The Last Days of the North Part II - Battle at Ceath Cross

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Early Spring, Y3090

It was a cold spring morning in Whitetower province. The sea air lay thick and salty over the marsh and woods around the village of Ceath Cross. Gulls cawed overhead. But the sea breeze had not just brought gulls, but wolves too. From the eastern marshes and the woods they ran, horns and axes braying and clattering in the morning air. They came not for blood but plunder, and hoped that such a raucous display would clear the way. Made brave by cheap victories against Whitetower's rangers on the road inland, they thought nothing of making their presence known.

No matter what the wolves wished, there would be blood. Prince Elion of lost Geredwyn, commander of the army of Caerhenned, had received word of the Wolves' advance from the ravens of Whitetower. Through arts lost to the rest of the kingdom, the masters of Gungnir's tower used ravens to communicate over far distances.

Such blessed sorcery aside, Elion Greycloak had long been awaiting such an unwise incursion by the Sea Wolves. He meant to fall upon them, to break them and harry them back to the coast, that it might be long years before they troubled his adopted shores again. From all across Caerhenned his men had come, to stand beneath the white dragon and prove worthy of their king.

These were not the serried lines of a pitched battle: the Caerhennin and Sea Wolf lines formed two sides of a square, with Ceath Cross as the far corner. Far ahead of their main lines, Caerhennin boys ran with slings, desperate to reach their homes and defend them from the invaders. The local levy that formed Greycloak's left flank sped through the woods, comfortable in their home ground. It was a desperate race for the Caerhennin to turn their lines before the Sea Wolves struck them in the flank – though they had come for plunder, glory would be a greater prize.

Under Anwyth Halfsword's hurried direction they managed it, though a shieldwall was slow in forming on the rough ground. Seeing a hidden group of Sea Wolves emerge from behind the Ceath Marsh, Anwyth left the greatest part of his men in a shieldwall on the open ground south of the village and led his retinue of warriors against the new threat. The first rank of wolves were scythed down by his mad charge and the rest fell back, shocked by the Caerhennin audacity.

Despite his short stature, Jaetar Foxfriend was not a man easily cowed. Rallying his much-diminished men, he charged back into the fray without a second thought, seeking out his opposite number with grim determination. He soon found the man he sought, a madman with a short Quethani sword. As men died around them they locked eyes for a mere moment, before Foxfriend's men began to retreat, dragging their lord with them.

Such cowardice was no salvation, and soon Jaetar was alone on the edge of the marsh, his men dead around him, fending off his enemy with swift and sudden stabs of his sword. It was no use, and as he saw men calm the maniac with the small sword, he felt a crack on the back of his head and a sudden darkness took him.

Meanwhile, the Caerhennin boys reached the fields surrounding Ceath Cross and began whipping their stones at the Sea Wolves advancing toward them over the open ground. But these men were veterans of ten and of twenty years' raiding, veritable masters of the Long Shore and the Burning Coast, and they were not worried by such small nuisances. As youths are wont to do, as they fought the obvious threat they missed Njall Crowbone and his hearthguard charging from behind Loxsom Wood. The fields blunted the initial charge, but restricted the boys' escape as well. They were trapped in a green hell with the best of Crowbone's retainers, and all too soon joined their ancestors in the Green Hall.

Seeing Crowbone's men in the fields, and that Foxfriend had successfully drawn off part of the enemy strength, Thorvald Snowbane summoned up the blood and led his main force in a devastating charge on the enemy centre. He saw the white dragon flapping in the wind on its green banner with a royal golden trim, and in that moment wanted nothing more than to take it home as a trophy. He forgot gold, forgot plunder, and saw only glory to be snatched from the enemy's lifeless hands. It was a brave and daring gambit. A gambit that failed.

