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Don,t forget the Irish - lots happening in Ireland in the dark ages.

They were very much like the welsh - a bunch of bog hoppers. Javalins and slings over bows , lightly armoured.
used scotish mercineries ,

peter

Why not just use the welsh and say they're Irish?

loowater wrote:Don,t forget the Irish - lots happening in Ireland in the dark ages.

They were very much like the welsh - a bunch of bog hoppers. Javalins and slings over bows , lightly armoured.
used scotish mercineries ,

peter

The traditional Irish styles of warfare were pretty similar to the Welsh, but there were differences that could be highlighted to create an Irish faction with its own feel. The Irish had the most continuous contact with the vikings as the viking towns established in Ireland lasted throughout the Viking Age (albeit with some ups and downs). Irish of the noble classes were very much influenced by the Vikings and adapted many viking fighting traditions, including use of two-handed axes, fighting in shield wall with large shields, etc.

My thoughts for an Irish Warband are to use the Welsh Battle Board and replace 3-4 of the abilities with new ones to reflect the viking influence. These would be limited to hearthguard and give them some additional melee capabilities. The rest would be left as is to reflect the traditional hit-and-run fighting style employed by the lesser landowners when called to fight (Warriors and Levy). I'd also include an ability to reflect the Irish practice (at least in heroic sagas) of trophy taking, usually heads of their opponents. This purportedly struck fear into the hearts of their enemies.

The warband would be similar to the Welsh with javelins all around and lower armor for the warriors and hearthguard. The hearthguard would have an option to have one unit armed with Dane axes. Levy would be armed with slings or javelins.

One thing I'm toying with is to have an option for a clan champion. In Irish sagas the clan champions play an important part, often seeking out enemy leaders and champions. A champion would have warlord stats and ignore a hit as a warlord does (but not have the ability to slough hits onto friendly troops). They would also have the Warlord's Pride rule, forcing single combat. My thought was they would have 2 saga dice, but these would be separate and usable only by the champion, who would also not benefit from the warband's dice.

I'm not sure about mounted troops. There are some writings that suggest mounted raids and such, but certainly all of the stand up fights were conducted on foot. That said, crusader makes those nice Irish mounted nobles and I happen to have 12 of them..

Brian

Irish mounted suffered from the same problem the welsh and anglo danish/saxons had - embarrising horses. they had barrel shaped ponies compared to the norman sleak sexy stallions.

An irish army is intersting as it can be very welsh or can be a nice mix of welsh and viking, - especially when pitted against the normans.

when I wrote ancient historical battles I came across several really good fights in the 1100s were the normans started there conquest of ireland, you can have normans with irish allies and irish with viking allies, or viking with irish allies.

For allies I would say give them 1 attribute from thier battle borad per allied warrior unit included.

so say a viking army with 2 irish warrior units(poor armoured like the welsh but javelin armed) get 2 attributes from the welsh list.

its just a seed of an idea I would have to play test it.

peter

loowater wrote:when I wrote ancient historical battles I came across several really good fights in the 1100s were the normans started there conquest of ireland, you can have normans with irish allies and irish with viking allies, or viking with irish allies.

For allies I would say give them 1 attribute from thier battle borad per allied warrior unit included.

so say a viking army with 2 irish warrior units(poor armoured like the welsh but javelin armed) get 2 attributes from the welsh list.

peter

The Irish certainly did ally with Vikings all of the time and during the Norman invasion with Normans as well. To me though, that sort of force would be best represented by a mulltiplayer game with an Irish force and a Viking force working together, especially as such a game has the potential to get the sort of command friction that so often arose in the Irish conflicts (even between allied bands of Irishmen). A matter of scale perception I guess.

Lord Robert wrote:I reckon it was a 50/50 decision to decide if it was Scots or Irish who where included in the Northern Fury expansion. It would be interesting to know why Scots over Irish? Especialy as there is a fine looking collection of Dark Age Irish in the Gripping Beast lists. I am also curious where the Hiberno Norse fit into the Saga world.as I like this range very much.

From what I can gather, the Hiberno-Norse (and Hiberno-Danes for that matter) tended to retain their Viking fighting style for the most part. The Irish annals describe what are basically shield walls of armored warriors. The Hiberno-Norse adapted many other facets of Irish life, but they seemed to recognize that fighting with a buckler and javelin against foes in chainmail with dane axes was probably not going to be the best bet.

bcantwell wrote: Irish of the noble classes were very much influenced by the Vikings and adapted many viking fighting traditions, including use of two-handed axes,

The hearthguard would have an option to have one unit armed with Dane axes. Levy would be armed with slings or javelins.

Brian

Could we save this for a hero of the viking age as my reading seems to suggest that another Brian enjoied the dane axe with his bodyguard but i feel it was not the norm, I ofcourse refer to Brian Boru.

that said would some choice named heroes not add enough flavour to a welsh warband to make it irish?

ikon wrote:

bcantwell wrote: Irish of the noble classes were very much influenced by the Vikings and adapted many viking fighting traditions, including use of two-handed axes,

The hearthguard would have an option to have one unit armed with Dane axes. Levy would be armed with slings or javelins.

Brian

Could we save this for a hero of the viking age as my reading seems to suggest that another Brian enjoied the dane axe with his bodyguard but i feel it was not the norm, I ofcourse refer to Brian Boru.

that said would some choice named heroes not add enough flavour to a welsh warband to make it irish?

The reading I've done suggested that use of large axes was more widespread than just a few heroes and their personal retainiers. It was cheaper/easier to get a good axe to defeat the Vikings mail armor than to get a suit of mail for yourself. Dane Axes would not have been the majority weapon of the nobles, but certainly common enough.

One option would be to limit the Dane axe euipped unit in an Irish force to 1 point band, like berserkers. However, I don't personally see that as necessary. The armor penalty on top of the existing "we have no chainmail" Welsh/Irish penalty is enough to encourage players to mix in some hearthguard with shields.

Brian

loowater wrote:Don,t forget the Irish - lots happening in Ireland in the dark ages.

They were very much like the welsh - a bunch of bog hoppers. Javalins and slings over bows , lightly armoured.
used scotish mercineries ,

peter

stole each other's cattle