AAR Warrior: The Great Viking Flush

After Action Report, Anglo Danes vs. Anglo Irish.

AKA The Great Viking Flush

2,000 point Warrior.

Anglo Danes: Dave Boor, Jeff Billings

Anglo Irish :   Phil Gardocki, Ed Bernhard

Judge:  Scott Holder

You have all heard about it.  This story is still rolling around, as I heard it late last year.  This is to set the story straight. If you want validation, the names are all up in the upper left corner.  I ran this by them for editing before posting this AAR.

It happened during Cold Wars.  I don’t remember the year, somewhere between 1990 and 1996.  As we were playing in the lobby of the Distelfink room at the Lancaster Host, this should give us a time frame.

As Scott sometimes shows a wicked sense of humor with army pairings, we had set up an Anglo Civil war.  All the players have known each other for a long time.  Jeff had introduced me to WRG 6 in 1984, and I introduced WRG to Dave and Ed a few years later.

THE BOARD.

At the time, my standard terrain picks was Major Water, Minor Water, and 2 hills.  I have given up the minor water since then because even if you get it, the feature is so annoying that it takes the enjoyment out of the game.  When the dice were done rolling, the Major was on the Anglo-Irish right flank, and the minor was running just on the inside of the muster zone on the Anglo-Danes side of the board.  A bridge was placed about 2 feet from the Major Water. The hills were both placed in the Anglo-Irish muster zone, one up against the left edge, the other close to the center.

THE DEPLOYMENT

The Anglo Irish were deployed from the left flank to just right of Center.  96 Longbow were deployed on the 2 steep hills in the deployment zone, Galloglaich, Knights, and Cavalry in the plains. 

The Anglo-Danes being close order, were deployed in deep columns in an effort to march across the bridge available to them.  An Allied force of Vikings, being loose order and representing some 800 points of the list, were deployed in the minor water feature set to march out on bound one.

RULES INTERLUDE

We were in a cold climate the minor water feature is considered tidal.  We all knew this on deployment, and spent the next 15 minutes hashing out the rules regarding the nature of the tidal feature.   It was understood that once we scoped out the rules, that that Dave could move his Vikings to a safer position behind the feature, as opposed to being in the feature.

Basically the rules are as follows:

        The minor water feature has 8 depth levels.

1-6 is passable to foot

7 is passable to mounted only

8 is passable to none.

        After Deployment, roll a Die 6 to determine the depth of the feature.  Maximum depth is 6.

        On bound 1.  Roll for tides.  On a 6 the tides come in and the depth is incremented by 1.  On a 1, the tides go out.

        Rain can also increment the depth by 1.

So basically there is a 1 in 36 chance of a mishap.  Both Dave and Ed thought that this was a win-win situation, that if the tide came in, then they could get quality shopping time in, and so, the Anglo-Danes decided to go with it.

Bound 1)  Letting Dave determine his own fate, we let him roll the depth of the stream.  He rolled a 6, which meant his Vikings were neck deep in the mire.   He then rolled for tides, and they indeed came in, making this the fastest doubles game in NASAMW history.

Now there is nothing new with winning or losing by happenstance.  Who hasn’t had a general on a ridge line, wave a banner in front of 36 enemy horse archers?  Or exploding artillery?  Or the flank march that arrives on bound 18?  What made this event interesting is the persistence of the retelling. 

As Ed and Dave took off for an afternoon of trolling the convention, and Jeff and I were setting up a redo the game, as if the flooding didn’t happen, I mused on how long it would take for me to hear the story of what happened here today.

It happened much sooner than I expected.  While Jeff was adjusting his deployment, my wife showed up.  She had just driven in and wasn’t even in the building when it happened, but she had already heard about “some army getting washed away”, and initially didn’t believe me when I said it happen right here, not 10 minutes ago.

And since Jeff’s luck isn’t any better than Dave’s, the Vikings flushed again!  However, when the game was played without the tides, he pulled a brutal win.