Mass Battle: With the rules of “By this Axe“, with some situation-based adaptions (like a necessary movement price for rousing the defenders when the surprise attack comes).

Why are we doing this? It is a test for a campaign that is projected to start in the next couple of weeks, and I am looking at this rules set for the incorporated Duel Phase. The rules say, 1 figure is 5 or 20 men. I use figures of 10 men. Because I can.

Spears against a fortress

We are working with a hill fortress overlooking a winding road. The place has a garrison of 200 men: 100 competent archers, 50 competent spearmen, all in light armor, and 50 veteran cavalrymen in medium armor, who are here to check out rumors about the hillmen getting restless.

Obviously, the rumors are true, and Monahan the Bonecrusher is leading a host of 700 warriors, competent but unarmored, against the fort. I assume an advantage for the defenders: They have a fort, they have armor, they are on a hill in a fortified position: Monahan should name himself Monahan the Mad if he really wants to blunt his force against this anvil.

Well, it is his funeral!

And that of a good number of brave patriots on either side.

Stratagem

But he is not hopelessly mad: Monahan is watching the fort and waits for a time when men are outside at the road working with traffic. Then he sends 10 of his trusted housecarls to start a kerfuffle at the road, so that more men go out to get that under control. Once this ruse works, he will storm the hill.

The 10 men make a ruckus, The 10 on the ground get their backup and one additional unit from the fort. 1 unit of archers watches the direction. The initial attack fails, the counterattack by two units hits, and the brave housecarls on the road are slain. But the ploy has worked well enough, three units of the enemy are out in the open. The attack formation runs like hell to get to the fortress.

Charge! … or crawl.

Alas — they roll snake eyes on the charge, which means they are spotted early and don’t get very far. Only two inches to move. The gods are not with Monahan today.

The defenders roll a six on their movement: They rally fast, and the gates close. The 3 units caught outside retreat behind the fort.

Round two, archery phase: The hillmen keep running, but half the archers of the fort can shoot at them. Three hits! And no saves while running. Still, their numerical advantage is great. They trample their fallen comrades underfoot and keep coming.

On the second move luck changes. The Hillmen have initiative and roll 12 for their continued run … their numbers crash against the wall, and six units pass the fort on either side to engage the three outside units.

Two hits connect, and are not parried. The defenders also kill one unit. The last surviving outside defenders roll morale: They are in deep trouble: isolated, flanked, lost more than half of their friends: The modifiers are crushing. No chance. They rout, and run away to the east, like any sensible soldier in the situation would.

Missile duels

Now we have the fort surrounded, and there are archer duels at close range. The defenders are in a superior position, as the only real hope of the hillmen would have been to roll really high on the move in the first round and win the gates while open.

The hillmen — no less than 65 units! — although not all of them are at the wall yet: That’s only 20 so far. Anyway, they shower the walls with javelins. The defenders see a gigantic horde tumble from the forests to crash against their walls. Not a fun place to be in.

5 javelin hits! But the saves are strong due to wall and armor. They roll against a target of 4… but

But on the other hand: They hit 7 times! And the hillmen with no armor are easy pickings.

Shield walls!

Monahan the Bonecrusher yells for his men to use shield walls! They form up, but only after the next volley. 6 javelin hits, 3 archer hits. 3 javelin hits are saved against, but every man counts for the outnumbered defenders.

Slowly the shield wall forms… that takes a while. The archers still have open range.

Only 1 javelin hits, and overcomes the defenses. But two hillmen units go down under the barrage of arrows. By this point the defenders are seriously diminished. Should the cavalry attempt a sally?

For a round let’s see how we fare, now that the barbarians have their shield walls, and their last round of javelins before they are forced to throw rocks.

Three hits, two of them are saved. 1 archer unit goes down. The archers fail to hit any hillmen. Bad vibes. The cavalry prepares to sally forth, the archers concentrate their fire on the front of the fort. No casualties on either side during the missile phase. Now we open the gates, and the riders dash forward with banners streaming.

Cavalry Charge

50 horse against 140 hillmen on this side, but one brave cavalryman is worth 20 of those unwashed dogs, so the odds are actually in favour of the riders!

5 or lower to hit with a charge!

4 hits, 1 saves, 3 of the hillmen go down. Not exactly the spectacular fanfare that we needed. But the dice have been cast! We must win the open field, where our horses rule supreme. And at least the barbarians score no hits against the cavalry.

Next round: Rocks are thrown at the riders. But all hits are saved against. The archers from the walls take out one unit. Rocks thrown from the get close to have an effect, but don’t take out archer units.

Now the charge bonus is lost, but still the cavalry tramples four units of hillmen. Spears score two hits, but the cavalry saves. Rider bonus weighs heavily! On the other hand, the undefended rear of the fort gets climbed by daring warriors eager to dine with their gods.

The cavalry takes out two more units and wins free! Alas, one cavalry unit finally succumbs to the combined barrage of stones and spearpoints. Only 40 horsemen see the open range, ride some distance and turn around to check the situation.

The archers have noticed the breach behind them and take down one unit of intruders. The spearmen race to confront the other one and staunch the flow — and they eliminate the second unit. Alas, three more climb the walls.

The riders charge the hillmen, Bonecrusher orders his own men to charge them too! Who will win initiative and move far enough?

The hillmen win initiative! Their charge catches the riders before they pick up enough speed.

It was a tactical mistake of the riders not to use their full movement distance.

2 hits against the cavalry are saved against. One unit of attackers is trampled. Inside the fort, the archers eliminate one group of intruders, the spearmen join melee with the other two. One unit of spearmen goes down! Three more climbers follow. The fort is clearly lost. But retreat is impossible until the cavalry weeds out the besiegers.

The archers take out one of the units climbing in, then they are joined in melee and must fight knife against spear, while spearmen and barbarians struggle without clear victor. Chaos descends upon the fort.

Outside, the riders twist, turn, hack, trample, kill: They take down four units of hillmen; truly, these riders in medium armor are formidable foes! But numbers take their toll, and the many spearpoints bleed the riders too: Two units go down, two remain.

Morale? Breaks! The surviving riders turn and flee the field, scattered in the wind. They live to tell the tale of the valiant last stand of Green Gnome Fort!

The footmen in the fort itself don’t have that luxury, and yielding to savage hillmen is out of the question. Their only option is the way of honor!

In the struggle door to door, room to room, one unit of archers is slain. Three more units of hillmen enter the fort, now it is seven against three.

One more unit goes down on either side. Three more enter the fray: Two against nine.

The names of their gods, their lovers and their mothers on their tongues the defenders give as good as they get, barricading themselves in the kitchen, but soon enough they fall, one by one, until the last is taken down and the fort is put to the torch.

Victory…?

As expected: of the 700 wildmen under Monahan’s command, only 310 remain. More than half of them litter the hill and battlements, cut, pierced, trampled and broken, either dead or wounded.
Yes, they have slain most of the 200 defenders. 10 spearmen have run away early, 20 riders have fled home, their honor besmirched. 170 lie where they fell, and the surviving wounded get murdered by the barbarians.

Going on makes no sense. Fuming and cursing, Monahan the Bonecrusher must retreat back into the hills before reinforcements are unleashed and destroy what is left of his warband.

Don’t rush forts with spearmen.

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Mass Combat

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Photo: Anna Saveleva on Unsplash