From Bob Pavlik

Really enjoy the 'clean' look of SAGA. Don't have to remove staples or make up words that ran off the page. Keep it up - looks a bit better. Also enjoy the variety - all WRG makes SAGA a dull boy.

As of late, the fifth annual Hastings battle is planned for October 14th. One to three in favor of the Normans. You think those would learn.

Glad you're handling Gareth Simon's Pallas Armata series, takes forever to get stuff from England. I've enclosed $10.00 for the booklet "Scenarios for Wargamers". Four out of six DBA armies are done for the campaign section of the game and a 25mm War of the Roses DBA army is under construction. I've played so many skirmish games with individually mounted figures I've forgotten how much a army of 25mm cavalry weighs!

Thanks for the encouragement, Bob. What I've done is gone back to collating the issues myself, thus cutting out one generation of printing. Although it takes me two days to sort them all out, the result is well worth the effort. Look for an ad for the available Pallas Armata products next issue.

Phil Wood writes:

I believe that I have found an excellent source for Medieval gunners in 15mm and 25mm scale from Wargames South in the U.K. They are from the period from roughly Bannockburn to Bosworth and do so with a very colorful and accurate set of standards. If you have ever tried to duplicate any of the banners to scale, you know what a task it can be and the people at WGS have carried it out beautifully. Contact Mr. Michael Hickling, 24 Cricketeers Close, Ockley, Dorking, Surrey RH5 5BA, U.K.

From Phil Barker

In reply to Harold Whitehouse, it would have been stranger if there had been no changes in Saxon fighting methods between the original migration and the advent of the Viking raids. To put it simply, they have changed from "have nots" to "haves". The Saxon original warbands have changed from Odin-worshipping invaders fighting frequent bitter battles to occupy and keep someone else's lands to a settled Christian farming community with increasingly more rigid social stratification separating peasant farmers from a relatively inexperienced warrior nobility. Our policy is to put historical breakpoints at a time of little fighting.

Later Saxons and Vikings are armed much the same, except that the latter would have more swords, but think of the cultural differences. The fyrdman is a lowland peasant living huddled in big villages and used to following a long team across big fields, stiff in the joints and stiff in the brain. (A recent TV programme on the Piltdown hoax mentioned that abnormally thick skulls are common in Saxon grave yards!) The equivalent Viking farms small fields on the edges of sea and bog or forested hills, prefers to live out of sight of neighbours, hunts , fishes and has to move about in boats. Those that go "a-Viking" are presumably even more enterprising than those that stay at home.

If the peasant side loses, it goes hungry, then pays tribute. The Viking are on the whole more interested in loot than in pursuing and slaughtering fugitives. They get rich, go home and impress the girls, and tell tall stories that the next lot have to live up to. If the Vikings lose, they have to move pretty smartly to avoid the outraged but lumbering peasantry, get laughed at when they get home still poor, and lose the warrior reputation that often gets them an easy victory. All this makes the Saxons more of a brittle defensive army and the Vikings more of a tenacious offensive one.

That these differences may not have been apparent to the Saxon monks that wrote what passes for history does not mean we should ignore them. The only full battle account is Maldon, where the Saxons choose to defend when offered the chance to attack, keep a rigid shield wall, and the peasants go home after the general falls, leaving his bodyguard to fight to the last man.

In DBM, which sub-divides the DBA troop types into Superior (S), Ordinry (0), Inferior (I) and Fast (F) grades, the main parts of the two armies become (I) spear and (F) warband respectively, which I think sums it up quite nicely. The better sort we call thenes/huscarles become (0) blades and (F) blades. The effect of these grades is that (I) always deduct -1 from an already losing score, (F) do so, but only in the opponents bounds, which means it is better to charge than be charged. (F) also get to move an extra 1" to help them do this. Because fighting is element by element, these grades in practice make a bigger difference than you might suppose, due to the increased chance of suffering an overlap when a neighbour recoils. Stiffening your front with elements of huscarls has an equivalent effect.