CLASH OF SPEARS... WARBANDS IN POST ROMAN BRITAIN

 PART 1... THE IRISH RAIDERS

Back in 2020, during the endless months of Lockdown, I spent a lot of my enforced leisure time painting up troops for the Too Fat Lardies' rule set, Dux Britanniarum. Arthurian or Romano-British armies have always held a deep fascination and the arrival of Wargames Atlantic's box of Irish warriors re-kindled the passion for the period. I had already painted a Romano-British warband and I intended to set up an entire campaign raging across northern Britain, once the Lockdown was a thing of the past. However! With the situation dragging on interminably,  and the arrival of Clash of Spears, with games that I could play solo on the dining room table, the two warbands I had painted ended up in boxes on the painting shed shelf... until now!

I'm not sure where the inspiration came from, but it suddenly dawned on me that the figures I'd painted for Dux Britanniarum, would work perfectly with Clash of Spears. Warfare in the Age of Arthur was all about small warbands roaming the land and fighting battles that were in effect nothing more than small scale skirmishes. All I needed to do was work out the stats for each of the troop types, get the figures on the dining room table and get Alexa playing the soundtrack from Monty Python and the Holy Grail... what could be simpler than that?

Primum: deciding on those all important stats! I've played quite a lot of Clash of Spears now, but all my warbands have been built using the brilliant on-line warband builder, Clashculator. There are some beta lists on Clashculator for the "Dark Ages", but they are primarily aimed at a later date than my Arthurian age forces. I managed to link some of the stats from the Irish list where they fit with my idea of an early 6th centuryish warband, but, to be honest, I can't say that I feel particularly confident with the numbers I came up with.

The core of the Irish raiding warband are the Warrior Raiders. The figures I originally painted for Dux Britanniarum had a mixture of weapons, which is something I've avoided with my other Clash of Spears forces, but I decided to keep the mix, having initially intended to remove the axes, swords and shillelaghs, because these guys pepper the opposition with javelins and then charge in with a vicious and deadly all out attack. Fortuitously, "Vicious" is a trait which appears in the Rise of Eagles supplement and fits perfectly with how I see Irish raiders fighting. To quote Rise of Eagles, "These warriors are especially violent and bloodthirsty, they normally use hacking weapons and single bladed swords that they wield savagely to inflict terrible wounds mercilessly." 

The profile I arrived at for the Warrior Raiders was this:

Continuing with the infantry, my warband has 2 units of Javelinmen, who are similar to the Warriors, but have no shield and are not intended to get involved in hand to hand combat!

Like the Warriors, I've kept these guys exactly as I painted them for Dux Britanniarum, but I needed to make an extra four figures from the left overs in the Wargames Atlantic box to have enough for the two units.  The profile for these more combat shy Irishmen was based on the standard Javelin profile that appears in just about every army list throughout Clash of Spears...

Last of the infantry, are a unit of 6 sling armed skirmishers. In Dux Britanniarum, this unit requires only 4 figures so an extra painting session was needed to add the extra troops.

The final two units of the warband are mounted raiders; one a light cavalry skirmishing unit and the other a group of heavier melee cavalry, probably made up of minor nobility. Dux Britanniarum requires these units to be four figures strong and I did ponder briefly on the idea of adding another couple of figures to each for Clash of Spears. Two reasons stopped me from going down that road, firstly, cavalry was pretty scarce at the time, so having smaller units seemed to be more period appropriate and, secondly, there are no cavalry figures in the Wargames Atlantic box, so I had to buy them from Footsore Miniatures and they are relatively expensive! Logic and smart financial management prevailed and I decided to keep these two units to four figures each, with the qualification that, if the gas and electric bills don't turn to be quite as bad as predicted, I could always send in another order to Footsore and bulk out these units to the tune of another couple of figures each.

                             

The light cavalry. Lovely figures from Footsore Miniatures...

Fianna was the best title I could come up with for this unit. It seems to have been around since well into antiquity as a title meaning something like "elite warriors" or "bodyguard" or something suggesting higher quality status. It is used in the Clashculator beta list for the Irish, so I think it is probably appropriate for this unit of partially armoured melee troops. As it stands, I have chosen "Furor" rather than "Vicious" as a trait, simply because it sounds more noble!

So, that is my Irish Warband for Clash of Spears as it stands. I would really appreciate any thoughts or feedback from anybody really, but particularly people who play Clash. Post Roman Britain is my favourite historical period and Clash of Spears is my favourite set of rules, so I really can't wait to put the two together on the dining room table, but, I'd like to get the right feel to the game, and the right stats and the right traits are what will make that happen.

Next up will be my Romano-British warband...

Can de Brioche's Coup de Main obtain the Grain for the Train?

Hugh de Puiset has dispatched two of his trusted men-at-arms, Guy de Brioche and Henri d’Eclair, to search for and requisition supplies from the village of Burnhope. Under the command of de Brioche, the foraging party consists of a group of the Bishop of Durham’s spearmen and, appearing for the first time in the campaign, a group of Bowmen, bearing the cross emblem of the Bishop. Originally, the French crossbowmen who disgraced themselves so badly at the Battle on the Char Beck were going to take part in this early morning raid, but, as they have been on garde robe cleaning duty ever since they so dishonourably scattered from the field of glory for no good reason, it was decided that the smell might just alert the villagers to their approach.

