Planning and researching the battle of Ashdown

Anglo-Saxon warriors advance towards the Danish forces at Ashdown, 871 AD

Having decided on the battle of Ashdown, it was time to begin researching the battle. I am going to research the battle, learn the history and work out what I need to recreate the battle on the tabletop. Myfirst port of call was to consult the Shieldwall book for Hail Caesar which has a nice section and scenario for the battle of Ashdown. The next thing I decided to consult was some contemporary accounts of the battle. Forttunatealy for me, my son had bought me Asser,s Life of King Alfred and Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for Christmas (how did I get through my University days without copies of them?), now I am fully aware of the bias behind these sources as one was written by Alfred the Great some years later and the other was written as a biography of Alfred's life.

The research begins in the Cave

I realised quickly that this research was not just about learning about the battle of Ashdown, it required things I had not considered, what was the terrain like? Who were the major players on the field of battle? How many men fought? What were the weather conditions like? Is the Warlord Games scenario in Shieldwall suitable? The rules for the characters suitable? What was the make up of the forces? and many more questions aside. Below I have included a quick summary of thge day at Ashdown for those that do not know the history. It is written using the details given in Asser's The Life of King Alfred. I am aware of the bias of the piece considering who wrote it, and why they wrote it, however trying find contemporary details of Ashdown is fairly hard, especially when I only have limited resources, so a number of fairly biased accounts will have to do for the time.

January 8th 871 AD saw the armies of Wessex led by King Aethelred and the Aetheling Alfred face the combined Danish army of King Halfdan and King Bagseg. The army of Wessex had suffered a defeat at Reading a few days prior to the 8th. The day of Ashdown King Aethelred decided to pray to God before the battle. Prince Alfred however saw the need to hasten to battle immediately. The Danish army had already seized a hill at Ashdown. Alfred and his army seized the hill and fought off the Danes (Keynes and Lapidge 2004).

Eventually a section of the Danish army led by the two Danish Kings tried to flank Alfred's army by going round the foot of the hill. They ran ran into King Aethelred's army, fresh from prayer. The tide of battle turned and the Vikings were pushed back, this eventually turned into a rout and in the subsequent attempt to escape King Bagseg and five of the Danish Earls  were killed. It was a victory for Wessex and a harsh defeat for the viking army(Keynes and Lapidge 2004).

Cave drawings.... well my working outs on the whiteboard in the cave. Think I need to make it neater!

The hardest thing with limited resources is finding the answers I need, how I miss having the resources of my university days at my finger tips, however I do not. The contemporary accounts give enough (if somewhat biased) details of what happened at Ashdown, but they do not give enough details for what I need. I know from the accounts that there was a hill and a thorn tree (Keynes and Lapidge 2004), those are, from what I have read, the only details about Ashdown itself. The accounts do not however give details of troop numbers or army composition. We do know however the names of the two main commanders of Wessex and the two main Danish commanders and a number of their Earls.

Troop numbers

The contemporary sources are good to read, it is useful to read how the battle was perceived at the time and certainly how the people of Wessex would tell it. To find the numbers of troops at Ashdown I consulted the internet, I discovered a website which talked about British battles, it list the Danish Vikings as having between 500-1000 troops and the defenders of Wessex as having 1000-1500 troops once they had mustered (British Battles, c 2020 ). These are flexible figures and I can work with that.I decided to go for the higher end of the numbers, I needed this to work out how many models I would need to buy. As much as I would like to be able to field 2500 troops, I neither have the time or financial resources to recreate the battle at a 1:1 scale. I opted instead for an approximate ratio of 1:4 meaning that I would have around 375 Anglo-Saxons and 250 Danes, the Danes would be severely disadvantaged in this battle, but war is never fair.

I would need to buy 625 models to paint, the only way I could get that number of troops and not completely wipe out my bank account would be through plastic models. My favourite minature company Footsore Minatures only do metal and resin. There are a number of companies that produce stunning plastics, the companies I found were Victrix, Warlord Games and Gripping Beast, there may be more but I'm not aware of them producing miniatures for the correct era. After much thought and deliberation I decided to get a combination of models from across the companies, the bulk in plastic and metal or resin where necessary. The majority of the models would come from both Warlord Games and Gripping Beast in plastic, with a few metal models to represent characters and special units.

The best part for me about the battle of Ashdown, and I assume it is the same for many battles in this era, is that there are very few specifics as to what type of units were there, this gives me free reign to play around with the lists as I see fit, potentially allowing me to field some interesting units.

The battlefield

As far as battles go, the description of the battlefield is one that anyone who has knowledge of medieval pitched battles would expect, a large open expanse, a reference to merely one thorn tree, thus I suspect there were not many trees around. A hill, is also mentioned  that was initially held by the Vikings and later Prince Alfred in what had the potential to be a heroic last stand had his brother not arrived (Keynes and Lapidge 2004).

The battle needed a new grass mat, I had been dying to find an excuse to make a faux fur gaming mat, so now was the time and excuse. I also decided to make some trees to go round the very edges of the battlefield and one to represent the thorn tree. The trees will be more for decoration than to provide a strategic challenge. I am still not sure how to do the hill, I may settle for some books underneath the faux fur mat, lazy but effective.

The pile of stuff on my hobby desk waiting for me to start work on it.

My initial plans in place, I began collecting together the various products I needed for the project. I decided I would start with the terrain and move onto the models, but rather than build and paint a unit then move onto another like I usually do, I decided I would build and paint the entire lot together, a monumental undertaking but I think seeing nearly 700 Anglo-Saxons and Vikings staring at me every time I enter the cave, should motivate me to paint them. Now the world is in lock down due to covid-19 it seems the right time to begin, what I feel is, my most adventurous project ever.

Bibliography

Keynes, S. and Lapidge, M., (2004). Alfred the Great, Asser's Life of King Alfred and Other Contemporary Sources.London: Penguin Group.

Alfred the Great, translated by, Ingram, J. and Giles J.A., (2016).  Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Great Britain: Pantianos Classics

Lambshead, J. (2018). Hail Caesar, Shieldwall, The Dark Age Sagas - Volume I. Great Britain: Warlord Games

British Battles (c 2020). Battle of Ashdown [online]. British Battles.Viewed on 8th April 2020. Available from: https://www-britishbattles-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.britishbattles.com/danish-wars/battle-of-ashdown/?amp_js_v=a3&amp_gsa=1&amp&usqp=mq331AQFKAGwASA%3D#aoh=15863224647514&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&amp_tf=From%20%251%24s&ampshare=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.britishbattles.com%2Fdanish-wars%2Fbattle-of-ashdown%2F