Where Would You Stand in the Shield Wall?

How it works

Nine questions, four answers each, drawn from a larger bank so that a second run asks something new. Scored on your machine, with no account and no request of any kind — the questions were inside the file before you opened it.

The six positions

• The Front Rank — the first face the other line sees, and the one that has to still be standing in ten minutes.
• The Second Rank — the person physically holding the front rank up. Invisible from outside, and the reason the wall does not fold.
• The Flank — watching the end of the line, where the battle is actually lost.
• The Banner — the fixed point everyone navigates by, whose only job is to still be there.
• The Reserve — held back on purpose, spending the whole fight deciding when.
• The Reckoning — the one who counts afterward, buries, tallies, and tells it straight.

Why position and not courage

Every quiz about a battle wants to ask how brave you are, and it is a bad question twice over: nobody knows the answer about themselves, and everybody standing in a wall is frightened, which is what makes standing there mean anything. The useful question is what job you drift into when a group of people has to hold together under pressure — and that one people answer accurately about themselves, because they have done it. At a bad meeting, a hospital corridor, a house move, a crisis at work, everybody takes a position in the line without being assigned one, and it is usually the same position every time.

What the record actually says

The ninth century in Britain is better documented than its reputation suggests. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records the Great Heathen Army arriving in 865 and taking York in November 866; Ashdown in January 871; Alfred's victory at Edington in May 878 and the twelve days of feasting at Wedmore that followed it; and Tettenhall in 910, which broke the last great Danish army sent into Mercia. Those are the bones the show builds on, and none of them describe a duel — they describe lines of frightened people, holding or not holding.

Sharing what you got

When the ninth question lands the address bar changes quietly, and that link opens on your exact position for whoever you send it to. The downloadable card is drawn inside the page and never uploaded anywhere.

Common questions

What actually was a shield wall?

A line of men standing shoulder to shoulder with overlapping shields, pushing against another line doing the same thing. It was the standard formation of Anglo-Saxon and Viking-age battle in Britain, and contemporary accounts of engagements like Ashdown in January 871 describe them as little more than one great clash of shield walls. It decided almost nothing by skill and almost everything by whether the line held.

Which battles does The Last Kingdom actually show?

The series dramatises real engagements alongside invented ones. The Battle of Tettenhall, fought on 5 August 910 between the allied forces of Mercia and Wessex and a Northumbrian Danish army, is staged in the fourth episode of the fourth season. The series finale turns on the taking of Bebbanburg, which is Bamburgh Castle in Northumberland.

Is one of these six positions better than the others?

No, and that is the design. A line made entirely of front-rank temperaments collapses the moment the front rank tires, because nobody is holding it up from behind and nobody is watching the flank. Every verdict here describes a job the wall genuinely needs, and the honest reading of your result is not a ranking but a description of where you would be useful.

This is fan-made, and unofficial

Where the rest of them are

If you would rather be sorted by the century than by the fight, the ninth-century quiz is next door, and the allegiance sorter asks which side would have taken you in the first place. The The Last Kingdom section lists every quiz and tool in this wing, and the fan tributes hub has the rest of the corner. If you would rather play something than answer questions, Iron Realms is free and runs in a browser tab.