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Across the roiling sea comes a cry to chill the blood. ODIN!!! The Dragon Ships arrive, spilling the berserk sea-raiders ashore to reap a bloody harvest. Sounds like fun, right? Well, thanks to the erudite efforts of Lee Duigon, you too can recreate the fabulous fury of the Norsemen in your own T&T games!
The T&T character who gets two offensive dice for his Viking spiked shield may not know it, but if he were a real Viking, he'd be no more likely to have such a shield than he'd be to have a banjo.
Search the Icelandic sagas from cover to cover, alliterate yourself to the point of death with skaldic poetry - but nowhere will you encounter a Viking with a spiked shield.
There is, however, no dearth of violent encounters in the sagas, and much can be learned from them.
Despite their lack of spikes, actual Viking shields were versatile gadgets in the right hands. The shields of the Viking Age came in a variety of shapes and sizes - small (like the T&T buckler) and large, thick and thin, round, square, or shaped with a tapering end to guard more of the leg (you can see these in Bayeaux Tapestry). Some were reinforced by a heavy metal boss in the center, and most had handles inside rather than straps, making the shield easier to discard in a pinch. On some models, the rim was reinforced with leather or metal.
Most of the shields of the period were made of wood, linden being a particular favorite. Since most of the weapons they were expected to protect their owners from were made of metal, the efficiency of these shields may at first be doubted.
To be sure, many an honest Viking's career was ended when his shield failed to stop axe, sword, or spear; but wood was not without its advantages. One of the heroes of Njal's Saga, Gunnar of Hildarend, had a favorite technique of using his wooden shield as a swordbreaker. Catching a foeman's blade in the wood, Gunnar would give the shield a sharp twist and, more often than not, either break the intruding blade or wrench it from his enemy's grasp. In fact, he pulls this trick half a dozen time during the course of the saga.
This is surely a tactic to know when faced with an armed opponent - but hot to translate it into T&T terms?
First, you must determine whether your opponent's blade has pierced your shield - but has not pierced you, or split the shield in half. If you sustain no hits against your constitution in a given combat round, assume you haven't bee hit through your shield. If you're using a wooden shield against an opponent wielding a metal blade, assume the shield has been broken if, in one round, the opponent scores a number of hits greater than the number taken by the shield. Your armor, if you have any, may protect you from taking a hit on you CON, but you'll lose the shield. (If your shield is strengthened by a metal boss, however, ask the GM for a first-level saving roll on luck. If the roll is made, you've caught the blade.)
If the shield has not been broken during a combat round, you may duplicate Gunnar's trick by using the same rule T&T provides for the swordbreaker: if your DEX and ST are both greater than your opponent's, you have a 50% chance of snapping his blade or pulling the weapon from his grasp.
Ah! But what if your opponent's Strength and Dexterity are greater than yours?
Again we take our cue from Gunnar. When an opponent caught the blade of Gunnar's halberd in his shield, Gunnar - whose ST and DEX were greater than anybody's - simply gave the halberd a hearty twist and broke the shield. Similarly, let the player with the blade have a 50% chance of splitting the shield.
Now for the sticky part. What if a blade is caught by a shield and neither are broken?
When Gunnar's brother, Kolskegg, was confronted with this problem, he was wont to lash out with his short sword and lop the offending spear off at the head. If a shorter weapon was being used against him, he would give the shield a tug and cut off his opponent's hand.
In this situation, the man with the shield has the advantage. If your ST and DEX are greater than your opponent's, swing your weapon and take a free shot at his spear or his arm. If his ST and DEX are greater than yours, you must make a first level saving roll on Luck in order to get that free shot. If you fail to make the saving roll, the oponnent gets another chance to break your shield. If he's unable to do that, you get another crack at his arm or spear-shaft. And so on.
Now let's add these Viking Age wooden shields to your friendly weapons shop's supply.
A standard round or square Viking shield (no boss) takes 2 hits (what, only 2? Well, remember, it's made of wood); requires a ST of 2 to wield; costs 10g.p.; and has a weight of 40 units.
A shield reinforced with a heavy boss takes 4 hits; requires a ST of 3 to wield; costs 15 g.p.; and weighs 50 units.
Two hits seems kind of chintzy, but if your character is wearing a helmet and/or armor, he or she doesn't have to use the shield to catch all the hits.
Example: Ulf the Unwashed (he does a walk-on in Njal) carries a reinforced shield and wears a suit of mail (for a total of 13 hits - we'll make it 26 because he's a warrior). He's also carrying a short sword (3 dice). He has a ST of 16, a DEX of 14, and a LK of 12, for a total of 6 personal combat adds.
His opponent, Einar Fishface, also wears mail (11 hits) and carries a halberd (6 dice). He has an 18 ST, 16 DEX, and 7 LK, so he has 4 combat adds.
The two do battle. Ulf rolls three dice for a total of 11, plus 6 adds = 17. Einar's 6 dice, plus adds, equal 20. The result: 3 hits against Ulf (he can take 26).
Ulf's shield will take 4 hits, so Ulf decides to take 3 on the shield and he catches the blade of the halberd. Einar's ST and DEX are greater than Ulf's, however, so he has a 50% chance of splitting the shield. The GM flips a coin and it comes up tails; the shield holds.
