Inter Arma gameplay - Fight for the keep

21 knights plus 3 archers against two warbands of 15 Vikings who tried to take the castle and the village. The keep is quite a centerpiece on the table; most of the knights were placed inside and couldn't move until the sentries had a sight of the attackers, and then they could only leave the keep in groups of five.

The sentries couldn't spot the attackers until they were close.  Trusting in their comrades' strenght, most of the foot knights getting out of the castle started running westwards to the woods, from where the second warband launched its attack, but their heavy armor slowed them down occasionally.

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Finally the first fighters arrived and while the two mounted knights escaped the death trap of the Vikings and charged their archers, their comrades on foot took up the fight.

The Viking right formed a shield wall as more reinforcements arrived for the Knights but the left flank wasn't so lucky, being charged in the back by the cavaliers.

Finally, the Vikings attacking the stone wall east of the keep managed to cross the obstacle and a close quarter clombat ensued.

On the Western side the Vikings had some real bad rolls and lost many men.

A bloody session of combat began behind the wall and a few knights were wounded, two of them died from their wounds in the next turn, but the losses were more heavier for the attackers.

The warband in the Western woods has been overwhelmed eventually.

After a morale-test regarding their losses the Vikings rolled a 'retreat' and the fight was won by the brave  defenders of the keep to a cost of six lives compared to the enemy's seventeen... 

While the knights were classified as Elites and most Vikings did not have chainmail either, the battle was decided by a ton of bad rolls... One of the first massed combats resulted in five intiatives for the knights out of five and the Vikings had two dead and two wounded. On the other hand, the iron-clad warriors got tired of running really quickly which gave me (their commander) something to think about... Also, my archers were uneffective, shooting at least three rounds (all three of them) on a single target and not even managed to hit.