Can Anglo Saxons beat vikings?

I have fought quite a few games between the Middle Anglo Saxons or Anglo Danish and the Vikings. To the best of my memory they have all ended with the vikings victorious. Can anyone give a general with loads of Spear advice on how to beat an army almost wholly composed of blades?

1) Find a hill

2) Die on it

3) Repeat until Vikings go home

Yeah, amazing how Alfred actually drove out the louts...

I think it is a hopeless match in DBA.

The only success I've had is scrapping in bad going with low factor and luck. Even then it's a close run thing.

Notice, no other replies...

The head-scratching is deafening.

Lousy Vikings.

Maneuver and deception.

A head to head meeting will give you nothing, but a slow ignominious defeat.

Deploy in columns, use terrain to block, channel, break up his blade wall.

Use your single psiloi (do they still get one?) to delay and annoy part of his army while you concentrate on defeating in detail another part of his army.

Find the edge of his battle line or create an edge to his battle line grab hold of it like a dog with a bone and shake it till it breaks.

Offer him a victim and see if he will pounce on it.

Believe you can win. This is actually the most important thing.

Play the Early Middle Saxons, they can have warband. Other than that find a hill and die on it. I suspect that the Alfred vs Danes fights were more similiar to Anglo-Dane civil wars than Anglo-Danes vs Vikings.

Originally Posted by Neubauten

I have fought quite a few games between the Middle Anglo Saxons or Anglo Danish and the Vikings. To the best of my memory they have all ended with the vikings victorious. Can anyone give a general with loads of Spear advice on how to beat an army almost wholly composed of blades?

You can win but good luck. In a straight up line of spears vs line of blades you will lose (as he gets double overlaps on you his dice rolls will soon be doubling yours and it will be over).

If you are using the 'a' middle saxons take at least 2 warbands. The general war band with a support warband placed in the center of your line can punch through the center of his line of blades, the next turn use your extra move option to swing around making contact with the rears of several of his blades while your cav and psiloi are making their way as a team around one of the viking flanks making flank and rear contact. It will all end fairly soon for the northern invaders.

If your using the 'b' list it is a bit harder. Deploy in a manner where you over extend his line by several elements and attempt to use your ponderous 200p move to wrap around the end of his line and defeat him there. The one lone psiloi comes in handy as a helper here. Aslo consider taking the 2 horde options. Place them at the other end of your line and don't make contact with the vikings. This will slow down his attempt to wrap around you.

Which ever list you are using deploy in a way to move up to bad going but do not enter it. Make him come thru it to contact you, if he is in bad and your spears are not then he gets the minus 2 terrian mod. As mentiond in an ealier post stay on a hill if possible.

The cav (if using 'a') and your psiloi will be the heros of the day. Send them around to make rear and flank contacts.

Hope that your viking opponent does not take the warband option.

Version 1.x was a bit more fun and even with the Vikings treated mostly as Warband with only a few blade.

Here are the old army notes for both the Anglo-Danes and the Vikings:

http://fanaticus.org/DBA/armies/dba113.html
http://fanaticus.org/DBA/armies/dba106a.html

I agree with Pthomas and Spanikopites. The challenge defending on a hill is you essentially cede the initiative to the Viking player who will figure out how to attack you from a position of advantage. Instead it is better to play the bad going game and try to wrest the initiative from your opponent. Fighting in bad going, because it lowers each side's combat factor by 2, makes it more possible (actually possible at all!) for the die swings to result in your killing a blade by doubling it. Basically, you have to beat the Vikings with your blade general, blades, and psiloi before he defeats you with his warband.

Here's a battle report where the Anglo-Danish got lucky:

http://www.fanaticus.org/discussion/...ead.php?t=8848

I think that if you could split up the viking force and bring greater forces to bare against them, you have a good chance. Using bad going to your advantage, i.e. have a rough hill/wood directly in the middle of the board, you can pounce on the smaller and less modile half of the Viking forces and overwhelm them.

This would work particularily well against over-confident viking generals. Of course, a viking worth their salt would see through your ruse... but, offer some incentive... make it look like your undefended camp is sitting and waiting for a viking sack! No viking general would refuse such bait... When they go for it, redeploy and destroy!

Anyway, I've never successfully done it, but now I wish I hadn't sold my middle anglos so that I could give it a try

n.

Some very interesting ideas, thanks. It's reassuring to know that others have had similar experiences with this match-up. So in summary, I need to roll a lot of 6s, pick an inexperienced foe who is willing to split his troops or advance through bag going - and still find a nice hill to die on. I think I will experiment with scenarios / rules tweaks. Maybe a Stamford bridge scenario where the norse start at a disadvantage. I don't mind fighting a losing battle, but a glacially slow slog to inevitable defeat or victory is not all that much fun for either player.