In mid-January, I set up the Battle of Hastings on my table using my 25mm medieval figures. Unfortunately, no one showed up to move my toy soldiers around... this left me, and so Hastings was fought solo. The year is 1066, and Harold, King of England, has just beaten off a Viking army, heard that William of Normandy has landed to the south, and has raced south to prevent William from getting too big a foothold. Harold has no cavalry, which means that William's mounted knights would make mincemeat of the Saxon troops on a level plain, so Harold sets up on Senlac Hill, awaiting an attack. Each side had the following types of troops: Normans Mounted knights Foot knights Men@Arms Archers Saxon Housecarls Thanes Archers Mounted knights were most powerful, with foot knights next. For lack of better information, I equated the Norman Men@Arms with the Saxon Thanes. For the most part, the archers played no role in the battle... in fact, they were rather in the way, as the Norman troops attempted, again and again, to storm the Saxon line. For the sake of morale and melee calculations, each unit had 3 stands. Most of my ancient and renaissance and medieval rules, indeed, even my ECW sets, employ 3-stand units. The unit of three makes for sort of a bare-bones outfit... one can see if the unit is in a non-fighting mode, i.e., march-column formation (the stands lined up, one behind the other), or deployed in line (stands alongside each other) ready for battle. In this manner, I can stretch out my assets to the fullest... rarely do I need more than 3 stands to the unit. Since I was the only player in town, and favored neither the Normans nor the Saxons, I took the straight-and-narrow approach and developed a sequence which I followed closely. In addition, I added the usual historical crappola about which much is said and written, but very little has been proven. In particular, I refer to the famous-feigned-flight syndrome, dealing with the Saxons following up a defeated enemy unit. Here, theory has it that the Saxons, if they defeated an enemy coming up the hill at them, would leave the safety of the hill and pursue the enemy downhill, thus breaking the integrity of the Saxon line. The story then goes that William ordered his units to run up the hill, make faces at the enemy, and then fake a retreat, thus drawing the enraged Saxons down the hill and out of line. As I've said before, if you believe this, you believe that DBM is historically accurate. Consider the following conversation: William: "Come here, Sir Argar, I have a task for you." Sir Argar: "Yes, m'Lord" William: "I want you to run up the hill, bang on the housecarl shields for a couple of seconds, and then run like hell down the hill. Never mind the thundering group of irate housecarls that'll be coming down the hill behind you." Sir Argar: "That sounds like a magnificent idea, m'Lord. May I be excused to say goodby to my family and friends?" Sequence The sequence was rather simple: a. The first phase of each half-bound, both Norman and Saxon, was to see if there were any Norman cavalry charges. There was a cumulative 20 percent chance the cavalry would charge, i.e., 20% the first half-bound, 40% the second, etc. If the horsemen did charge, the cycle would start again at 20 percent. It turned out, due to the dice tosses, that the superior Norman knights were quite reluctant to charge forward. b. The second phase was archery. The Normans had "more" archers than the Saxons... but, in any case, the archery of both sides was ineffective. c. Norman movement (10 inches). There was no need in the game to have a phase for Saxon; the sole Saxon raison d'être was to stay in line on the hill. d. Resolve the melees brought about by the Norman contacts. e. If the Saxons beat back the Normans, test the Saxon reaction. Here, on the very first melee, there was a 70 percent chance that the Saxons would pursue the defeated unit. For the second melee, there was a 60 percent chance a pursue would occur. And on the third melee, a 50 percent chance, and so on. What I did, therefore, was to build in a "learning curve" for the Saxons... as the battle wore on, there'd be less and less chance for them to pursue. f. A reinforcement phase, during which both sides got to bring in reserve troops. In particular, the Saxons could fill in the holes in their line resulting either from troops pursuing defeated Normans, or from defeated Saxon units being pushed back in melee. Around Bound 3, one Saxon unit of Housecarls had beaten one of Norman knights, and had actually followed it down the hill, attempting to whomp it yet a second time. In the reinforcement phase (phase f, above), Harold, with a hole in his line, now had to make a tough decision. He could attempt to recall the now-pursuing unit (70 percent chance), or without tossing dice, automatically bring up some of his reinforcements from the backfield. The problem was that he had lost quite a few Housecarls and had no more in his reserve to fill the line. His only available troops were Thanes, and he wasn't sure that he wanted these lower-valued troops to fill the front line. Harold chose to toss the dice... and he was lucky enough to be able to recall his Housecarls, and his line was again intact. But, in general, luck was against Harold... by Bound 5, the shield wall was broken. A Norman cavalry charge had succeeded in penetrating the line. At the same time, one of William's foot knight units had also beaten back a Saxon unit. There was now a huge hole in Harold's line. The entire Saxon right flank had been obliterated, and of the original 8 Housecarl stands comprising the Saxon front line, only 3 were left. And all that Harold had left was an assortment of second-class troops, the Thanes. In the resolution of melee, one 10-sided die toss was used to determine the outcome. The die was modified, and the higher total was declared the winner. There were very few die modifiers: a. +1 if Foot Knights faced Thanes or Housecarls faced Men@Arms b. +1 for the Saxons in defending the hill c. +1 if your unit had more stands than the opponent d. +2 for Mounted Knights facing anything The losing unit lost a stand, and received a casualty marker. I've mentioned before, that for my medieval and renaissance armies, I have a number of standard bearers, whose staffs I've extended by soldering on a 1-inch extension. When a unit receives a casualty marker, it receives a standard bearer, and on the staff, I slip a small bead on the extension. Casualty markers, in this Hastings battle, were not removable. In most of my rules sets, I incorporate a 'rally phase' during which markers may be removed... not so here. I wanted the markers to accumulate. Three markers, i.e. 3 beads on the staff, and the unit lost another stand. A unit that won a melee was given a single bead. A second win earned it yet another. This meant that even if it won a third combat, the accumulation of 3 markers resulted in a lost stand, permanently weakening it. By Bound 5, the time of the Norman break-through, almost every unit in the Saxon force had lost a stand, and most of the rest had accumulated at least one casualty marker, i.e. one bead. In truth, the Norman troops weren't far behind the Saxons in losses, but the determining factor was the Norman cavalry. William had 4 units of Mounted Knights, and all were fresh, due to their previous reluctance to charge. Evidently, the cavalry preferred to let the infantry do the heavy fighting, softening up the Saxon army. When, finally, on Bound 5, the first cavalry charge occurred, the Saxons were in no condition to stand up to the mounted horse. On bound 5, the entire Saxon force gave up and fled the field. In my battle, Harold did not suffer an arrow through his eyeball. I realize this is grossly ahistorical, but I thought that the loss of his kingdom was bad enough. Back to PW Review January 1998 Table of Contents Back to PW Review List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1997 Wally Simon This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com