1066 and all that

 John put on an updated version of his old 1066 Matrix Game, covering...the 1066 campaign. This is one of the earliest matrix games I played, and I believe I last played it at the Conference of wargamers in 2000, with Phil Barker.

This has been tarted up a bit and converted to run on Powerpoint so we can play remotely and geographically distributed around the country.

John B was Harold Godwinson, Tim was Harold Hadrada, Pete was William of Normandy, Russell was Tostig, ex Earl of Northumbria languishing in Flanders, and I was a composite of Morcar of Northumbria and Edwin of Mercia, lumped together as the 'Northern Earls'.

The starting positions in January 1066. Edwin and Morcar are in Mercia and Northumbria, Harold in Wessex. The various disgruntled foreigners are lurking in Norway, Flanders and Normandy. The piles of other units are all out of play until summoned by the players.

Here are Edwin and Morcar. My aim was to defend Mercia and Northumbria, support each other and for some odd reason, avoid fighting any Normans. I'm not sure why but hey ho.

Down south Duke William started raising an army. The weather was terrible so there wasn't much else to do.

Up north however, things got a bit exciting fairly quickly as a vast horde of Vikings under Hadrada landed on the coast of Northumbria and started pillaging. To make matters worse, Hadrada prolcaimed himself King of England!

Edwin and Morcar raised the Fyrd in Northumbria and Mercia, while Harold rode north with his Huscarles.

After a certain amount of manouvering, we ended up fighting a huge battle somewhere east of York (possibly near the bridge at Stamford). In the interim the traitor Tostig had turned up, hoping to ride Hadradas coat tails.

Both sides lined up - Shieldwall! We had a very slight edge in numbers, although the Fyrd were just peasants with pitchforks, but surprisingly an edge in quality too with three lords and their retinues, plus the Huscarles vs Tostig and Hadradas retinues. 

The Vikings rolled appalling dice, and fairly rapidly half their army was destroyed and put to flight. Hadrada survived but Tostig took an arrow in the eye and was killed.

The surviving Vikings took their boats and headed for Mercia, but we just followed them and killed a load more. Hadrada had enough and sailed back for Norway with his ships loaded with loot. Now Sven of Denmark decided it would be a good time to start threatening the north. Edwin and Morcar stayed in Mercia while Harold headed back to Wessex. 

At this juncture, William landed in Wessex with a mighty host.

Now my objectives came home to roost. We couldn't really get into a fight with William so made some feeble excuses about Danes and defended Mercia and Northumbria against Sven. 

When Sven didn't turn up, the Fyrd decided it was time to get the harvest in (it was October 1066 by now) and all headed for home.

Down south, Harold had to take on William alone. I am sure William will reward our restraint when he is crowned King.

Well blow me down! Despite being considerably outnumbered, Harold won!! Duke William made a dash for London with his survivors but they were intercepted and captured en route. I should have sided with Harold. 

At game end, Edwin and Morcar are back in the north, but a victorious King Harold Godwinson is mightily cross at them.

That was excellent fun, and an interesting trip back to one of the early Matrix Games which certainly had a more 'wargame' feel to it than some of our more recent excursions. The two major battles were very exciting and played out in what felt like a plausible manner.

I'm still a bit puzzled about why Morcar didn't want to fight the Normans, perhaps it was for game balance. There is however talk of a 1067 game, as Harold tries to cement his rather tenuous hold on the crown, the Earls of the North rather regret some of their choices and William ponders what he did to annoy God so much.

Goodness knows what Harold Hadrada will do, but the game prompted me to buy a copy of the translation of Snorri Snurlssons "Saga of Harold Hadrada".