Peter Laing Viking Raid Wargame

     Having watched  some of "Viking" on the History Channel and seen another show featuring Viking Berserkers in the last few months, I decided today to use my recently purchased Peter Laing Viking and Normans.  This game used slightly modified BATTLELORE rules and HEROSCAPE terrain pieces. It also gave me a chance to use recently purchased trees.

    The scenario is simply a Viking raid to pillage a village and steal livestock. The local Baron receives word of the Viking landing and prepares to defend the village.

The Baron's army is on top of the page, the Viking army on the bottom.

Three of the Baron's troops in support of each other. When three units are in support, the first "retreat" roll is ignored. This seems to me to represent a Dark Age "shield wall". Notice the unit in the hedged in hex. They are protecting the Baron's livestock.

The Berserkers race forward of the main Viking line.

Viking archers seize the hill. The Viking shield walls are broken up be the woods.

To represent the individual Berserker, each figure is treated as a "light unit" and when suffering a hit, loses one pip on their dice. The Berserker on the left has suffered one hit and was forced to retreat by the archers in the woods.

The leftmost Berserker is forced to retreat again and the Berserker on the upper right of the picture holds back the Barons cavalry.

The Vikings on the left of the field forms a shield wall and closes on the Barons army.

The Viking assault against the Baron's shield wall suffers heavy losses.

The Baron's archers at the edge of the village manage to finish off one Viking unit. The lone figure is the Viking leader and doesn't count towards the unit.

The Viking form their own shield wall and closes with the Baron's shield wall and start inflecting losses to the Barons men.

The Rightmost Berserker kills one of the cavalry.

He also manages to make the remaining cavalry retreat.

The Baron had drawn up his army into three shield walls. The unit holding the village broke out of the shield wall to attack the Viking flank. Between them and the unit behind the hedgerow, they eliminate another Viking unit.

The Viking archers makes one unit retreat (they can be seen on the upper left), another unit of the  Baron's is eliminated, and the Berserker kills an archer in the woods.

The unit behind the hedgerow advances and forces the archers back. The peasant spearmen advance and kills two Viking. The unit of axemen who retreated last turn moves into the hedgerow to complete the shield wall.

The cavalry tries to kill the Berserker; instead they lose one man and the other runs away!

The Viking now try to form a shield wall. The Barons reserve cavalry launches an attack trying to break the Viking before they can form up.

The cavalry on the Baron's left finally kills the Berserker and in it's followup  attacks a fresh Viking unit.

The Berserker in the center is forced back as the Baron's shield wall starts to advance.

The Viking archers kill one cavalryman, while the Viking on the right of the picture kills the last cavalryman.

The cavalry overruns one Viking unit and the Baron's swordsmen kill another Berserker.

At this point the Viking have lost 5 unit to the Baron's 2 unit lost. The first army to lose 6 is defeated. At this point the Viking roll wins the initiative. They use it to retreat.


It was good getting another war-game in. I am happy with the new trees as they give more room in the HEROSCAPE hexes for figures.