Vikings and Normans for Basic Impetus 2

 I like the Impetus rules, although I never got around to buying 2nd edition. It seemed unnecessary, given that I do not play enough to have got irritated with any part of the rules set. With all the work I have been doing on 15mm figures for Oathmark armies, I suddenly realised that I might be able to put together a couple of armies and play a bit more Impetus. Therefore, I dug out the  2nd edition Basic Impetus rules and checked what I needed. The movement trays I bought for Oathmark are only fractionally larger than the standard bases for 15mm Impetus, so there is no need for rebasing, blu-tacking to temporary bases or any of the other improvisations that might otherwise have been required to make this work. All I needed was to make sure I had the right figures. A little bit of painting and a few spacer bases later, and I had two armies with a small number of options ready for the table.

The Vikings

At this point, I should note that I have issues with the Vikings list in Basic Impetus. The core list seems oddly specifically oriented towards 1014 and the Battle of Clontarf with the inclusion of Irish troops as part of that core. I also do not agree with the inclusion of "raiders" as a troop type in any Viking list for the Viking armies that fought in Europe in this period. These people being called raiders are the same people that are normal troop types at other times. And don't even get me started on having "berserkers" as a weird and wonderful special troop type! Army lists are such strange fictions. Still, I am working with what I have, so here are some of the Vikings.

Veteran Huskarls

Viking skirmishers with spacer bases

The Normans

I have no real issues with the Norman army lists, although I suspect that this is because I know so much less about Norman armies of this period. Ignorance really is bliss sometimes!

The Norman army

By using spacer bases, I was able to set the Norman knights up in a V-formation while the Breton medium cavalry are in a single line, letting me differentiate the two from each other. Spacer bases also differentiate the Norman skirmishers. In this case we have peasant stonethrowers standing in for Breton javelinmen and Norman crossbowmen.

A Quick Game

So, with the armies ready and organised, time for a throwdown on the table. The Normans wound up defending. Not sure how that happened given their superior mobility.

Set-up as seen from the Viking side

There was little subtlety to this game. My goal was to push figures around and learn the rules. So, the Vikings set up with their skirmishers occupying the marsh and their flanks anchored. The Normans were slightly more constrained and set up in a big block. They hoped to use their cavalry to steamroller the Vikings.

Norman luck after a cavalry charge

Alas for the poor Normans, their general was insufficiently lucky. As in the example above, they consistently failed to hit even when rolling generous numbers of dice. The Viking hird troops saw off the Norman cavalry and wheeled onto the Norman right flank.

The end of all things (weirdly squished image but you get the gist, I am sure.)

Over on the left flank, things went better... sort of. The Norman cavalry charged the Viking raiders and sent them packing. They regrouped and prepared to fall on the Viking flank and roll the troops up. Unfortunately, the Viking huskarls had other thoughts and drove off the Norman infantry before this could happen. Discouraged, the Norman general decided to retreat, regroup and try another day.

Conclusions

Mistakes were made. Lessons were learned. I got a headache checking the rules repeatedly, despite them being so short. It was fun though. I've always enjoyed Impetus in the past and this iteration of the rules worked for me. One thing I particularly like is the limited options in the lists. When DBA first came out, I loved the rules because each army was only 12 or so elements. It was simple, easy to collect multiple armies and the armies were cheap. Then the whole thing bloated with multiple versions and way too many options and I lost interest. I really did prefer the army lists that were aimed at getting to the core of what each army should be about, whether you agreed with that interpretation or not. Having something similar with Basic Impetus is precisely what I want, even if the armies are larger in number of figures. However, I do wonder about just using smaller armies with the full-fat Impetus rules. That would make it easier to avoid the peculiarities I noted above that I do not like. We shall see.

Happy New Year!

Well, that is my last post for this year. It has been a productive year on the gaming front and I am pleased with what I have achieved. For once, I seem to have found my painting groove and stuck with it, as well as playing a lot of games. Let us hope that 2025 is more of the same.

I hope you have a Happy New Year and that 2025 brings you what you need.

Nano-Towton for Basic Impetus

It's been a long while since I posted anything here. This is mainly because I have had my head down working on my next book which should be published in January 2022. There will be more on that another time. The lack of posts is also largely because of a lack of gaming since I moved to Norway in 2021. All my gaming stuff is still in the UK, and circumstances have prevented me from shipping a load of it over here. Hopefully, that will be sorted soon, but we shall have to wait and see. Anyway, here is an older post from one of my other blogs. I felt it needed updating and reposting because I noticed today that the links to the order of battle and original rules are broken. Here is the original post followed by the order of battle and my notes on refighting the game, just in case you want to be prepared for some outdoors gaming next winter.

