Thoringy: 977ad

Well I think by now you should be able to guess the ending, but it was a much improved performance over the last outing for my Franks.

2000 points centred on a large unit of mounted knights and two units on foot. The rest of the army is there purely to screen and flank this force.

Deployment showing the screen readied.

As you can see all the terrain favoured my opponent; and so my game plan was to hold back and force him to advance. This actually worked, to a point.

Some of my opponents Vikings, always a tough opponent. The Vikings in Warhammer are not unbeatable, but they are a tricky force with many tricks up their sleeves.

Competently painted, though not everybody was finished.

In the actual battle, the Vikings had to manoeuvre around the wood and lake to approach me. Though he could easily win the shooting match my skirmisher screen was reasonably effective in neutralising his bow fire. Crucially this meant he could not target my heavy units and cause a cheap retreat.

I managed to charge the unpainted unit who chose to run, causing the larger unit behind them to run too; gutting his centre. I then made contact with and wiped out another unit with only a couple of losses on the cavalry.

On the left his viking general contacted my foot milites. The milites held their own, killing his general, but his Godi kept the unit in contact, in fact it took the cavalry arriving to finally break them.

But by this point, unassailed, his two retreating units had rallied and returned to the field. This left me over stretched and seriously outnumbered. Though he had no reply for the impact of my cavalry, he was able to avoid them mostly, and whittled down my infantry units until I reached break point.

So it was all over, and I'd lost again; but My opponent at least agreed I'd given him a bloodied nose for it. Moreover I'm finally making the Frankish army work for me; yes it is a delicate balancing technique as the forces are so expensive, but get it right and they are quite effective. In simplest terms, one could simply play two or three units of a dozen to sixteen knights, each with a screen of skirmishers and simply steamroller most armies. But, then, where is the fun in that?

Some would say plenty.