worth a crack were we to do Stanford Bridge again.

At the Hastings fight the English Huscarls deployed in the centre in a first AND a reserve line (only to never get in the fight to prove the theory). The English deployed some distance back on a long ridge. Again only one command dice but Mike Anastaisadis and I wheedled, gaining the CinC’s bonus +1.

 Battle of Hastings!

On the Norman side there were three commands. 8 or so Inferior Flemish spearmen and 6 Fast Knights face our left flank (Alan). William the B’std (Dave Kinzitt) in the middle with 8 Inferior Bow, 8 Inferior Spear and 10 or so Fast Knights hold the centre. On or Right were the Brettons (Sam) with 10 Ordinary Bow and 8 Ordinary Cavalry.

The Norman Plan was to sacrifice the Flemmings to make part of the English army go impetuous and come running off the hill where Willy and the boys could mop them up. They also planned to push forward the archers to either break up the English line or draw the English off the hill, or both.

The English plan was to a) draw the Archers on to the lower slopes and then rush down and brain them. b) deal with what ever else turns up, preferably while on the hill.

The Norman assault timetable got a little out of sync. The Norman Archers arrived at the hill before the Flemmings had been sacrificed. The English spearmen chewed on the archers. The Flemish Knights charged through to save the remnant bows only to lose a couple for their effort. On the right the Breton archers attack the base of the hill but fared reasonably well when charged, recoiling rather than dying.

On the English’s left the remaining knights started killing English spearmen and it got to within one element of the victory conditions for both teams. The critical conflict involved a knight and a spear element, neither who had space to recoil. The spearmen prevailed. Again history was re-written.

Good fun. Thanks Pete for organising. Special mention to Alan who turned up in his own mail shirt and cap (prompted an interesting discussion on how it was possible to keep mail shiny)

I headed off to the stadium to try and convince Wellington to use the WRG DBM version 2.0 rules rather than the IRB NZ NPC variation. Alas they didn’t and history was not re-written against Otago.