Rules for Alfred v Guthrum era battles

[henjed]

Thanks for more suggestions, which I shall delve into today.

I am determined to find excitement and variability in this warfare.  As someone whose first wargaming venture as an adult (after an hiatus of 20 years) was Great War Western and Eastern Front (albeit 1914) which I was told would be uninteresting, I have discovered that the possibility of delight and enlightenment always exists - but I can see I am going to have to wring the wet flannel of Dark Age shieldwall gaming pretty damned hard to get anything out of it.

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Mortiem et Gloriam Pacto scale?

[Chris Pringle]

Pendragon? An RPG but with rules for battles, IIRC. Could be a good way to make tactically limited warfare interesting as a game.
https://www.chaosium.com/pendragon-getting-started/

[Ithoriel]

Dan Mersey's "Battle Ravens" that PSC produced?

All you need in one box!

[streetgang]

I'm a big fan of Dux Bellorum. I think Mersey knows his dark ages and has done his best to make it gameable and still be in the spirit of the warfare of the time.

He has a new set called Age of Penda which might work for you. It's available in odf and print on demand, I believe it is hex-based. More here:

https://www.wargamevault.com/product/376363/Age-of-Penda-Battle-Games-in-Seventh-Century-Britain

https://mogsymakes.net/2022/06/29/trying-out-age-of-penda/

[steve_holmes_11]

Mortiem et Gloriam Pacto scale?

Repeat please, in English, or at least using full phrases.

[Lord Kermit of Birkenhead]

Mortiem et Gloriam is a set of rules - Pacto the small scale version. 

[henjed]

More good suggestions, chaps - many thanks.  Age of Penda looks interesting, although I have an instinctive aversion to gridded or 'hexed' wargames tables (for ultimately no good reason).

I did take a look at Mortem et Gloriam and even watched few rules presentations and for some reason it scared the living daylights out of me.

[Lord Kermit of Birkenhead]

MeG is a very hard read

[bobm]

Comitatus is still around and well thought of.  Have the rules but rarely played.  Age Of Penda is well worth considering, it's basically "big battle" SAGA with more convincing history.  Periods where troops lined up facing each other suit grids very well.  I'm a big fan and have created my own for various periods....none of which are entitrely ripped off from others but have some traits in common!

[sultanbev]

I did take a look at Mortem et Gloriam and even watched few rules presentations and for some reason it scared the living daylights out of me.

Lol, yes, I was going to suggest MEG too, but only because you asked for a pre-battle system. So you could nick that, adapt it and attach it to another set of combat rules.

[henjed]

Gosh, I used to have a pdf of Comitatus from  way back when McDowell had a draft on some yahoo group. I had flirted with late imperial Roman forces after reading Alessandro Barbero's "Day of the Barbarians".  I wonder if I still have it... ?

Thanks for another good suggestion!

[Big Insect]

L'art de la Guerre v.4 (ADLG) would work well for you project.
There is a faster play 100 point game that allows for a game with c.11 bases (units) per side, with the ability to upgrade to a larger 200pt c.22 base per side game and larger still a 300pt game.
The army lists are included within the rules sets and are IMHO manageable, whereas other similar sets of rules have c.400+ lists just for a sub-set of the ancient/dark age/medieval eras.

Dux Bellorum is also a good set for the period you are specifically looking to game in. Everything said about Dux being somewhat 'limited' is correct - but in reality the national differences between armies in this era were probably very slight.

[Kevinthomas]

I've looked at that period (and also the Anarchy period of the mid 1100), and I'm using "Swordpoint" by gripping beast.

All I've done, as I use 10mm, is shrunk the bases - infantry (usually 4, though can be 3) on 20x20 (40x40 for 28mm), cavalry on 25x25 (50x50), and distances halved.

It includes a "line of battle" combat modifier system which supports line-fights, as adjacent units can reduce combat results on eachother, supporting a battleline.

The rules can appear a little complex, but I don't feel they are anymore so that the others in the field.

[Leman]

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Great Hall Burning (Wargame Vault), which is a complete character building, force building campaign set in the Viking Age. It does go pretty deep, thus I also use Ravenfeast big battle.