The sacks of grain the raiders are after, are stockpiled in the village grain store and will need to be loaded on the accompanying cart, led by Noll the Carter, before any irate citizens get the opportunity to intervene. With the cart loaded, de Brioche and his party will head off towards Lanchester, where the proceeds of this and many other raids are being gathered for storage in the Bishop’s bulging granaries.

The Bishop's men advanced un-hindered through the village and Noll was soon knocking on the grain store door.

The first of the Royalist forces to arrive on the scene was the group of Outlaw Archers. The random die roll put them on the south-western corner of the village, with the Bishop's Archers just a long bow shot away.

Next on the scene was Brother Gilbertus, wielding his cross and flail. Raging with fury and oblivious to his own safety, he charged from the church to engage the Bishop's spearmen, who were covering the retreat of Noll and the stolen grain.

Meanwhile, on the opposite side of the table, the rest of the Outlaws arrive and de Brioche's forces were in danger of being trapped and unable to get their ill gotten gains away.

At the opposite end of the village, Brother Gilbertus desperately charged into the spearmen with only the Lord Above giving any support!

The Bishop's spearmen managed to force the deranged monk back, but Gilbertus wasn't going to let a minor setback stop him from getting his hands on the stolen grain.

Suddenly, a group of angry peasants from the village, appeared round the corner to confront the spearmen, who were then forced to face up to the enemy on two fronts simultaneously.

Over on the western side of the village, a long range archery duel had broken out and the Outlaws manged to down their first victim from the Bishop's Archers.

Determined to rid themselves of the turbulent priest, the spearmen charged along the street, outnumbering him two to one and they had rear support.

With the Good Lord on his side, Brother Gilberus not only pushed the spearmen back, but also managed to inflict a nasty wound on the leader of the enemy group.

Despite the efforts of Brother Gilbertus, Noll the Carter was now heading out of the village with the sacks of grain under the protection of Henri d'Eclair. The Royalist forces needed a miracle to prevent the loot finding its ill gotten way to the Bishop's grain stores.

Sometimes, when you need a miracle... the band of Outlaws dashed from cover to confront Noll, who had only d'Eclair to keep the enemy at bay.

Desperate to save the village's grain supplies, the Armed Peasants hurled themselves at de Brioche and managed to get one draw from the melee, although their brave attempt still saw them pushed back.

Back on the western side of the village, the archery duel continued and the Bishop's men had now lost three of their gallant band to the galling fire of the Outlaws and worse... they were out of ammunition!

Having extricated themselves from the fight with Brother Gilbertus, de Brioche and the spearmen hurried to confront the Outlaws before they could wrest the grain from a very unhappy Noll.

Gilbertus, however, was not going to be ignored. He dashed headlong after the spearmen only to run straight into Henri d'Eclair. Unbelievably, Gilbertus bested d'Eclair in the tussle and managed to inflict a nasty wound upon the Frenchman.

Gilbertus was now becoming really irritating for the Royalist grain robbers and de Brioche hurled himself into the fray, once again pushing the manic man of the cloth back to give d'Eclair time to recover.

Infuriated by the meddlesome priest, d'Eclair returned to the melee and, this time, was able to get the better of Gilbertus, but could still not put him down!

At the commencement of the next turn, everything hinged on the turn of the Activation Card Deck. The Outlaw Archers had positioned themselves to unleash their final volley in the game upon a terrified Noll, but, the Gods of the Cards smiled down on the carter and, with his card turning first, he was able to scurry off the table (with his stolen grain) before the arrow storm could be delivered. With the rest of the turn still to be played out, victory had gone, by the narrowest of margins, to the Bishop and the villagers of Burnhope would go hungry.

However, fate was to bring one final twist to the game, as the Bishop's spearmen drew the bol de pory card and, with some dreadful rolling of the dice, somehow managed to fail a Bravery Test, which resulted in them routing hell for leather off the battlefield, leaving de Brioche and d'Eclair alone to face the entire Royalist force. Choosing discretion over valour, the two French men-at-arms quickly scarpered down a convenient side street, angrily pursed by the relentless Brother Gilbertus.

This was a really enjoyable game lasting about three hours altogether. Brother Gilbertus proved to be a pain in the enemy's side throughout and he proved how difficult it is to get rid of an ecclesiastical hero. As a result of the game, I have slightly adjusted the stats for the Outlaws and changed the dice roll for Fatigue Recovery. The Bishop's grain party lost five of their six archers to the Outlaw Bowmen, which was just about entirely due to the Outlaws having a more generous supply of arrows! Quite a few wounds were suffered by the unarmoured Peasants, but only d'Eclair suffered a wound amongst the heroes. All in all, this proved to be a well balanced game and I think my tinkering with the rules can finally cease!