With Halfdan Flintfinger at his side, Thorvald charged home. Like a crashing sea the wolves attacked, and like the stony cliffs the Caerhennin stood their ground. Elion and his champion Cei Wolfhand were with them, and like angels of death they stepped forward. Thorvald himself was saved a dreadful wound only by his bright armour, now grey and buckled by the blow. Flintfinger, the bloody, the bastard, tinkling in his cloak of bones, met Cei Wolfhand, last knight of Geredwyn on the field of battle, and was smote a terrible blow from his wolf-handled sword that left him gasping and dying in the dirt, blood frothing on his lips. After a dreadful slaughter, the lines fell apart, neither victorious and both soaked in the blood of friends.

The Snowborn however was nothing if not cunning, and as his tired warriors goaded the Cairhennin captain's retinue, he assaulted the other end of the line with his own Hearthguard, sending them running in a mad panic. Immediate victory clearly unobtainable, the Snowborn then retreated, hoping to double back into Ceath Cross and make this mad bloodshed somehow worthwhile.

Resisting the urge to despair as he saw the slaughter Elion and his men had endured, Coiran Longfoot now led his levies in one great shieldwall to take their place. As they advanced, the now-outnumbered Sea Wolves began to give ground, their archers sending flights of goose-feathered arrows into the approaching mass. Coiran and his men were nonetheless heartened to see Anwyth and his retinue returning from behind the marsh, loping across the open ground to bring the fight to the enemy once more.

Greycloak may have blundered, but he was no fool. Having blunted the Sea Wolf assault, he realised their true target, and as Coiran began to steadily drive the battered enemy from the field, he turned his retinue towards Ceath Cross, determined to upset whatever the enemy designs upon it were. As he neared the fields however, he came under ambush from the wolven archers, and though he scattered them to the nine winds, his retinue took many casualties – too many to risk storming the village alone.

The Snowborn reached Ceath Cross to find Crowbone and his men frantic and frustrated. They had been turning the village upside down for quite some time, and had yet to find anything. Snowborn's sympathy quickly vanished as his own hearthguard began dragging bags of gold from the village well. Swiftly they began to flee, but Coiran Longfoot was not known as fleet for nothing. He led his levies across the fields and into the village, slaying Thorvald's rearguard and sending the rest running into the weapon-wielding arms of Elion Greycloak and his few companions. In a few quick moments, both retinues hacked each other apart, and Thorvald took to his heels with nary a groat upon his person, leading Crowbone and his men in an inglorious retreat with hardly a crown to show for their pains and Coiran Longfoot in hot pursuit with the Whitetower levies.

The battle at Ceath Cross was the first in a long war. It bred the seeds of anger and resentment in Thorvald Snowborn, and brought Caerhenned the outright enemity of the Asvaldrson clan. Though the carnage was great on both sides, the Sea Wolves lost more, and with no Caerhennin gold to soften the blow, the Snowborn's reputation was sorely dented. It would take him three months to rebuild a crew worth fighting alongside, especially with both Jaetar Foxfriend and Halfdan Flintfinger dead on enemy ground.

Elion Greycloak was toasted in Rath Luin for a great victory, and the size of his army swelled as patriotic young Cairhennin stepped forward not only to replace his losses, but to add skirmishers to the force he could wield. The prince of Geredwyn was glad, but much gladder was he when Cei Wolfhand began to recover from the injuries he took at battle's end. Such was the feasting at Greycloak's victory that men began to call him Blessed, and to toast the gods in his name.

And in the Queen's Tower at Rath Luin, the Ivory Lady, that pale perfection called the Bone Queen by her detractors, began to plot his downfall alongside her fiery priests. For the people of Jorsala knew only one god, and he was jealous. If Elion Greycloak was to be blessed, he would be blessed by fire - or by death...

The Last Days of the North Part I: Prologue

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A Dux Britanniarum campaign in a fantasy land.

The kingdom of Caerhenned has stood since the sun kissed the moon. Other kingdoms have risen and fallen around her, but neither the Thorny Crown nor its seat at Rath Luin have ever fallen. Even now, when alone among the Nine Kingdoms it still stands, the king's word is law across moor and wood, field and town. But the king is old, already two and sixty. His southern queen finds no favour with his council, either in her pale beauty or the fiery priests she has brought with her from far Jorsala.

