Yet another unfinished project!

This time it is another campaign.  About 35 years ago I became really interested in the period from the Death of Offa the Great of Mercia though to the fall of Anglo-Danish England to the Normans.  So just the odd 260 some years then.    I blame the BBC and Michael Woods series 'In Search of the Dark Ages'!

 

A very poor photo of the book that started it all

I had just finished playing in a long running Wars of the Roses campaign which was a mix of play by mail and battles on a table which had lasted something like 4 or 5 years so there was a gap in my wargaming life.  The idea formed of running a campaign set in the Viking Age dealing with the conflicts arising from the formation of the modern nations of Great Britain.  The game quickly grew into a monster project and despite players signing up and a few moves being played quickly fizzled out as people's real lives got in the way.

The game started with the following states or tribal groupings in play:

• Wessex
• Mercia
• Northumbria
• Strathclyde
• Pictia
• Dal Raidia
• Dumonia (modern Cornwall and Devon)
• Guined (Welsh)
• Pouis (Welsh)
• Gwent (Welsh)
• Morgannwg (Welsh)
• Brecheniaug (Welsh)
• Devet (Welsh)
• The East Saxons
• The East Angles
• Kent

About to come into play were the two main Viking nations the Danes and the Norse who would start as raiders and become larger forces if they made enough loot from raiding.  The general idea was to have the main English and Scottish Kingdoms player controlled with the smaller ones and the Welsh controlled by Scottish Players. rebels would be controlled by players opposed to the state facing the rising.  This meant that I would need 5 or 6 players to make it work but additional ones could be slotted in to the unassigned kingdoms if required.

The key game mechanic was influence.  The leader of each state would have influence points  to spend in each turn.  The number available would be allocated according to the ability of actual the historical person or at random if this was not known.  Players would gain influence from winning battles and loose them for lost battles.  The points would be spent on a number of things such as keeping home provinces loyal and attempting to incite unrest in rivals provinces.  The further from a player's heartland the target was the higher the influence cost became.  This worked very nicely and by allowing players to negotiate in real time treaties could be put in place by both sides using influence for the same thing, equally rival states could be forced to the will of a very influential leader.  Points spent on loyalty (either plus or minus) were cumulative but half were lost on the death of the leader who allocated them.  

There was a limited amount of cash available used for buying loyalty or disloyalty or paying troops beyond the minimum period of service or as bribes to keep the vikings away (yeah right that was going to work).  A peace turn was 1 year long and consisted of use of influence collecting cash and checking for births, deaths and marriages.  War turns were one month long and with a peace turn at the end of each year.

In the original campaign following Offa's death Wessex, East Anglia, Essex and Kent all break from Mercia and the Mercians were trying to bring them to heal and the Welsh were trying to unify (with extreme prejudice!).  Wessex was attempting to pacify Dumonia before facing up to Mercia and the scots were playing influence games trying to forge two v one alliances with little actual success.

We played through one peace turn then a year of war turns resulting in a couple of field actions before it petered out.  I have all the maps and the rules, although in 35 years I have come up with some changes to the rules and I think I might try the campaign solo to see how it hangs together.