A very big Dark Ages game

A few months ago I was very honoured to asked by James Morris if I would like to participate in a huge Dark Ages battle that would be featured in the special edition to mark the 300th issue of Wargames Illustrated.

I'm not going to give many details, please buy Wargames Illustrated 300 for those, but the battle is recorded as taking place about the year 600 and being the heroic clash of 300 mounted British warriors and their Pictish allies against 100,000 Saxons. I think we can take it that there is a bit of poetic enhancement in the number of Saxons, but we certainly pitted 300 mounted British and Picts against over 1200 Saxons. Yes, we were fighting a great battle in 1:1 scale, how exciting is that.

Yesterday we traveled to the Wargames Illustrated top secret HQ in Nottingham so James, Stephen, Andy, Andy, Tom, Dan and I could fight an epic battle while Wargames Illustrated's Dan took many photographs and was the perfect host for the event.

Here are a few pictures from the game. Look out for many more and a report of all the action in James Morris's upcoming article in Wargames Illustrated 300 due out in September.

l to r Tom Webster-Deakin, Dan Falconbridge and James Morris

The supreme Saxon commander Dan Mersey surveys his troops. 

Blaen of Eidyn and his Ravens attack the Saxon line

The mounted warriors of Aethelfrith of Bernica try to stem a breakthrough by the warriors of Mynog

I commanded on the Saxon left, where my troops were to prevent the British and Pictish dogs from crossing the ford.

The British try to break the Saxon line

The game was played out using the Hail Caesar rules.

Figures from the collections of, and painted by:

• James Morris
• Tom Webster-Deakin
• Andy Hawes
• Andy McTaggart
• Paul Scrivens-Smith
• Gripping Beast
• Wargames Illustrated