Battle of Brunanburh

I made some custom counters for Battles of Medieval Britain and decided to give them a test run.

This is an account of my playthrough of the first scenario.

Background

In 937, a coalition of the kings of Dublin, Scotland, and Strathclyde invade England. King Aethelstan meets the invaders at Brunanburh.

Set Up

The invaders (blue) are spread out over a wide front. Aethelstan follows suit and spreads out his forces.

All units are classified as warriors armed with axes.

The Battle

Aethelstan must destroy the invaders quickly so he rushes his warriors forward.

The scenario objective is to clear the map of enemy units within 7 turns.

But things start off poorly. In the first attacks, Aethelstan loses nearly half his army!

The English missed with their first attacks. You can see the invaders' rolls below. In an instant, two units are gone.

But fortunes can turn quickly in battle. One warband, which Aethelstan dubbed "the Boars" (middle red unit) charge and wipe out two enemy warbands.

The Boars got two kills in one turn. And they eliminated another unit the turn before!

By the way, you can see my shield wall marker on this red unit.

As night approaches, one enemy unit still remains. The Ravens (unit on the right) attack and wipe them out. Victory!

This was the last attack of the last turn. I needed a hit to win. You can see my roll below.

Postscript

It looked bleak at first, but the Boars made an amazing run to make it close. The Ravens, who had been pretty useless for the first 6 turns, finally pulled through to win the game.

I am pleased with how my counters came out. I tried a different method with these. Instead of gluing cardstock onto Litko bases, I printed the designs onto a full page shipping label. Then I cut out each counter and just stuck it to the base. By the way, I used custom-sized bases (1/2" x 3/4" if I recall correctly). I realized, however, that I need a turn counter.

I also turned the game into a boxed set. I took a blank board game box that I bought from GMT Games and filled it with the book and the game components.