The Five Islands fell to the Sea Wolves long ago. They have their own kings there now, petty warlords with wild hair who rule by the sword rather than by sceptre. As the rogues of the east once fled the coming of the Great Ice, now the Five Islands' rapscallions sail west to Caerhenned, the last of the Nine Kingdoms, seeking that same success that their grandfather and great-grandfathers carved out with their cruel axes.

Caerhenned and surrounds. Click for larger image.

Among the armies Caerhenned musters against the resurgent Sea Wolves four men stand out: Elion Greycloak, Anwyth Halfsword, Coiran Longfoot and Cei Wolfhand, the prince's champion

Elion Greycloak, nine and twenty, tall, strong and brave. A prince of the lost kingdom of Geredwyn, all his riches are displayed in his plainwoven cloak. His strength in battle is matched only by his weakness for the women of the king's court, whose affections barely keep him from the beggar's bowl. The king having no trueborn sons, Elion Greycloak is favoured by the crown with command of Caerhenned's armies. Cei Wolfhand, his last retainer from lost Geredwyn, stands fierce by his side in every battle, ready to do his prince's bidding to the last.

Anwyth Halfsword has not even a score of years under his belt. Of average build, he is nonetheless known for his insane courage. He won his name when he slew a mountain chief of Cragowen with his dying captain's broken blade. Some whisper in the halls of Rath Luin that this owes more to his prodigious drinking than any noble blood, since his father is rumoured to have been a mere peasant. No matter the truth, he now wields twin Quethani shortswords with consummate skill as his king's sworn man.

Coiran Longfoot was once the fastest runner in the kingdom. Now that he is in his thirtieth year, he takes his place instead in the shieldwall, wielding his father's sword with pride. A quiet man, he is known for his thrift and caution in matters of coin. A natural son of the king, he hopes one day to earn legitimacy by his deeds on the field of combat.

The wolves of the Five Islands travel far in their dragon-ships. In the cold East they were dragons truly, but the Great Ice quenched their fire, and like wolves they ran from death in savage packs, bringing that cold kiss instead to their victims, the true owners of the lands they now hold from the Five Islands to southern Quetheen.

One man among the hordes stands head and shoulders above the rest: Thorvald Snowborn. It is he who leads the greatest assaults on Caerhenned, with his lieutenants Njall Crowbone and Jaetar Foxfriend. At his side marches his champion, the bone-strewn, the bloody, the bastard Halfdan Flintfinger.

Thorvald Snowborn. Already four and thirty, Thorvald has carved a name for himself in the Five Islands. Since his noble father escaped the blizzard with his mewling newborn in his arms, Thorvald has grown tall and strong, proud of his strength and his iron liver. He has amassed a fair sum of gold in his raids, and now he seeks to rob himself a kingdom.

Njall Crowbone. At one-and-thirty, he is almost of an age with his leader, though of much poorer birth. He is penny-wise and foolish with no coin, having not forgotten the hut he was raised in. He has served Thorvald long and well, even losing an eye in a skirmish off the Quethani coast. When Caerhenned falls, his reward shall be great indeed.

Jaetar Foxfriend. Barely a score of years old, the Foxfriend is short and wiry, a natural athlete. He has made no name for himself as yet, but has claimed a positon in the Snowborn's expedition by virtue of his father's position. If Thorvald wishes to keep the sealanes to the Five Islands open, he would do well to please the Asvaldrsons.

And now, in the 3090th year of the gods, these men will clash in battle. In the fields of Whitetower, in the rakes and gullies of Ravenwood, even in the streets of Rath Luin itself will the sound of steel ring. The North is at its end, but it shall make such an end as to be worthy of a song by men in every corner of the world.

They Come To Stop The Rooster

17^th May, 1967.

Bąd Phuc.

Contact: Easy Company, 42^nd Airborne

Bąd Phuc: Villages, Hills, Roads, Jungle and Swamp.

Coming back from a pleasantly routine patrol, Easy Company, 2/42^nd Airborne reunited at the hamlet of Bąd Phuc (bottom of the map). Little did they know that Colonel Luc Fan Huc of the District Local Force was plotting their demise...

