The Naval raids were tough on my players, putting it mildly. I had a TPK.

The incremental nature of the odds was especially brutal. By the time they got to the last skirmish they were down on HP and facing 2;1 odds.

This is how I did it.

I allowed each player to have command of a boat and do the battle rolls. Fifty:fifty chance with more success than failures. They also rolled followers fate. I figured about 12 knights per boat plus sailors (therefore 8 boats = 96 knights) in line with the statement that about 100 knights show up.

I then pitched each boat against a different Saxon rolled from the Book of Armies table for Tribal Saxons.

For most of the skirmishes, they did quite well, especially on land, and had them spend a week in Yarmouth being cared for by a skilled chirugerist. However by the time they arrived in Yarmouth, I had two guys barely above consciousness. No one asked to miss out on the last part of the raid.

At the last Sea battle they suffered badly. Only one player rolled a passion.

In hindsight, I think I could have help them with the choice of the opposition, but I let myself get carried away. I asked them to roll on the Book of Armies table for Tribal Saxons, and had two 12's, a 15 and a 20. The 12's were bad enough rolling 6D6 damage. The 15 was a 7D6 damage and the 20 were bersekers.

I rolled 60 damage for one guy on a critical. I kept rolling 6's!

I did hint heavily that the players should use defensive tactics at times, but ultimately it is their choice. Inexperience on my and my players part didn't help.

One thing I will do in future, is to use the saxons from the appendix in KAP5, rather than the BoA.

Also, unless specifically requested, all PK's will be in same unit so they can help each other.

I can't help thinking I'm playing the game wrong, by not being brutal and allowing my players chances. I roll my dice in the open, but if everyone needs to roll up a character every other week, its not going to be fun for them.

So, what are everyone else's experience with this?

Earl - I just played the exact same year and my experience was the total opposite; my player's breezed through it all which has also left me wondering if I'm playing the game right, albeit for different reasons.

One crucial difference for me was that I was not playing using the new BoB rules. Not having had the time to fully read the book I went with a tweaked version of the old system and a few house rules of my own. However, I greatly expanded the raids to make them more of a narrative event, and created a side adventure to increase the playing time (a task which involved taking out a Saxon warning beacon set high atop Beachy Head, with the PCs unarmored having had to swim across a river to reach it).

My PCs were all in the same boat (as part of a 5 boat fleet) and one of them was the boat commander making all the Battle rolls. Again, to expand things a little, I predetermined various random events, weather patterns, and the distance traveled per day (using some rules from Land of Giants), and created positions of Helmsman (Seamanship), Lookout (Awareness) and Chirurgeon (Chirurgerey) on the boat which affected certain outcomes. The Helmsman made all Seamanship rolls (which i used instead of battle for ship maneuvers), the Lookout used Awareness to give an initial attack bonus (for landing in an advantages spot) and either spotted or did not spot random events ahead to warn the PCs, and the Chirugeon mass healed "dead" sailors to determine how many of them were only actually wounded and then returned to health. The PKs hired these professionals from the dockside area of Hantonne before setting off (which of course I milked them for the cost of doing so ;D)

Reading your post reminds me of how close death is in KAP though. Despite the differences in how we actually ran the events of the year, I'm fairly certain, all things considered, that the threat level our respective groups faced was quite similar. You had a TPK and I had a (near) cakewalk.

Next year is the probable invasion of France and the Battle of Bayeux. I'm reading through BoB right now and planning the setup. I'll repost the outcome of that (using BoB) come the time, and my experience may then mirror yours.

When I did this, it was pretty brutal. We realised afterwards though that we probably did it wrong.

I think each round is a battle round - so you only do one round of combat v. each opponent, not a full fight.

Interesting. I didn't use BoB just the army list from BoA. I ran the skirmish per the KAP5 rules. ie 1 battle round and a handful of melee rounds before determining followers fates.

I also didn't bother doing any side quests, as I wanted to move quickly through this year and hope to offer the Malahaut embassy on their arrival in Lindsey.

Unsurprisingly, my Knights decided to stay in Britain with the Earl and the King for 488. Prince Madoc has earned himself a reputation for unsuccessful campaigns and my knights overall are reluctant to follow him.

So Waterleapers for my group, rather than France. Its a shame.

Interesting. I didn't use BoB just the army list from BoA. I ran the skirmish per the KAP5 rules. ie 1 battle round and a handful of melee rounds before determining followers fates.


BoB and BoA weren't around when I did it. I did the same as you - treated each engagement as a separate skirmish, when it should have been restricted to one round per engagement, then followers fates and a description of what happened.



So Waterleapers for my group, rather than France. Its a shame.


That is a shame, but then, Water leapers can be terrifying! Being knocked in the water can be pretty deadly.

Yes. They don't know it yet.

Did I say they have also taken a dislike to boats?

My group only gets to play every 6-8 weeks, but when we do it's for the whole day (approx 8 hours), so I usually take the events from the GPC as a starting point and then expand on them to make sure we have enough to do. Next year, my PCs may also choose to stay at home in England (since their impression of Madoc is similar to yours) but I will expand what they need to do - one fight with some Water Leapers would be over in about half an hour.

I did also fail to mention that one of my PCs, when engaging one of the Saxon boats, became critically inspired, turning into a walking dealer of death. And I didn't play each round as a Battle round, rather just standard combat until the enemy no longer had the numbers to continue, which on average meant 4-5 combat rounds per engagement.