Icelandic civil war battles in the 13th century

[Erpingham]

An interesting article by Peter Konieczny on warfare in Iceland in the 13th century.  Given Iceland is a small country, the battles are what would count as skirmishes elsewhere - if you could raise over 1000 men, you were very powerful.  Numbers killed were quite small, usually in the tens.

There is certainly interesting possibilities here for a skirmish campaign, with competing factions, lots of fence sitting by "allies" which could lead to difficulties raising forces and surprising levels of mobility (horses and ships moving forces about).  One challenge to most skirmish rules would be the low death rates and different ways to express the effects of wounds and morale collapse might be needed.

Also worth noting is the civil war contained a sea battle - Hunafloi in 1244.  Fought off the north coast of Iceland, this may be the most northerly battle of the Middle Ages.

[Duncan Head]

If anyone's interested in looking further into Icelandic warfare try Medieval Warfare IX.6.

[Erpingham]

If anyone's interested in looking further into Icelandic warfare try Medieval Warfare IX.6.

Seconded - this is quite a good edition.  Peter Konieczny was editor of Medieval Warfare at the time IIRC.

[Andreas Johansson]

There is certainly interesting possibilities here for a skirmish campaign, with competing factions, lots of fence sitting by "allies" which could lead to difficulties raising forces and surprising levels of mobility (horses and ships moving forces about).  One challenge to most skirmish rules would be the low death rates and different ways to express the effects of wounds and morale collapse might be needed.

With most battles involving hundreds on each side, I think it kind of falls into a gap poorly served by rules, most of which are aimed at larger or smaller affairs. Not sure what rules might be suitable.

Using a ratio of figures to men of 1:1 would be quite doable in 6mm, though with no cavalry and little differentiation in troop-types armies might look rather boring in smaller scales. Not sure to what extent the Icelanders kept up with Continental military fashions in this era, could you get away with the ubiquitous viking figures, or would they use e.g. heater shields?

"Örlygsstaðir" looks like it should mean "Place of War", but some googling failed to confirm or disprove.

[Imperial Dave]

what an interesting arena for a campaign. certainly doable 1:1 with 6mm and the question re warfare 'fashion' is an interesting one

[Erpingham]

Not many 13th century Icelandic images of warriors.  We do have this one



Note the similarity to the Lewis chessmen.  I suspect Norwegian influence was strong, at least among the elite.  How much the lower orders differed from the traditional Viking look, I'm less sure.  Saga descriptions, that come from this period and later, mention round shields - archaicism or survival?

I think I might be drawn to Antediluvian Miniatures Early Islemen for 28mm, at least for the elite warriors.

[Imperial Dave]

I'm glad I don't collect 28mm!

[Erpingham]

With most battles involving hundreds on each side, I think it kind of falls into a gap poorly served by rules, most of which are aimed at larger or smaller affairs. Not sure what rules might be suitable.

This is a particular issue for medieval gaming generally, as fights between small forces were a commonplace.  Getting something between a detailed 1-to-1 combat and something with enough differentiation to make it interesting and allow some kind of unit/group aspect to the game is tough.  Then there is how the fighting is decided.  It's not by slaughtering the other side - they seem to have had a "kill the lords, spare the commons" philosophy to limit social impact.  Yet plenty of people get hurt and people obviously withdraw from the fight or hang back when they've they've taken wounds.  So, there would be a declining number of "effectives" , perhaps an ebbing of enthusiasm to go forward, perhaps pivoting on the actions of faction leaders - are they in the forefront, axes swinging, are they hurt, are the allies still doing their bit?  Interesting set of design challenges.

[Anton]

I wonder if the lost dice method would work? 

You start off with a small number of coloured dice for the truly committed and a larger number different coloured dice for the followers.  Every time an elite is killed or anyone is wounded remove dice from the followers.  When they have no dice left the followers stop fighting/ run away.

[Imperial Dave]

a very interesting idea. worth pursuing i think for some evaluation

[Andreas Johansson]

Not many 13th century Icelandic images of warriors.

The MW issue - which I got for my Great Wargaming Survey coupon - has a couple more medieval images showing heater shields.

At Örlygsstaðir the Sturlungs apparently planned to distribute shields to their followers before the battle. The implication is presumably that many or most fighters didn't have any of their own. Perhaps therefore, the modern illustrations in the issue shows very few shields (and those it does show round, for some possibly good reason).

Unarmoured vikings with heater shields may be a good look for "middle class" warriors. The elite add body armour and more up to date helmets, the poorer men have no protective gear at all.

[Erpingham]

Perhaps the place to note that Antedilluvian have added another couple of packs of Early Islemen, with axemen and archers (not that archery was particularly common in Iceland - their main missile weapon appears to have been the stone).