Battle by Lamp Light

OK, life is slowly returning to normal, my wife is off to a dog show and I have a long list of overdue things that need doing. Didn't take too long to decide that the most important thing was to post about my Battle by Lamp Light.

The Barbarians have rushed the hill, their battle line losing all order, while the Duke sends his cavalry to try and flank the barbarian raiders while leading his infantry levies to reinforce the hill.

The game was Reinforcements on Table from CS Grant's Scenarios for Wargames. Rather annoyingly I've lost the set up pictures  but here was the previously posted one.

The local garrison takes post on long ridge, hoping that the Duke will be in time.

The game calls for a small holding force with reinforcements close at hand to hold a key ridge against a larger attacking force. I cut the number of units down to suit what I had available but tried to keep the balance.

I'll let the captions and pictures tell the tale as well as they can but it was a fast paced game with the advantage swaying back and forth and the decision up in the air until the last turn.

The thin line atop the ridge has held the first assault but is in danger of being flanked. Help is at hand though and the Duke's cavalry has cleared the gap to the left while his archers have cleared off the Saxon archers. 

The game left me with two firm decisions: I want get back to painting (and repainting where appropriate) and organizing this collection, and I need to decided if I do or don't really want to play a skirmish game based on individuals even when grouped into units rather than a low level conventional wargame with units. Once the latter, crucial choice is made, I can, maybe, nail down the details of the rules!

The Barbarians have taken two thirds of the ridge but have suffered terrible losses and both of their flanks are now in some danger.

Now, on the surface, this is an ideal setting for a skirmish game and when I only had 1/3 of the current numbers that seemed the only sensible option. There are however, three strikes against it. The first and most crucial is that I'm not really a big fan of 1:1 skirmish games, the second is that my primary source of inspiration, Hal Foster's Prince Valiant  strips, doesn't treat battles that way apart from rare duels between characters. The last is that I have more figures than I can handle at that level.

My compromise has usually been to group them into units but use man to man melee, much as Charge! does for cavalry and light infantry, and that is what I came back to for this game. It worked but.........it seemed to slow the game, replacing thinking about battle plans and quick, tense combats with loads of tedious die rolling.

OK so not a hard decision after all. I need to back up a bit and have 'Characters' and 'Units'. Melee can be a fairly traditional unit vs unit affair with "a die for X number of figures" and a resolution mechanism. I can then have a special mechanism for personal duels where it is warranted.

With the Eorl Helgin down with serious wounds and under attack from three sides the raiders break and flee.

OK, back to catching up with all those days of no house and yard work and with the post hurricane clean up.

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