Offa was dead to begin with - Mercia 796AD

There are several points where the the development of a single English kingdom could easily have gone a different way.  One of these is the aftermath of the death of Offa the Great,  King of Mercia.  The history of the early England went through a number of stages where different English kingdoms were in the ascendent.  First Northumbria, then Mercia and lastly Wessex whose kings eventually became the first rulers of a unified English or more accurately Anglo-Danish Kingdom.  Although a unified english Kingdom would probably still have arisen it could easily have been under a mercian or Danish royal house and it's borders could have been very different to those that actually developed.

We don't know what Offa looked like, but this is a contemporary coin from his reign

The year 796AD is one of the points where things could have gone onto a different track.  This could have happened for a number of reasons.  Firstly Offa had been the overking of most of the other English Kingdoms and with his death they sought to regain their independence, his death followed in months by the death of his son left a power vacuum.  Secondly the first serious Viking raids had started only three years earlier, lastly it sees the start of the rise of Wessex, but it didn't have to be Wessex.

Here is a point here where the eventual direction of this island hung in the balance.  Would Mercia regain her ascendency, would the Danes conquer the whole of lowland Britain, which kingdom would become the next leader of the English.  If you have been watching the Last Kingdom or have read the Bernard Cornwall books the series is based upon, you will know the general outline of the history from around 865AD to 900AD already.  But, what if Wessex hadn't survived, what if Mercia had regained their position, what about the other English Kingdoms, the Scots, the Welsh, and the Danish and Norwegian Vikings?  What if the early Viking raids hadn't concentrated on Northumbria?


That uncertainty makes 796AD to 1066AD a great period to set a wargame campaign in.  As those who have followed this blog will know I have been interested in the period since long before Bernard Cornwall put pen to paper.  I started a campaign way back in the 1970's but as often happened with these things it stalled.  I could have started in 866AD with the Great Heathen Army, the first substantial Danish army, but the period between 796AD and 866AD has a lot going on outside of England itself, In Scotland the Strathclyde Welsh, the Scots of Dumbarton and the Picts are in an uneasy dynastic dance, with conflict and intermarriage of the royal lines leading to the emergence of the modern kingdom of Scotland by the late 840's.  Wales too was in flux as the various princedoms fought amongst themselves and against the English.  In England the kingdoms of the Heptarchy struggled to fill the gap left by Offa's death, and the Danes throw everything into flux.

The Death of Edmund the Martyr - that's some serious flux that is

In the absence of players to take the part of the other kingdoms (Plus I don't have the time to run a campaign) I have decided to run a solo campaign using DBA3.0 (initially although I am likely to try out some of the other DBA spin offs and ADLG as things develop) but with a different force selection mechanism.  The history will be simplified and the game will be based on a very simple campaign model of moving troops from area to area and fighting a battle where one side invades another's territory.  Basically its an excuse to get my Dark Age toys on the table.  I will leave out the politics, the finances and the personalities which I built into the original campaign rules.

The game starts in the immediate aftermath of the death of Offa and subsequent death of his son.  The initial objectives are:

Mercia has to stabilise it's position and take back control of the subsidiary kingdoms of Cant (Kent) Essex and East Anglia while cowing Northumbria, Wessex and the Welsh.

Cant, The East Saxons and East Anglia need to remain independent and expand

Wessex needs to expand into the South West and weaken Mercia to the north

Northumbria needs to weaken Mercia, and hold off or absorb the Strathclyde Welsh and the Picts south of the Clyde-Forth line.

The Strathclyde Welsh need to take control of Cumbre (modern Cumbria), and at least weaken the Scots and Picts.

The Picts are aiming to become the sole power north or the clyde and Forth line and then expand south.

The Scots just want to survive.

The various Welsh Princedoms all want to be the sole power in Wales but more importantly want to survive, oh and it would be nice to recover some of the lands stolen from them by the English.

Last but not least  the Cornish want to stay independent.

The Vikings don't come into play other than as raiders for some time and are going to be played as a random event until they can muster enough force to launch the Great Heathen Army invasion.

The game's afoot Gentlemen.