I decided on Neil Thomas's One Hour Wargames rules as the weather had turned colder and I felt we didn't want to play a long game outside. As the time approached, the garden was quite windy and I was concerned that the terrain might be blown around, so I setup the game on a 3' x 4' board in our garden Pod which provided a sheltered place for the game.
I had setup a couple of chairs and side tables with dice rolling trays suitably spaced apart - here is Anthony in his General's seat...
The scenario was Take the High Ground and we used my 25mm Norman and Saxon collection which are based up as 5" wide units with 6 units a side.
The game started with 2 saxon units on the hill (the objective of the game) and the Normans entering on the southern edge. The game lasted 15 turns.
The other Saxon units arrived on turn 2 and we soon got stuck in to melee across the board - the rules give a good representation of dark age melee with shieldwall halving casualties and melees continuing until one side is destroyed.
I lost a couple of units fairly quickly as they were ganged up on by two of Anthony's units but was able to pull back towards the end of the game.
It was a very close game in the end with Anthony managing to hold on to the hill and preventing me getting a draw in the very last turn.
We played with the Dark Age rules as written but I would like to try using the Knights rules from the medieval set next time for Norman cavalry to see if that beefs them up a little.