Back in the winter of 2010/2011, while we were preparing to refight the Battle of Towton with a ridiculously large number of figures, I decided I needed some fresh air, so I took a small contingent of the figures I had painted outside into the snow and sculpted the terrain for a game. I used the original Basic Impetus rules and originally posted on The Rather Large Towton Project blog. 

 

No time to refight the battle with 20000 or more figures? Not enough space? You need new, improved Nano-Towton(tm)! Nano-Towton uses amazing miniaturised technology to permit you to refight the battle of Towton in an area as small as 2' x 2' (600mm x 600mm). The idea is that you can have some semblance of a refight using armies of only around ten stands each in a short space of time. I chose to do this with Basic Impetus because they are free and I prefer them to DBA.

The Armies

Lancastrian Main Body: 2 Men at Arms, 2 Billmen, 2 Archers, 1 Borderers

Lancastrian Ambush Party: 1 Billmen

Yorkist Main Body: 2 Men at Arms, 2 Billmen, 4 Archers

Yorkist Reinforcements: 1 Billmen

The numbers above were stands in my game. They could be units if that is what your rules use, or even individual figures if you want to turn the whole scenario into a skirmish game.

Terrain and Deployment

Each army starts on a hill, on opposite sides of a valley. There is a wood on the Yorkist left flank and the ground slopes down to a stream on that side of the table. The Yorkists may not deploy in the woods.

In my game, the Lancastrian army had a frontage of 30cm. The Yorkist army had a frontage of 24cm. The game was played in a 2' x 2' area and the armies deployed on hills 20cm from each other.

20cm is the maximum range for longbows in Basic Impetus, so you can adjust this to suit your rules.

There should be space on each flank for the Lancastrian ambush and Norfolk's arrival.

Weather

Wind and snow flurries reduce the range of Lancastrian bows by 1d6cm, diced for each turn. Historically, the Lancastrians are supposed to have shot off all their arrows without hitting the Yorkists because the weather was against them.

Other rules

1. Dice for Norfolk's arrival from turn 3 onwards. On a die roll less than the current turn number, Norfolk will arrive on any die roll less than the current turn number. It should take the Lancastrian army about four or five turns to reach the Yorkist army, and you can adjust Norfolk's arrival with this in mind.
2. The Lancastrian ambush party is in the woods and will spring the ambush on any turn they roll less than the current turn number.
3. The Lancastrian army is not allowed to advance until they have won the initiative. From that point on they may manoeuvre normally. This includes the ambush party moving.
4. The Lancastrian player has a -1 penalty on their initiative roll until they have won the initiative. After that, this penalty does not apply.

This gave a decent game for me, but you may need to adjust this to match your preferences and rules.

A quick and simple Viking camp for Impetus

I needed a Viking camp for my 6mm Viking army, so I bought the Viking settlement from Irregular and then contemplated how best to produce a camp. In the end I opted for the layout below. It is simple, uses only one house from the set, along with the tree, the hedges and the looting pillagers that came with the set. The pillagers are obviously warming up in anticipation of their army's victory. I shall make one or two built-up areas from the remaining buildings in the set but that can wait for another day.

I reckon this is the home team's camp, so I shall also need to construct an away team camp for when the Vikings are visiting their neighbours. What would suit that? A burning church with monks fleeing and Vikings chasing? The more traditional longship on the shore look? A trading camp (would involve scratch-building tents. Boo!)? All of the above for use according to my mood? Probably this last, I suppose.

Gaining Impetus - Vikings versus Saxons in Hooliganism Shocker

Well, we did no gaming in February, but managed to get a couple of games of Impetus played in March. I am only now getting round to posting about them. I took photos in the first game but most of them were out of focus and unusable. My fault for not checking what setting I had the camera on! I completely forgot to photograph the second game. Probably just as well because the Saxons won!

We really enjoyed playing Impetus. It went slowly as we learnt the rules and had to check everything twice in the rule book, but overall it was an enjoyable experience and we liked the way the game flowed. We shall certainly play a lot more Impetus as and when time allows. Here's the only photos that I thought were worth keeping (click the pics for larger images):

The Vikings in the foreground chose to deploy in one line. The Saxons deployed a flanking unit across the stream.

The Saxons advanced piecemeal from their position on the hill, while the heroic Viking commander tried to keep his line together and only detached troops from the end of the line to secure the flank.

Primary Objective Achieved - More Vikings

So, I managed to achieve my pitifully small objective for February. Yup, I have added five more stands of Vikings to the army, thus making it possible to field a 300 point Impetus army. Getting painting this month has proven difficult for any number of reasons that I shall not enumerate here. Suffice to say that it was a miracle I found any time to paint at all, and I have not played a single game this month either, which is most disappointing. Click the pics below for larger images.

