Publisher's Synopsis
The Romans have vacated the shores of the British Isles and the Dark Ages have befallen. Crossing from the shores of Europe the Angles, Saxon and Jutes have invaded and divided the land that will later become the unified Kingdom of England.The Heptarchy, the seven Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms of Britain, in name Northumbria, Mercia, East Anglia, Sussex, Kent, Essex and Wessex. For the past four hundred years a continuous power struggle has been fought between these seven kingdoms for overall supremacy, some have succeeded, whilst others have failed.Amid all this tussle the displaced tribes of the British Isles are still present, the Celtic Romano Britons in the South West/North, The Brittonic Picts in the North, the Welsh in the West. If this wasn't enough the Vikings are raiding the coastlines from Scandinavia and have invaded with their Great Heathen Army.
Dark Age Kingdoms is set in this traumatic period between 865 to 900, where the four remaining Kingdoms of the Heptarchy, Northumbria, Mercia, East Anglia and Wessex are besieged by the Vikings with the fringe tribes trying to hold their own lands against all comers.Choose a faction and defend your Kingdom from friends and foes alike. Truly, Dark Age Kingdoms is an epic struggle of man against man. Each faction selects or buys a warband, this small fighting group of warriors is led by a warband leader. The leader is an exceptional fighter, the strongest and bravest warrior in the warband. This tribal leader or Thegn holds his fellow warriors in check and commands their respect. Enrich your warband with the addition of warrior personalities and special characters. Use the traits and special abilities of your faction to further stylise your warband and increase its skill level over multiple encounters. Dark Age Kingdoms rules are based on a choice of actions and reactions that are the founding principles of this gaming system. The bound sequence is sub-divided into rounds and action phases. Each phase allows a specific warrior class to choose between inactivity or performing either a normal or special action. Warriors might be able to select a defensive reaction against an attack and the warband leader may even intervene and issue control actions that boost the activities of a warrior. The gaming system uses two six-sided dice for the majority of all dice rolls that are required, this system gives a more even spread of results. Designed for skirmish games, but allowing for upwards of twenty-five figures aside, the rules are scalable and detailed. Incorporated within the rules are event cards, a set of one hundred cards that allow the warband leader to help or hinder a selected faction by unleashing an event upon them.The rules are designed to give a vast array of options, so no battle should ever be the same. Whether you elect to assemble all of your warband on the battlefield or leave some warriors in reserve in the hope to sway the battle later. The game system uses strategic command, event options, tactical actions and reaction to give a realistic and dramatic flavour to this period of history.Designed for 25mm Dark Age Wargames figures, these rules are fully supported at our website of wargameshop.uk. Where rule support and free downloads are available, including the playing card size event cards.Why not dust off your old Dark Age Saga era figures and give them a new lease of life. This book is an updated edition of the Dark Age Kingdom rules previously published, it contains rule amendments and a few new actions. A more advanced version of these rules is available in our hardback Noble Edition version, this contains new personalities, special characters, legendary characters, noble lords, more actions and another 50 event cards.
