It's 1066 and you're King Harold Godwinsson

How would:
a) Keep your throne
b) Beat the Normans
c) Make sure your eye isn't stabbed with foreign objects?

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I would use machine guns.

Make a deal with Normans and invade France with our combined forces.

>not just nuking Rouen

Fighting both armies in a pitched battle is impossible, letting them kill each other while you flee on a defensive position possibly the north, and then pick up the scraps seems more realistic.

Eh, it's all wood, a firebombing will do.

I would kill my faggot broTostig so he never brings Hadrada over and just wait in Wessex.
Historians don't like counterfactuals but from what I've read the consensus is that the Normans would have been seen off were it not for the other comparably formidable invasion which had arrived literally two weeks before on the other side of the country.
It should surprise no-one that Hadrada was more feared than the bastard.
If you wanted to be really pragmatic you could have flattered the Church, Rome sanction the Norman conquest as a sort of crusade making it considerably easier for William to find mercenaries.

DO IT AGAIN TREBUCHET HARALD

Seeing how I'd know in advance the date when William is able to cross I'd wait until calling and assembling the fyrd, only beginning the call in mid September.

Once the Norwegians invade do everything the same then move south much more slowly. William was worried about leaving the coast and so you can take your time and raise a much larger fyrd in London.

I'd make sure fucking every single man knew the Normans cavalry trickery about feigned routs, every single one, we'd be telling the men about this all year and that we can't chase them no matter what. We'd also be sure to bring a metric fuckload of javelins. Maybe give a brother a few hundred men on horseback with orders to wait far behind until the battle has well begun to go and raid the shit out of the Normans camp.

The only real worry after that is having William escape back to Normandy to tr again.

You mean have Hardrada and William kill each other?

im norwegian so id go south to defeat william then commit suicide to ensure hardrada wins

Since I'm french : I give the current french king my crown :^)

you're not strong enough, kiddos...

Just wait for the Normans to charge and mow them all down with a machine gun.

wait till that norman fucker creeps up to london and then pounce.

reminder the whole 1066 moment was a moment of pure luck.

Convert to Frenchness by 1065 in hope to appease the Eternal Frank and avoid invasion

Why woukd I want to?

France was a shithole in that period

I've heard the fight was going the anglos' way until Harold got offed and the fyrd routed
If that's correct, wouldn't it be enough just to avoid getting killed in the middle off the battle?

>Surrender immediately to Harold hardrade, move to Rome.
>1000 years later
>English language is mix between Anglo Saxon and Norwegian.

Feels good man

March south after Stamford but don't do a forced march south to intercept William.

IIRC there were a couple of major anglo saxon lords that didnt contribute forces in time. Get their lazy asses and then march south with the aims to cut them off from their navy. William will have to try and intercept me, choose appropriate defensive place.

Truth is that Harold's all-infantry was completely fucked due to their immobility. You can't change the way your housecarls and fyrdmen are trained and equipped without a massive concerted effort to consciously create a cavalry force which would be considerably more expensive to maintain. No cavalry means no mobility which means the enemy controls when and where the engagement will take place and can raid your supply lines and storehouses at will.

By the era standards it was pretty strong
Especially when compared to fucking England

Willaim was in a completely hostile country. He was afriad to leave the coast because he was worried he would be cut off from his supplies and so he didn't really move about that much. Harold had plenty of time to organise properly, he could have played a completely defensive game which would ruin the Normans plans, they needed a decisive battle and not long sieges trying to resupply from Normandy. It was alread late September at Hastinhs, if Harold waited a few months the Normans would probably be forced to go home for winter.

Harold was actually an Anglo-Dane. His mother was Danish and the entire Godwinson family were Danish sympathisers. The entire north half of England were in the same boat, only the southern parts were strongly Anglo-Saxon. I woupd have preferred to have Hardrada win instead of William tho.

This is actually a good answer. Even if he didn't defeat William at Hastings William would need to retreat with less men than he had at the start of the day whereas Harold could use a victory as a rallying cry for more support from the less helpful earls. William would need to wait weeks for reinforcements, Harolds were days away.

