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Wednesday 3 November 2010

Hiberno-Norse to make an appearance

Looks like we are up for Thursday night gaming again but Tom is not coming - he's having his wisdom teeth out poor soul, so it's just Nick and me. We've decided to leave the Very British Civil War game I had planned until Tom is back and Nick and I are playing a 2000pt WAB game from the Shieldwall supplement.

I must say I am looking forward to it. I know that Nick will as usual maximise the crossbowmen in whatever army he chooses - and try to shoot me down before combat, but I can't wait to try out the Shieldwall supplement under the new WAB 2.0 rules.

I've picked a long term favourite of mine - the Hiberno-Norse - one I've played with a lot and always enjoyed using as much!

2000pts gives me a small, but powerful army so we'll see how it does against whatever Nick picks - probably Norman.

The core of the army is a big 28 man Bondi unit armed with thrusting spears and led by a Hersir and a Godi. The Godi basically makes this unit immune from all morale tests while he lives and so they should have some staying power. The Hersir is there to take on any challenges Nick might make on the Godi. This block should give me something to hold ground with an allow me to operate around with the real battle winners of the Vikings - the Hirdmen.

The real strength of the army is two small blocks of 16 and 17 Hirdmen. These are really tough killers (WS4 and toughness 4) and one block is led by the Jarl army general with his standard bearer, and the other another Hersir. Both blocks also have two berserkers in them....

Supporting the killing machines I've got two small units of Bondi bowmen - they will deploy in open order which might be a risk, but means they can charge home if necessary, and ignore skirmishers who rout which is a rule I always fall foul of with my skirmishers!

Then there are two units of thrall skirmishers, armed with slings who are there to shield the Hirdmen and bondi to allow them to get to grips with the enemy without suffering too many missile loses.

Then finally are my two wild card units. I have decided on 2x12man Viking pirate units but will deploy them as skirmishers. Under the old rules I would have had one larger block of these tough killers but then they could form up from skirmish to fight in the front line. That option isn't allowed in WAB 2.0 so they are either skirmisher or Open Order from the start of the game.

I'm going to try them as skirmishers and see if they are as effective. Even though formed bodies ignore skirmishers in their rear or flank - one unit has two hand weapons, the other throwing spears (to re-rolls misses) and with a WS4 and Toughness 4, they should still carve their way through even the toughest troops. The only challenge is that they fear formed bodies so need to take a morale test to charge them, but they are leadership 8 so hopefully should go in more than not! Famous last words.

Either way, these tough killers should destroy whatever skirmishers Nick has in his army and give my hirdmen a clear run in without losing too many men to missiles. We will see.

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