Greg Schroeder Writes
  • Home
  • Published Works
    • Published Poetry
    • Published Military Monographs
    • Works in Progress
  • About the Author
  • Reviews and Notes
    • Featured Writers
  • Contact
  • Diatribes
  • Family History
  • Trouin Cochrane and Jones

Diatribes

Defending Northumbria

3/21/2019

0 Comments

 
     The Great Summer Army arrived in Northumbria in 870. Promptly there was trouble. One of the raiding earls decided to have a bit of fun. But he ran into one of the local earls at the river Oxno.
     The east wing of the Northumbrian army held the bank of the river which had a short stretch east of a plank bridge that was fordable. To the west half of the raiders, who had come all the way from Kiev for a Brittanic holiday, had managed to work across the stream and faced off against a force of mercenaries from the Saxon plains.
     The Rus immediately sent a force along the river to try to help secure the bridge. A valiant group of Saxons, led by Njal, raced to intercept. The plains of Kiev are more vast than the plains of Saxony and, on this day, Njal found himself the last man standing, his entire retinue killed. With one last invitation to the Valkyries he charged to his death against a dozen Rus.
     Meanwhile the Norse leader sent his large command in two assaults - one across the bridge and one over the shallows. The Northumbrians, outnumbered, fought desperately but vainly as the northern steel cut deeper this day than that forged in more southerly climes.
     The Rus, too, on the further west flank, triumphed in a wildly swirling melee, their massive two-handed axes splitting many a shield.
     In the end the Earl of Northumbria fell with his men at the foot of the bridge and the Saxons bought their passage back to the mainland, what few remained, with the gold they had been paid by their vanquished employer.
     There was much feasting by the few Rus and Norse survivors on the rich cattle and sheep of the earl's lush holdings.

​Game played using 25mm figures and home rules by Chris Anderson.
0 Comments

    Author

    Diatribes are simply often humorous recountings of the games played by the Long Island Irregulars. We play with toy soldiers and are unabashedly happy to have never lost this part of our childhoods..

    Archives

    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    February 2021
    May 2020
    March 2020
    November 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    December 2018
    October 2018
    March 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017

    Categories

    All
    American Civil War
    American Revolution
    Ancients
    CNJ Rules
    Greeks
    Napoleonics
    Naval
    Vikings
    World War II

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly
  • Home
  • Published Works
    • Published Poetry
    • Published Military Monographs
    • Works in Progress
  • About the Author
  • Reviews and Notes
    • Featured Writers
  • Contact
  • Diatribes
  • Family History
  • Trouin Cochrane and Jones