A Dark Age Scenario

Saturday 9^th January saw a touch of Hollywood in Port Erin when the club played host to the 13^th Warrior, a Hollywood Movie (based on the book Eaters of the Dead by Michael Crichton). The club played the final battle for the Village Hurot.  A group of Viking heroes assisting in the defence of the Village from the Wendol, a half beast/half man terror.

 After setting the Village in a state of defensiveness the Thirteen Warriors position themselves to cover various points of likely attack supported by bow and lightly armed villagers. The defences had been build in depth with pits, barricades and stakes covering all the likely approaches and the last strong hold of the Great Hall, which was on a slight rise which was to act as the last point of retreat if the Wendol broke in through the outer defences.

The Wendol first probed the defences with mass infantry attacks at three points of the outer palisades using their two handed axes to create openings. As this was going on they made easy targets for the bow armed defenders and took a heavy toll with two groups loosing four men each even before they had got into the village. When they finally managed to break into the village the barricades slowed their attacks so even lightly armed villagers could kill them from behind cover.  It was only by game turn five that the Wendol managed to make a big enough gap in the outer palisades that the two mounted groups held in reserve for this moment could pour into the Village.

Using the height and weight of their cavalry the Wendol then proceeded to ride down two sets of defenders, a total of fifteen villagers, for a loss of only three of their own men. It was after seeing more such devastation caused by the cavalry to the defenders including five of the Thirteen Warriors that the last of the remaining Warriors beat a hasty retreat to the Great Hall position. Four of the warriors made it into this last strong hold whilst the other four made a hasty retreat out of the Village (not in the movie at all and very un-heroic). This proved a bad mistake.  As the hordes of cavalry found the defences round the Great Hall too much of an obstacle and worried about losing any more troops, the Wendol decided to retire and seek plunder in the rest of the already over-run Village.

This left the Great Hall and the last four of the Warrior heroes to be immortalised in a Hollywood movie forever.  

For more photos click here.