Saga of the Siege of the Two Islands

We manage to corner the forces of Beorix near the coast of Athens.  But while we are making preparations for the attack, we receive words back from Norsca that more time are required to train and equip the high end troops (aka cannot we are not allowed to age up to Age III or more if we want to achieve the bonus objectives).   We can thus only field spearmen, throwing axe men, raiders (light cavalry), javelin skirmishers and longboats.  Chief Verunder immediately call for help across the vicinity for the surrounding armies to provide reinforcements.  Fortunately we are at the Mediterranean and we manage to receive a lot of support from the neighboring regions.  Troops from Greece and Asia Minor (Persians) came to help, we even manage to get assistance from the Moorish people and Egyptians from the African coast.   Youths all over Europe gathered to serve as raider light cavalry. Most amazing of all we manage to obtain 200 Japanese warriors who are attached to the Persians at the moment.  Last but not least, the most exotic of all, 120 elven maidens and 120 dwarves throwing axe men.

So we proceed with the battle.  It was a tough fight.  The enemies were encamped at two islands, one just at the coast while the other a few miles further.  We fought real hard for the island fortress at the coast.  The enemy kept on launching attacks with heavy and light cavalry as well as archers.  We lost many men and Chief Verunder was killed early in the battle.  We then decide to send our navy to help only to discover that the waterways have towers in ambush…many of our dragon ships are sunk.  The tide began to turn when we send massive cavalry units into the fray, about 600 cavalry charge into the enemy camp to tear down the fortifications.  Heedless of casualties, the cavalry push on and were constantly fed by reinforcements.  Somewhere in the middle of the battle, we call off the cavalry and send them to clear the water ways from all the towers which they succeeded in doing so.  The waterways secured, we then send our dragon ships in again, together with the cavalry and fresh waves of infantry we manage to capture the inner island fortress.  We quickly secure the island and build a base there.

 Now to take the outer and final island.  We make an effort to build a power navy and push into the island.  Lo and behold, we manage to push into the main port area!  We are surprised by this success and we actually had hope to sneakily land an army but now it seems we can land a proper army right at the enemy doorstep.  Learning from past experiences, we sent the light raider cavalry right away and they succeeded in tearing down many fortifications and buildings.  We were surprised to find the Beorix had troll bodyugards!  However we manage to kill Beorix before his trolls and viking berserkers defeat our army.  All this while ships continue to offload more reinforcements form the Greek mainland, most importantly of all we landed the 120 elves and dwarves who proceed immediately to build towers to allow us to secure the beachhead, not caring about the arrows flying at them.  The elves and dwarves did well in building many towers but had to sell their lives in the end as the enemies were so numerous.  Nevertheless, we manage to secure the beachhead with many towers.  The enemies were strong and destroy our forces completely many times but the towers enable us to hold while reinforcements kept on coming.  We even lost control of the seas once.  This was soon solved by defeating the enemy with a replacement fleet and sending mass raider cavalry to destroy the docks.  Slowly but surely we manage to gather a large force at the beachhead.  Off to destroy the enemy!  Using the same old trick, we sent the cavalry to tear fortifications while the infantry went to eliminate enemy soldiers.  We finally prevailed!

However the cost of the entire battle is high.  We do not know how many Norse lives were lost but we believe it is in thousands.  So great was the cost that Vern declared that the Norse were to be relieved of all military duties for 10 years!

From one of the surviving Norse captains.