The Northern Crusades in Finland 2025
Feudal Scandinavian in action
Game 1 Feudal Scandinavian vs Later Byzantine
Game 2 Feudal Scandinavian vs Hungarian
Game 3 Feudal Scandinavian vs Medieval German
Game 4 Feudal Scandinavian vs Later Byzantine
Game 5 Feudal Scandinavian vs Teutonic Knights
In the early summer of 2025 a brave band of CLWC expeditionaries headed to the unfrozen north to take part in an ADLG event in Helsinki, on the not unreasonable basis that we'd not been there before, but it seems like we've been everywhere else already!
The theme of the event was the Northern Crusades, with lists from that sort of era, give or take quite a few more southernly Central European additions to the roster, including the even the Byzantines!
However, with an event in Finland, and a Northern Crusades theme, most of the travelling party ended up settling on the Feudal Scandinavian list, on the not unreasonable basis that there isn't a Finnish list, and even though Finland isn't technically in Scandinavia we still felt that taking a (in my case Danish) Scandinavian list to Finland that was half-decent and which we could manage to cobble troops together for was simply the right thing to do for this event
Or, as Sean Bean might well say..
The trip to Helsinki is a fairly long one, with a couple of hours of time difference too, so a day or so of tourism and goggling at the price of a pint was almost obligatory as a preamble and postscript as well.
The first inkling of how Finnish everything might be came on the plane, when it appeared to be obligatory to drink a cup of blueberry juice before being allowed entry into the country
The airport arrivals gift shop featured a rather intimidating collection of expertly taxidermied arctic foxes ...
Dave Allen of course had come on a budget, by train and ferry, crossing from Sweden on an overnighter. When we saw the vessel he had arrived on we were all rather relieved that he had actually made it across the Baltic successfully
Being able to add a Red Breasted Merganser to the Merlin App Life List was also an added bonus of gaming in such a remote location
The evils of populist rabble rousing politicians appear not to have fully afflicted Finland just yet - but they are clearly on the march here too
It was reported that Elon Musk had considered buying a flight of all of these on his last trip, but had baulked at the cost.
In Helsinki's main square we found possibly the worlds best-named post-pub snack bar.
Helsinki's main railway station is an architectural wonder of 1920's Art Nouveau almost-brutalism, but with a Finnish twist.
Unbelievably, we also did manage some military tourism. This is a view from an island fortress in Helsinki's harbour, from which you can rail at the Swedes from a safe distance to your hearts content.
There is also a Finnish U-Boat on the island (how cold must that have been for a submariner in WW2 eh?) and also a small museum on the island, which carefully skirts around some of the more interesting aspects of the "the friend of my enemy is my friend - especially in an existential war of national annihilation" Finns WW2 military adventures.
Anyways, on with the games
The lists for the Feudal Scandinavian and my opponent armies from these games in Finland can be seen here in the ADLG Wiki - I do chat about it in the first video as well.
You can watch the games on this page, or you can see them on YouTube directly using these links. Each video will play in sequence one after the other
Game 1 Feudal Scandinavian vs Later Byzantine
Game 2 Feudal Scandinavian vs Hungarian
Game 3 Feudal Scandinavian vs Medieval German
Game 4 Feudal Scandinavian vs Later Byzantine
Game 5 Feudal Scandinavian vs Teutonic Knights
Game 1 - vs Later Byzantines
Game 2 - vs Later Hungarians
Game 3 - vs Medieval Germans
Game 4 - vs Later Byzantines
Game 5 - vs Teutonic Knights
All in all this was a cracking weekend - if a tad expensive - with some very enjoyable games and a mid table finish for the Feudal Scandiwegians.
Our Finnish (or more accurately Greco-Finnish) hosts were extremely hospitable too, we learnt quite a lot more than we expected about Finnish bar culture (400ml pints, and lots of METAL if you are interested), as well as managing to tick off almost all of the vaguely military-historical stuff there is to see in Helsinki.
The day after the competition I also headed off to the Finnish Tank Museum, and then made a video of my trip.
The Parola Armour Museum
There's also a coda to this video, with some extra bits I forgot to include!
The Parola Armour Museum, Part II
That's the end - so why not go back to the Match Reports Index and read some more reports?
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Game 1 Feudal Scandinavian vs Later Byzantine
Game 2 Feudal Scandinavian vs Hungarian
Game 3 Feudal Scandinavian vs Medieval German
Game 4 Feudal Scandinavian vs Later Byzantine
Game 5 Feudal Scandinavian vs Teutonic Knights
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