VIK14 Tempsford (917 AD)

VIK14 Battle of Tempsford (917 AD)
HISTORICAL BACKGROUNDIn 917, the...

VIK14 Tempsford (917 AD)

As a brit it is great to see Viking/Saxon battles as supplememnts to the main game. If I were twice as clever as I am then there are maybe one or two I could try and post myself. Many thanks again.

I encourage you to give scenario design a try. I generally find that picking a period or theatre and reading up on it focuses on how the armies performed and their strengths,weaknesses and tactics. At the other end of the medieval spectrum, War of the Roses would be a good arena for development of new armies and scenarios.

I don't know if you are familiar with BattleLore, a C&C medieval/fantasy game published around 2006, but it was full of ideas and innovations for the medieval period. Mainly it dealt with the 100 years war period, but could easily cover a range of situations, from fantasy, fiction to historical. Overall I prefer the C&C Medieval implementation as a more polished product, but BattleLore is a source of inspiration, and a fun game. 

Alternative Victory Banner Special Rule
Put 3 Camp hexes along the riverfront hexes inside the burh worth a banner a piece. Vikings start with 3 banners.

 

There are many good scenarios in the Norse Invasions series, but this isn't one of them.  On the basis of admittedly only one play the Vikings don't have a snowball's chance in hell.  The gates are inevitably going to be successfully stormed giving the Saxons 3 banners. Anything defending them will eventually be obliterated by missile fire, the Saxons being under no time pressure, so probably better not to defend them at all - hence they will be stormed.  Then, either the Vikings cower in the town to be shot to pieces, or they can sally forth and be overwhelmed by the Saxon numerical superiority (keeping in mind that auxilia roll as many dice in defence as the mediums do in attack albeit they don't hit on the first sword).  The suggestion to locate 3 camps in the town might balance the VPs for the stormed gates, but in that case one might just as well remove those banner awards and make it a 3-banner scenario.

We did have one rules question.  The rules state that if a unit is assaulted on a gate hex and is either eliminated or forced to retreat the attacker can take ground and storm the gate.  But what happens if the defender evades?  The rules state that there is no taking of ground after an evasion, so does the gate remain intact?  We played that it did, not out of any conviction that this was correct, but to give the Vikings more of a chance.

Riclev wrote:

We did have one rules question.  The rules state that if a unit is assaulted on a gate hex and is either eliminated or forced to retreat the attacker can take ground and storm the gate.  But what happens if the defender evades?  The rules state that there is no taking of ground after an evasion, so does the gate remain intact?  We played that it did, not out of any conviction that this was correct, but to give the Vikings more of a chance.

That is correct, if the unit evades, there is no Momentum advance. This makes the gates held by the Bow units more difficult to storm.

The scenario is a tough one for the Vikings, and not an easy one to balance as a scenario.. If you were to make it a 3 banner scenario, I'd suggest the Saxon's score no banners for stormed gates. 
The Saxon objective is to take the burh, and kill the Vikings. They can probably always do so, the cost is the main difference in terms of "Viking victory".