The New Vikings

The new Vikings comprise three stands of Baccus armoured spearmen and two stands of armoured axemen. I have used some of the mounted Vikings from the character pack to make these two stands of axement distinctive, because I intend to use them as guard huskarls, of which I am allowed two stands. This makes the stands more distinctive and adds a bit of character, as well as making it easier to differentiate the different stand types. Guard have a couple of mounted generals on them; veteran are just axemen; and run-of-the-mill huskarls are armoured spearmen. When I get around to painting the unarmoured spearmen, they will be the hird, as they are called in the lists (Don't get me started on that one!).

A 300 point Viking army for Impetus

January is ... Vikings

Figures: Baccus 6mm
Rules: Impetus

My target for this month is a 200 point Viking army. This consists of:

• 2 Guard Huskarls
• 5 Huskarls
• 2 Skirmish Archers
• 2 Skirmish Javelinmen
• Casualty markers

I had a bit of time free at the end of last week and also this morning so I was able to paint the Guard Huskarls, the Archers and the Javelinmen. I also painted a bunch of casualty markers. It's amazing how quickly you can paint 6mm figures if you just sit down and focus on painting. The figures are now glued to their bases and awaiting varnishing. The remaining Huskarls and some more casualties are sitting on the painting desk awaiting my tender attentions. Pictures will follow when the army is finished.

For the record, I still have a bunch of unpainted Vikings that are not allocated to the army yet. This pile consists of:

• 2 Veteran Huskarls
• 3 Huskarls
• 12 Hird (as the lesser Vikings are called in Impetus)

If my progress on painting continues at the current pace without distracting from my PhD then I shall add some of these to the painting desk and aim for a 300 point army. Looking at the pile of figures, I reckon I can field about 450 points of figures. I would like some more of the axemen to use as Veteran Huskarls and maybe some more ordinary Huskarls so that I can field a full 500 point army with some options for variety, but that will have to wait until the current batch of figures has been used a few times and I have painted their opponents.

It's V-Day (that's Vikings Day)

I have been meaning to finish tarting up my 15mm Vikings for use with Basic Impetus for some time now. I have had many of these figures since the early nineties and first used them for DBA 1.0 and DBM. As a result of their age, they are looking a trifle battle weary and could do with a spot of R&R to recover. I have not had time for that yet, because of other commitments (see my Towton project blog for more details of that). Nevertheless, I did get around to rebasing the Vikings and that has improved their look no end. One day soon I hope to redo their shields and repaint the chipped areas on each figure too. Still, even now I reckon they are ready for battle. I suppose I had better paint up some opposition for them soon! (click the pic for a larger image)

Basic Impetus - Wars of the Roses Armies

As those of you that have read the Rather Large Towton Project blog will know, I have embarked on a rather daft venture to refight Towton as close to a 1:1 scale as possible. One part of keeping this project fresh is making sure that I can use the figures I am painting before I have painted the whole Towton order of battle.

So, bearing in mind that I have tried the Impetus rules and enjoyed them when Steve Kelly dropped by, I have downloaded the Basic Impetus rules and produced a couple of armies for them. Basic Impetus is the free 'light' version of Impetus and there are dozens of army lists available for the rules. Having tried Impetus, I think that BI can help me regain the joy of my early forays into DBA when it first came out. The armies comprise around 7-10 elements, so it is possible to collect large numbers of armies if you wish, or just enjoy the game cheaply, a must for a thrifty gamer!

I already had a few packets of Wars of the Roses figures before I began the Towton project. Ok, well, maybe I mean more than a few. Not all of these will be used in the Towton project because they represent troop types that were not present. I dug these out and added what I needed to the painting pile. As a result, in short order I had enough elements to field all of the options for Lancastrian and Yorkist armies. Each army consists of 8 elements, and each has 3 options that can be added in exchange for elements already in the army. The number of options in BI armies is not ridiculously large, like in the most recent DBA rules, but reflects the sensible nature of the first edition of DBA. Hooray for Dadi e Piombo, say I!

The armies below are arrayed with their core elements at the front. The three optional elements are arrayed separately to the rear. The figures are 6mm Baccus, based on 60mm x 30mm mdf bases from East Riding Miniatures using the Baccus Basing System.

The Yorkist Army (click the pictures for a larger version)

The Yorkist army consists of the retinues of Edward IV, Lord Hastings and Lord Berners.

The Lancastrian Army

The Lancastrian army consists of the retinues of Lord Grey of Codnor and Sir John Heron of the Ford. It also features the retinues of Viscount Bourchier and Lord Fitzwarin standing in as Lancastrians until I actually get some more Lancastrian running dog lackeys painted.