The Sons of Death

Time for quite a change from the stuff I've been painting lately with some Saga miniatures! I realized my last 28mm have been painted last March and since then I've only churned out 15mm Napoleonics and Flames of War miniatures. So a change in pace was definitely in order to neutralize the palate from all that small lead.

These guys are the Gall-Gaedhill or the Sons of Death, a band of Norse Gael mercenaries that can be taken as Swords for Hire in Saga. I'm mostly just going to use them as normal Hearthguard and Warriors instead of the special unit, but they were nice looking minis so they found a place in my growing warband.

I decided to stick with just a few different shades when painting them and left all decorations off from the capes to make it a nice fast side project between all the olive drab. Worked out quite nicely with the unit being mostly done in one session with only the basing left for later. I wanted to keep the chainmail more dull coloured, but might still have to go back and give it a light drybrush of a lighter tone. It looks a bit too monotone, especially on the photos. But for now I'm happy with the results and painting them really did miracles to my painting motivation. To finish them I used shield decals from War Flag as I have done in the past as well. Easy to apply and only minor touch ups were required to blend them in.

Saga: Clash of Warlords

Preparing for the Painting Challenge is going forward fast with many miniatures being built up and a lot fewer being painted. I've been finishing a couple of projects that have been in a semi-finished state for ages. I finally got around to finishing the roofs of my 4Ground buildings and painting the doors for Gripping Beasts Dark Age Church. All in time for a game of Saga this week!

It's been a while since the last game again, but as a fellow club member wanted to try out the rules I was happy to oblige. He'd been building up a Viking force and was sort of familiar with the rules, but just hadn't played the game yet. I decided to leave my normal Anglo-Saxon list of Alfred, a bard and 5 points of Warriors home as it's a bit cheesy and opted to try out the Jomsvikings for the first time. I've played against them quite a few times, so I'm pretty familiar with how to beat them, but not really with how to play with them.

Anyways I went with a Dane-axe wielding Warlord and 4 points of dane-axe carrying hearthguard backed up by 2 points of regular warriors. All this was split into 2 groups of 8 hearthguard, a group of 8 warriors and two groups of 4 warriors to give me command dice.

My opponent Jaakko played regular Vikings with a Warlord, 2x6 hearthguard, 2x8 warriors and 12 levy with bows.

The mission was Clash of the Warlords and we set up the table so that it would be centered around a Saxon village which had become the battleground for two groups of marauding Vikings. I piled all my forces on one flank to concentrate my smaller forces in one area and hopefully pick out some lone units on the way.

My initial moves were to rush the unit of Warriors on my right flank in a bid to quickly get them killed and to remove some Saga dice. However everything went to hell and I lost 6 of my Hearthguard taking out the unit. Not a very good trade. On the following turn the remaining two were wiped out by attacking Viking Hearthguard. However they were then in turn left vulnerable to a combined attack by my Warlord and Warriors.

On the other flank the levies had moved up to shooting positions, but only managed to get out one round of shooting the whole game, which ended up in one dead Warrior. I did need to reposition my forces a bit though as I couldn't just rush them either as they were well supported.

The Vikings then made a bold dash towards my two small units of warriors who had been bravely hiding behind the building only to lose the fight without killing a single warrior. As revenge I used the Jomsviking board to pull out his Warlord from any entourage and bravely attacked him with my own Warlord and 8 Hearthguard. The end result was quite predictable, but he didn't go down without a fight and took two of my guys with him.

I'm not too impressed with the Jomsvikings. I didn't really help myself by telling my opponent that he probably should avoid giving me Wrath whenever possible, but it was a practice game for him so maybe it was in place. Still without Wrath a lot of the abilities become pretty much useless and the most effective way of gaining Wrath "Northern Tempest" is pretty much negated if there are Levies on the board. Still quite fun to play, but I think I'll stick to Anglo-Saxons and Norse Gaels.

At the same time two other club members were playing Bolt Action, this time with a Pacific setting. There's been a build up of both Japanese and USMC to give some variety in addition to the regular Western Front games that are running around. Anyways splendid basing on the Japanese with small palm trees etc. going around. Really makes the minis stand out.

Painting Challenge entry 18: Mop-up

Time for my last entry for the challenge. This was more of a mop-up of the last minis on the painting desk. The challenge desperado and dino were in a half finished state for over half the challenge and I only got them done last weekend.

First up is the entry fee. It's a Foundry Lawman that I got off a clubmate. Turned out quite nicely in the end and I think the blue pants really give some nice contrast without being too far away from the earthy colors on the rest of his clothing.

 The next fella is a Gripping Beast Bard for Saga. Not sure if he's going to get any use in games as his rules can make your Warlord a brutal killing machine or a total time bomb waiting to ruin your game. Still it's a cool mini and adds some nice narrative into the games.

Finally Danny the Dino! 2 euros from some local store. I filled his huge mould lines and mismatches with greenstuff and repainted with my airbrush. He was sort of a therapy project that I did on and off when I was bored with everything else and had the airbrush out. Everything except for the eyes, teeth  and nails are done with an airbrush. Turned out rather nicely even if I say so myself. Good practice for some Warhammer Chimeras that I have lined up. Now I just need to figure out some scenario for In Her Majestys Name that I can use him in :)

And for those of you who don't read the amazing Analogue Hobbies blog here is the artist and video behind Danny's name. Watch at your own risk as it's just horribly bad.

