Thirty-five heavily armed men riding fast through a thinly populated land could cause devastation. They could move more quickly than the news of their advent could reach the king, raiding villages and halls and moving on, striking hard, fast and deep before returning to their own country. In most cases, a dozen trained warriors would present overwhelming numbers against any defence. While the warband attached to a king could reach substantial numbers, there would only be a handful of warriors defending an outlying hall or manse. Faced with 20 or 30 raiders, the wiser option was to withdraw rather than seek battle. Or bar the doors and hold out until the raiders move on.  

The battles remembered in the historical record are greatly skewed: for every Battle of Hatfield Chase or Winwaed, when kings and warbands died, there would have been hundreds, if not thousands of skirmishes, retreats, raids, ambushes and escapes. The great battles were remembered precisely because they were unusual, both in the nature and the number of the casualties.

The annual round of war was more mundane. In the usual cycle of raiding, cattle stealing and slave taking, warriors far more often declined to offer battle than staked everything upon a single encounter. The whole culture of small-scale, fast-moving warfare was predicated upon the attackers being able to produce overwhelming numbers in a particular area and moving out before anything could be done to stop them.