A campaign for Viking Invasion. Download here:The Great Army

'The Great Army' is set in the latter half of the ninth century, the period when the Vikings almost conquered England. Britain has changed since 793. The victory gained by Egbert of Wessex in the battle of Ellenden in 825 was followed by the assimilation by Wessex of the kingdoms of Kent, Sussex and Essex, though Mercia has thrown off rule from the south. The Picts suffered a disastrous defeat by the Vikings in 839, and then betrayal by Kenneth MacAlpin, the king of the Scots, and much of what remains of the former Pictish kingdom is under the rule of Dal Riada. Vikings have conquered and settled the north of Scotland and the Isle of Man, and have also established their kingdom of Dublin in Ireland. There are still no permanent Viking bases in England, however.

The original 793 campaign has the Vikings as raiders, using the seas and rivers to escape with their loot. The Vikings of 'The Great Army' are lords and settlers rather than bandits and their crews. In 866 they first landed on the east coast in numbers that allowed them to remain and hold territory, capturing York and renaming it 'Jorvik'. They fought and defeated in turn the armies of the Northumbrians, Mercians and East Anglians, and would have conquered Wessex as well were it not for the desperate resistance offered by King Alfred. However, elsewhere the Vikings were under pressure, pushed northwards in Scotland and driven out of Ireland. During the first half of the tenth century the Viking settlers were constantly at war with the English, and York was finally retaken in 954, with the expulsion of the last Viking king, Eric Bloodaxe.

The campaign is intended to be played at the expert level of difficulty. It begins in 867, with the Great Army in possession of York, and ends in 1016, when Cnut's invasion and conquest made England part of his Viking kingdom.