Something must have warned them, because they left Bąd Phuc cautiously, scanning the fields and jungle around them for any sign of enemy movement. There were two possible extraction zones in the area, the steep Qong Lang, which could only take one Huey at a time, or the flatter, more distant Long Phuc which could take two.

As the Yanks moved north, a platoon of local VC moved into Bąd Phuc, and sent a squad after the Roosters to check their whereabouts inside the jungle. That squad, while valorous, was very much shot to death by Lieutenant Carlos' platoon, which they stumbled upon at the jungle's edge. Their mistake cost the lives of several of their compatriots in Bąd Phuc too as 3^rd platoon extended their field of fire to encompass the village.

Just after contact. 3rd Platoon got the drop. A lot.

With 3^rd platoon forming a rearguard, the rest of the company pressed on for Qong Lang. Hearing Carlos' men open fire, Captain Rodgers called for air support, while the FO Lt Janvier called the brigade's 105mm battery for cover. The hill loomed ahead of them as 2 platoon spread out, checking for ambushes. A Cobra/Loach Pink Team roared overhead, cheering that Saigon had very quickly given the go-ahead to strafe civilian areas, and minigunning the ever-loving thatch off the hamlet to Qong Lang's south-west.

The thing about calculated risks is that sometimes the maths are wrong. The first Huey had come down to Qong Lang, and 2^nd platoon and 3^rd platoon had things well in hand, especially with Pink Team's assistance. Captain Rodgers therefore decided to strike out for Long Phuc, opening up a second LZ for the transport helicopters. In the middle of the jungle however, the Roosters were suddenly swarmed by native fighters, egged on by their commanders. Captain Rodgers himself was shot down in the crazed melée, and a dozen of his men fell too. The two sides fell apart, both retreating in the melée, but Captain Ngu Hien had come south specially to fight the Roosters.

Behold the circle of retreating units.

Captain Hien chased his men into a semblance of good order and followed the Roosters towards Qong Lang, but an enfilade by 3^rd platoon put paid to his notions of grandeur.

It was now Commissar Hong's time to shine. He had been left behind by Colonel Huc, the old warrior having no time for Peking's puppets. But now, he hustled the platoon he accompanied up Qong Lang. The Huey had left, the Cobra was busy, and now they fell upon the remnants of 1^st and 2^nd platoons with a vengeance, slaughtering yet more Americans. This exposed spot would be his men's death as over the next few minutes, more and more of the US assets were turned upon them. But for now, all was glory, and Hong pocketed a lieutenant's butter bars as a trophy.

The rest of the battle was goriness, as shots were exchanged throughout the jungle, and Hong's men grimly clung to Qong Lang. Hien and Huc held Long Phuc too – the Americans were trapped for now.

But casualties were mounting, too fast to be worthwhile. Night was falling. Better to live to fight another day. Uncle Sam already knew that Bąd Phuc wanted nothing to do with him.

The end of play.

N.B. It was later discovered that Hong's assault on Qong Lang had sent the survivors of one Rooster squad fleeing desperately through the jungle and into the waiting arms of the mortar squad.

Overview

This was my first game of Charlie Don't Surf, and also my first game using flats and mostly flat scenery, made from paper, rubber tiles from Poundland and flock. It all went pretty well, and both was and wasn't as bloody as we thought it would be. Finances being as they are right now, I'll certainly be doing a fair bit more of this to try out new games. We didn't finish this one as everyone had places to be, but we all enjoyed it, which is par for the course for a Lardie game.

Man of the Match goes to Staff Sergeant Rock, who was the only Big Man to activate regularly. As a whole, 3^rd Platoon were on it like Grommit, doing incredibly well over the course of the game.

We did preliminary VPs for both sides, and it came to 25-10 militarily and 52-50 politically, both in favour of the VC. Of course, had we played longer, no doubt more of the Roosters would have gotten out, and the balance would have shifted accordingly.

All in all, excellent fun, and I'm seriously considering spending part of my upcoming tax rebate on Vietnam kit from Heroics & Ros.