>>English language is mix between Anglo Saxon and Norwegian.

that actually happened in our timeline

sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/11/121127094111.htm

Yeah but, Anglo-Saxon and Norwegian combined represent merely 1/4th of current vocabulary tho

I'd sooner recognize words in a sentence in fucking French than in German or Norwegian

I'm guessing that's what they meant.

Not charge down the hill at Hastings.

time to play CK2 again...

With current knowledge?
a)move it
b)don't
c)
>gather all ships I can get
>gather my house, especially the most loyal and best warriors, craftsmen, sailors and a bunch of young women
>gather material, especially seeds, weapons, tools & iron
>also some horses
>sail my fleet over iceland, greenland to America
>take long island
>make new capital
>establish new kingdom
>explore coastline down to caribbean & mississippi
>ally tribes and integrate then into the kingdom, supply those that do, destroy those that don't
>concentrate on naval tech, make longboats with high freeboard, gaff rigging and keel for blue water sailing
>establish trade routes and outposts
>make gunpowder and simple canons
>leave lineage with the means to control all navigable waters in the new world
>leave them a mission to build an invasion fleet of 10.000 ships with warriors to sail east and take back england

You are very special, user

This is what happens when we let Americans post.

this is gonna be like Sardinia guy all over again, isn't it

>a) Keep your throne
By beating the Normans

>b) Beat the Normans
My years of playing total war could at least contribute

>c) Make sure your eye isn't stabbed with foreign objects?
Wear war mask

Just ignore Hardrada and deal with the
>great
>heathen
>army
later.
Everyone knows vikings can't fight for shit and crumble the moment they face anyone other than monasteries and unarmed villagers

>Hardrada
>leading the Great Heathen Army

>a) Keep your throne
Prioritize this. Instead of having my army sprint to the other side of the country right after putting down Tostig and Hardrada, I'd take some time to recover and beef up the local garrisons. William's got to worry about achieving a swift victory considerably more than I do.

>b) Beat the Normans
In conjunction with the above, play to my strengths. Never abandon the shieldwall, and make sure the fyrd understands basic cavalry tactics like regrouping after a feigned retreat.

>c) Make sure your eye isn't stabbed with foreign objects?
Wear a fuckin helmet that covers my goddamn face.

d) demand that the horse's dicks on the tapestry are made much larger

bump

To be fair Hastings was kinda luck on the Norman side. If you could replay the battle again, English would've won.

Prepare a raid where William's fleet is stationed at Saint-Valery-sur-Somme in August. I never understood why the Anglo-Saxons (particularly the ones in the former Danelaw) didn't bother to make a commando raid during the summer. Take a page from the Vikings and absolutely wreck William's ships and supplies. Not to mention kill as many men and steal horses.

Create a Veeky Forums thread

Pretty much

All Harold needed to do was fight to a draw. And he was only 1 hour away from darkness when he got killed. Had Harold and the Anglo-Saxon army held until dusk, more and more reinforcement would pour in and strengthen his position.

If there was 1 serious error that Harold made, it was not taking his brother Gyrth's advice in doing a scorched earth campaign around Sussex and allow Gyrth to lead the army. Meanwhile Harold could rest and gather more troops. If Gyrth won, all would be good. If Gyrth lost, Harold could face a weakened Norman army.

Only if those retarded fyrdsmen didn't rashly charge after the Bretons. If Harold's army hadn't lost those vital men, there was no way William's army would've broken through the shield-wall.

As long as you manage to c), b) and a) will follow.

There's a theory amongst certain circles of historians that if Harold had the entire army join in on the impetus of the charge, William's army would've been seriously impacted enough that it's conceivable that William would've died. No Williams means there's no central leader to rally behind and the English now have the advantage.

QFT

Harold was Anglo-Scandinavian so he should've known that the best defense is a good offense. A nighttime raid on William's camp would've been the best course of victory.

>I would kill my faggot broTostig so he never brings Hadrada over and just wait in Wessex.
THIS

Hardraada was the wild card. Nobody knew that he was coming while Harold was preparing for the enemy from the south. If Tostig had died somehow before reaching Norway, Fulford Gate and Stamford Bridge wouldn't have happened. This means there's more huscarls, thegns, and fyrdsmen to fight at Hastings. In fact, the Normans would've been repelled if they had tried to make a crossing because the southern shires would've alerted Harold.