I must preface this article with the admission that I know very little about the Dark Ages period beyond the events around the Norman invasion of England. However, the period has appealed sufficiently enough to me to motivate me to collect 25mm figures in tho period for historical wargaming. I have read and enjoyed the issues of SAGA published thus far and have not seen anything relating to this type of historical wargaming and thus, I would like to present a little information on it to the SAGA readership.

My long-time wargaming friend, Rich Black, introduced me to Dark Age wargaming initially. Rich had built up about 250 25am figures which he mounted on single figure bases. All of them were Normans, Saxons, and Vikings. He utilized a set of homegrown rules, once published in MWAN though no'longer available (perhaps they could be reprinted at some time in the future) written by Bob Pavlik of Chicago and modified by Rich. The rules were simply written, easy to learn and play, and consisted of four one- sided pages. Rich drew upon fantasy gaming/role playing to devise some very interesting scenarios which really got me interested in the period.

I began collecting figures from a variety of companies, i.e., Minifigs, Garrison, Hinchliffe, Hal Partha, Citadel, etc., and found that I really enjoyed the fact that I could field forces of entirely different figures which I thought really gave the appearance of being more of a "rabble" than the formal 18th/19th Century armies I was used to up to that time. At present, Rich and I have about 700 or so figures, which we rarely use all of in one game although we did do the Battle of Hastings once, although we will put together scenarios for our local group which meets monthly several times a year and Rich always runs these games for conventions as they are fun to play and a good way of exposing newcomers to the hobby.

The scenarios are quite interesting and I would like, at this time, to pass an some information about how they are done. Rich will create small forces, perhaps using ten to twenty-five figures per force, and put perhaps six to ten such forces into a game. Each is commanded by a single player. He writes up background information as to why the player is present and what his purpose in the game is and the game goes an from there. I remember one well-designed scenario well. I was given a command of perhaps thirty figures and was told that I was local landowner on my way to a feast at the village of my lord, an unpopular figure in the area. I was to attend the feast and overthrow him and replace him myself.

On my way down the road to the village, I encountered a large Norman-type force whose instructions were that he was to investigate the unrest reported in the area (I knew only my pre-game instructions). I moved from a road column to a line type formation because I did not know what he had in mind and he took this to be an offensive reaction and charged us. It wasn't until several turns later that I was able to parley with blu and convince him that I was not out to get him. Off to my side was a woods area and during our melees, a small force left the woods and moved toward the village. The local lord, seeing my force approaching, the Norman force moving near his, and the force moving out of the woods, became alarmed and shifted his small force from one side of the village of the other, expecting an attack from all of us.

The force exiting the woods was only interested in obtaining a herd of sheep In front of the village and was set upon by another small force whose pregame instructions informed him that he was the leader of a small band who were intent upon building a reputation for themselves. At the same time, two long boats, filled with hungry Vikings, beached near the village and the lord continued to go crazy saving his troops around. The Vikings, however, were only returning from a long unsuccessful sea voyage during which they met defeat and were only interested in obtaining a few cows before continuing an their way. The action was interesting and fun as well as fast- paced. Pacts are made between players of different forces and broken when it becomes convenient leading to a considerable amount of distrust and backstabing.

In another scenario, I was the leader of a small band of Vikings returning to their ships after a successful raid. On my flanks were two other small bands of Vikings who were guarding our f&%Anks on our return. We suddenly came upon a large mounted force of Normans who were in the processing of moving up on a village of Saxons. The Normans had been instructed to level the village as a "lesson" to the area but the Saxons were pre-warned and were ready for them. I attempted to talk the players commanding my flanks into holding off the Normans until my force reached the woods and succeeded in doing this, however, my real intention was to have them hold off the enemy until such time as I reached a narrow opening and would be able to place a rearguard action behind to hold off the two other Viking forces and flee with the treasure (loot) by myself and a few selected men.

I think you get the idea. There are always a number of different game possibilities going an at the same time in these games. Once the game starts, even though everyone has guidelines they have to follow to some degree, they are free to add allies, etc., which frequently changes the initial situations and makes for a very interesting game. I have found that everyone enjoys these games and a chance to do some role-playing with historical figures. The possibilities are endless. Rich has designed and build several long-boats, a small Norman-t3rpe castle, villages, etc., all of which increase the choice of scenarios and our enjoyment. We have added some of the Robin Hood range, available from Hinchliffe, for civilians (a tax collector, ladies in waiting, etc.) and these can be used to further develop possible scenarios.

Rich is going to host several of these games at the LITTLE WARS convention to be held this weekend in Chicago and also will host a game at our monthly games in June which I hope to take part in. If so, I will forward an article on the game to our editors for consideration for future publication. I would be interested in hearing, through the pages of SAGA, if anyone else has done anything such as described above. I also wonder if anyone would be interested in submitting scenarios they have devised along these lines. Perhaps our editors could let us know if such submissions are appropriate.