N.B. The Vietnamese called the 101^st Airborne “Roosters” because they'd never seen an eagle, and a chicken was their closest point of comparison. The scenario title comes from the Alice in Chains song “Rooster”, which was written by Jerry Cantrell for his father, whose stick-up hair earnt him the same nickname on two combat tours in the conflict.

A Song of Void and Stars

I'm currently playtesting A Song of Void and Stars, the upcoming space combat game being produced for Ganesha Games.

I've always been in a love-hate relationship with space combat games. I love space. Star Wars was the first film I saw in the cinema that broke through my childhood deafness. The terror of being in that loud, dark room as John William's score began, the joy and awe and the film that followed, are all indelibly printed on my mind. It started a love affair with sci-fi that has lasted over fifteen years so far - currently my favourite series of books is David Weber's Honor Harrington series. I love reading the stories, watching the stories, and I love the idea of refighting them.

But I generally dislike space combat games. The closest I've come is with Full Thrust and Warcosm, both of which are fine systems, but still involve more book-keeping than I'm really comfortable with in a game.

A Song of Void and Stars on the other hand, is perfect for me. I was already a big fan of the Song of Blades and Heroes system (I own it and several of its supplements), and the record keeping is minimal. The damage system has two tracks: Weapons (as a whole) and Systems (non-combat systems, including crew casualties and morale) which cascade: get a certain number of one type of damage, and it bumps up to type 2 damage etc.

It's clean, quick and simple - but don't think that means easy! There are still tactical issues to consider, especially with the special rules that both ships and the exceptional personalities of your fleet bring to the match. While effective, these are not the Special Rules of your various international army book dealers - it's very easy to keep track of things in-game.

Here's an AAR from a battle between the Solar Imperium and the Colonies of Man, which are in no way at all based on the Empire and the Colonials of Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica. Both fleets are just slightly over the usual game size of 750pts, and are roughly equivalent to a modern carrier group - one capital ship plus escorts.

The Solar Imperium has long cast a covetous eye over the Free Colonies. Living under its long shadow, the Colonies themselves have been arming slowly, developing their fleets in order to provide a stay of execution to their homes and families.
When the blow came, it fell not against the Twelve Worlds, but against the mining outpost of Casus B. Luckily for the miners, the Perilous and her escorts were on a training mission in the area...

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Solar Imperium

MkII Cruiser - Supremacy

2 x MkII Carracks – Warden, Valour

Assault Frigate – Fellowship

Lancer Frigate – Guidance

Colonies

Hermes Battlesun – Perilous

4 Berserker Escorts – Illyria, Thesean, Tyndarus, Medusa

Battlefield

4x4 battlefield. Two minefields in the centre, 7 inches from opposite board edges, 1 nebula in galactic northeast. Imperials started galactic north, Colonials south.

Turn One – Colonial

Having noticed the Imperial presence early, the Colonial commander decided to hang back and spam the inner system with missiles. His ships launched preliminary missiles waves, moving slowly towards Galactic east. Unfortunately though the Illyria's inexperienced captain broke formation, ploughing straight in-system - alerting the Imperial forces.

Turn One – Imperial

Effectively directed by the Fleet Command Centre aboard the Supremacy, the two Carracks moved forward on the Imperial right flank, launching missiles of their own. Worried by the number of Colonial birds launched, the Supremacy spawned two Combat Space Patrols, ordering its fighters to protect the flagship as it moved forward, hoping to bring the Perilous under her guns. The Fellowship tried to follow suit on her activation, but a computer glitch caused a catastrophic failure in her launch bays! As her flight crew choked among the acrid smoke of the fighter that crashed taking off, the turnover came, and the missiles moved again.

Turn Two – Colonial

The Illyria swerved back into formation as the task group as a whole moved east. Her fellow escorts fired another five waves of missiles. With a surge of power, the Perilous moved safely behind her screen and launched a CSP of her own, noting with a nervous glance the Carracks' birds.

Turn Two – Imperial

The Escorts around the Supremacy went mad trying to kill some of the incoming birds. And all failed - there were just too many. The Supremacy launched an extra CSP and braced itself for the incoming attack. One Carrack launched more birds, and the Warden's captain lost his head.