Painting Challenge entry 8: More Norse-Gaels

Next up is the second half of the Gripping Beast Norse Gael starter box with an extra dane axe wielding warlord. I've now got 7 points done with the plastic models so I shouldn't have to resort to borrowing stuff anymore :) I actually finished these guys last thursday already, but didn't want to put them here before Curt had time to put them up on his blog.

I used some Battle Flag shield decals on these guys. They look great, but I had some minor problems. These are meant for the plastic Vikings which apparently have different sized shields so I had to cut them up a bit to make them fit. They are also quite thick to make the colors vibrant, but it does have a downside that they don't work well with curved shields. Ended up using them on the straight ones and just hand painted some basic shapes onto the curved shields.

These guys seem far more peaceful than their Dane Axe weilding brethren, but I guess that comes from the fact that they've managed to keep their shoes and haven't had to resort to selling them to get better weapons. I added a Warlord Games Celt casualty on the warlords base to spice it up a bit. Blood effect with GW's "Blood for the Blood God" paint.

Looking at the images now I've noticed that there's a bit of the white undercoat of the warlord shield showing from next to the shield boss, so I'll still have to fix that up. Damn close ups...

The Ostmen

8 Bonnachts with various weapons (counts as Javelins)

Muskets and Tomahawks test game

Some members of my gaming club were playing a Last of the Mohicans campaign game yesterday using the Muskets and Tomahawks ruleset. I went to join in on the fun and to try the rules for the first time. The rules seemed quite simple to learn and they were fast to play, so a great evening game. I especially liked the card activation system that the game uses as this brings some additional suspense to the turn sequence. I think this could be a really nice 'Beer & Pretzels' game to start. Maybe in the future when I've managed to clear my table at least a tiny bit... Anyway thanks to Teemu and Mikko for setting this up!

Sorry for the image quality. I only had my cellphone with me so not too much eye candy here :)

The game itself focused on the British escorting the Munro sisters through a wooded path. Little did they know that the French were waiting with their Indian allies intent on taking them prisoner.

 The Brits advance cautiously along the path while their Woodsmen scout the other flank.

The trap is sprung with Indians and French irregulars streaming from the forests. Things look good for the British as their first volley immediately drives an Indian warband away from the area. However the French return fire and send one of the British units fleeing.

 While the British infantry ties down the enemy, the officer driving their cart (borrowed from some local Persian re-enactors) makes a dash for safety only to run into another hidden Indian unit. The Indians promptly assault the cart managing to drag one of the girls away.

The cart gets stuck in a muddy part on the road while trying to get away from the attacking Indians.

 Magua shows his true colors by attacking Major Heyward who was waiting for his help to release the captured girl. After a quick struggle Heyward is captured as well.

 The French move in to support a group of Indians attacking the cart while it's still stuck in the mud.

"Au revoir!"
Against all odds the last Munro girl and her guarding officer beat back the Indian assault to dash away towards safety.

Chingachgook and friends arrive and dash to help the British, but are  they too late?

Meanwhile Magua and his friends make off with Major Heyward and one of the Munro girls.

The carts escape was cut short just inches from safety by some lucky shots from and Indian warband who decided that dead girls are better than escaped girls.

French along with their Indian allies quickly mop up the remaining British and move out before Chingachgook can come to meddle with their plans.

Painting Challenge entry 2: Norse Gaels

Time for my second, or the first published entry for the Analogue Hobbies painting challenge. First one should be published on sunday when the first fortnight challenge ends.

Here we have the first half of the Gripping Beast Norse Gael starter warband featuring all the Dane Axes. Warlord, 4 Ostmen and 8 Bonnachts should allow me to play Norse Gaels with a 6 point warband when I combine these guys with my earlier Saxons. I definately like the GB minis way more than the Wargames Factory ones. No more open hand and long neck syndrome and a lot more detail. The only gripe I have with these is the amount of barefoot models. If there was something I learned in the army it was the importance of foot care. Maybe the Gallic Vikings are either pretty darn poor going without shoes, or then just really tough buggers, or then both...

I started out with a 3-color basecoat by first doing a light layer of black followed by grey at a 45 degree angle and then white straight from above. Gives a nice base to start painting over as you already have shades in place, emphasizes all the folds and shows you where all the shadows would be naturally. After that I painted all the base colors on and used GW and Army Painter inks to shade the model a bit more. This was followed by a few layers of highlights to bring out the detail. I like how they turned out especially the axe blades. The shinier blade part gives a nice contrast.

I ordered some Battleflag shield decals to make my task a little easier, but they are still on their way so I decided to paint some quick freehands that can be later covered. Tried to add a bit more variety by shading them slightly. Doesn't really show on the pics though.

Next up is a short break from painting as I'm leaving on saturday to see some relatives and I'll be coming back after christmas. So plenty of time to figure what to paint next. Fantasy Battle Chimera, 28mm Winter War Finns or some Flames of War paras.

 I really do like the second guy from the right. Nice sculpt on the face.

The fur cloak might need a slightly stronger highlight to make it pop more.

Another sculpt with nice character in the face is the one on the left.