Now it's Ulf's turn; if he can make a first level saving roll on luck (20 - 12 = 8), he can chop the head off the halberd. He rolls the dice, collecting double 3's (6) to earn another roll, and then 8, for a total of 14. Down comes the short sword, and Einar is disarmed.
The above, of course are only suggestions for simulating certain aspects of Viking age combat. Other GM's may come up with better ideas. But the point is to use the wooden shields, with all their strengths and weaknesses, as they are actually used.
Before we leave the topic of shields, it may be useful to make a note on berserk fighting.
The designers of T&T have very alertly noted that berserkers could juice themselves up by chewing on the rim of the shield (hence the extra 5 adds for that activity). So it is in the sagas, with one illuminating exception.
In Egil's Saga, the skald Egil Sallagrimson was once challenged to personal combat by a berserker named Holmgang-Ljot. As Ljot was chewing on his shield, Egil lashed out with a booted foot and kicked the shield up into the berserkers mouth, scattering teeth to kingdom come and giving him a nasty wound that made the rest of the battle a cakewalk
GM's should allow players to use this tactic, provided they think of it themselves, and the berserker's opponent is standing close enough to deliver the kick. (One does not always get that close to a berserker.) If this is done, let the berserker take hits against his CON totalling one-half the kicker's ST, followed by one free attack round for the kicker.
Any berserker foolish enough to chew on his shield while an opponent is standing next to him, deserves a swift kick.
Although the rules of T&T require players with halberds to wield them with both hands, Gunnar of Hlidarend and some other heroes of the sagas are often seen doing it one-handed, using the other hand to maneuver a shield or sword.
Njal does not describe precisely how Gunnar is able to manage this feat. We must either assume superhuman strength on his part, or a halberd with the haft cut down so it's short and light enough to be used one-handed. It couldn't be too short, however, because Gunnar was fond of using the halberd to stab a foe in the belly and then toss him up and over his head, like hay from a pitchfork.
Perhaps it's best to grant Gunnar unique abilities and avoid unnecessarily complicating the T&T rules. Or permit an ultra-high level warrior to wield pole weapons with one hand.
Saga heroes come armed with an assortment of long and short swords, spears, slings, axes, hatchets, and halberds. The T&T system works perfectly well with all of them, although swords of the Viking Age had a tendency to get bent out of shape during combat. In the Laxdaela Saga, Kjartan has a devil of a time trying to keep his sword straight during one battle. He had to stop several times to straighten the blade with his foot. But we needn't worry about that in T&T. As the rulebook says, all the weapons in the shop are made of the finest materials.
In the sagas, spears are used for thrusting and throwing. The better heroes have a trick of catching a spear in flight and hurling it back at their opponents. GM's may permit this tactic for a high-level warrior (at least 10th level), calling for a high-level saving roll on Dexterity. If the player fails to catch the spear, some provisions should be made for a possible hand wound.
Axes are a favorite weapon in the sagas. Skarp-hedin, Njal's eldest son, had an axe named Troll-Wife with which he dealt out much scathe. This axe featured a cutting blade (curved) up front and a hammer-head in the rear; Skarp-hedin used both with equal facility. Gunnar sometimes carried a small axe or hatchet. Double-bladed axes, though rare, were not unkown.
Some Viking Age stalwarts eschewed the shield and fought with a weapon in either hand, often a spear and a sword. Either weapon could be used to parry blows, although this was known to backfire - a wooden axe-handle can take only so many blows from a metal sword before the head flies off.
T&T characters of especially high Strength and Dexterity should be allowed the use of two weapons simultaneously. In the case of conventional one-handed weapons (i.e. swords and spears), the character's ST and DEX should each be 1.5 times that required to wield the heaviest or trickiest of the two weapons.
Wooden-hafted weapons may parry one hit per combat round, but will break if sustaining three hits on one round or one hit in each of three rounds. Metal weapons, such as swords, will not break; but their defensive use is already accounted for in the give-and-take of ordinary combat. The main thing here is to add an element of risk to the decision to up extra die rolls by using an extra weapon.
If two metal weapons are used, apply the rule T&T provides for the use of the main gauche - designate the shorter weapon to take one hit per combat round. No extra benefit should be offered for the use of two weapons of equal length; the extra offensive punch should be its own reward
Among his other accomplishments, Gunnar of Hlidarend was a noted archer. I bring this up because the hero's bowstring snapped when his life depended on it, and his wife (a poor sport) refused to donate a few locks of her long hair to replace it. Thus, according to history, human hair may be used to string a small, relatively light bow in a pinch. GM's should permit this if there has been any prior indication that the donor's hair is long enough to serve the purpose.
One of the factors that determine how entertaining the game of T&T will be is the imagination of the individual players. Combats between equally-matched characters can go on and on, and unless somebody can pull a new trick out of the bag, it's apt to get tedious.
T&T characters use weapons that have a basis in historical fact, and the more they know about how to use these weapons, the more options are open to them and the more interesting the game becomes.
The Icelandic sagas are filled with descriptions for combat involving many weapons in the T&T armory. Don't be content to stand there and trade blows all night. Your weapons have many possibilities, some of which will enable you to overcome a stronger opponent (remember Ulf and Einar).
Meanwhile, don't call your character a Viking just because he has a spiked shield.