Missile time.

After all the other missile movement, four waves of missiles hit the Supremacy simultaneously, completely swamping her point defence capability. Luckily, her three CSPs were on hand to reduce the effectiveness of those attacks, but the damage was still awful to behold. Even with her shields up and ready, the maelstrom of blistering nuclear explosions tore the skin of her armour and ripped apart her weapons blisters, leaving her offensive capability critically low.
 

Turn Three – Colonial

The fire of three escorts removed only a third of the missiles threatening the Perilous, so she launched more fighters in an attempt to shield herself. Though her armour bucked and melted under the strain, she survived the firestorm wholly intact thanks to the efforts of her brave pilots, swooping in and out the incoming birds to destroy as many as they could.

Turn Three – Imperial

A potentially lethal short turn for the Imperials. With five waves of missiles threatening the flag, the Guidance moved close to offer point defence support. Unfortunately, before any more preparations could be made, the Fellowship's captain, no doubt worried by the accident in his launch bay, became hysterical. He broke formation and potentially doomed the flag by forcing a turnover.

Missile time.

Despite Guidance's valiant attempts at point defence for her flagship, there were too many missiles for Supremacy's design to handle, and again her anti-missile defences were rendered useful. Having lost most of her pilots fighting off the last assault (and without the time to launch more thanks to Fellowship's shenanigans), she had very little with which to thin the tide approaching. The shields stopped a few missiles from doing their nightmarish work (quadrupling the Imperial score!), but they could not stop the inevitable, and the Supremacy silently popped out of existence in a maelstrom of fire and flying metal.

Turn Four – Colonial

Continuing east, the Berserker spammed seven waves of missiles toward the approaching Carracks, and the Perilous launched another CSP.

Turn Four – Imperial

This was a short turn. The Valour's captain shouted at his crew until they ignored the loss of their flagship, the Warden fired unsuccessfully at the approaching missiles, and the Fellowship ruined things for everyone again by forcing a turnover. When the missiles struck, the Warden took terrible damage, losing nearly all systems AND weapons functionality.

Turn Five – Colonial

Continuing their tactics, the Colonials fired another nine missile waves as they moved east. As the first ones struck the Valour, the ship writhed and bucked, weapons blisters sloughing off under the rain of explosive.

Turn Five – Imperial

As the Warden drifted into empty space, the Valour got the first distance kill on a missile all game! Stuck on the wrong end of the Colonial firing line, the Guidance turned to rejoin the scattered Imperials in the west, and the Fellowship's captain opened his liquor cabinet. What difference did it make?

Once the Fellowship forced the turnover, the missiles struck again. The valiant Guidance was utterly annihilated by the Perilous' powerful payload, shattering into infinite pieces in the black. The Valour shortly followed her, having barely survived four missile attacks and being annihilated by the last.

With that, the crippled Warden and wholly incompetent Fellowship jumped to lightspeed, hoping to purge their logs and present their superiors with a more palatable version of what happened at Casus IV.

Overview

Missile spamming works. There's no other way to say it, and as an Honor Harrington fan, that makes me rather happy. Every Colonial kill was down to 4+ missile markers striking on the same same turn. Activating escorts on 2 dice and using the full 3 for the flag once everyone else has moved is also a winner, at least by this game (each activation is an action the ship can perform, but two failures on the same roll forces a turnover).

There was no Man of the Match this time – the Beserkers co-operated fully in swamping the enemy point defence. But the wooden spoon definitely goes to the Fellowship, which achieved precisely nothing except for forcing THREE of the FIVE Imperial turnovers. Ludicrous.

Point defence is potentially understrength in this. The Escort Support rule was used ten times and provided one kill on missiles, which is probably contrary to designer expectation. I would submit that it should be d6+CV vs the missile's CV only. This would allow escorts to effectively shield their flag.

The basic mechanics are fun though, very engaging (as all Song of Blades and Heroes games are), and I think have inspired me to run a campaign based on the war between the Imperials and the Free Colonies. Homemade Counters ho!