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 day or kicking of the years gaming

To kick off the gaming year 2015 we had a small Saga tournament/games day on the first Saturday of the year. After a few no shows the playing field was reduced to just 4 players so we decided to keep it quite casual with everyone playing a game against everyone else. A bit longer post so bear with me :)

I came with my trusty Anglo-Saxon list of Alfred, a Troubadour and 5 points of Warriors. Everyone else had lists from the new Crescent & Cross book and the scenarios were mostly picked from there as well. Nobody had really played any of the scenarios before and there was quite a lot of learning to be done.

Game 1: Battle Twilight vs. Mutawwi'a
In the first game the Warbands battled for the control of table quarters with 1 point awarded for each controlled quarter and the first to reach 6 points winning the game. Straight off my opponent neglected to read the scenario rules very well and deployed everything within two quarters that I could contest while having two off my own. My joy didn't last long when I realized that the control wasn't calculated like the regular victory points, but rather with every single group of 4 or more giving points. So my clever idea of deploying my Warlord and Troubadour to take points didn't take me very far. All in all my 12 man Warrior groups certainly weren't the smartest idea for the scenario.

First round we both received a single point when I had one quarter occupied by a group of warriors. I also contested one quarter away from my opponent to limit his points to one.

With second turn starting I took advantage of the Endless Warbands rule which allowed me to bring lost troops back on any table edge. I promptly brought back a 4 man Warrior unit as far from any enemy as I could and moved to take that table corner from my opponent. After some clever manouvering I ended up with 3 points. On my opponents turn he unsurprisingly brought back a large unit next to my 4 man one and proceeded to wipe it out. Still after the turn I was contesting that quarter giving him only 1 point.

With the third turn I only needed to take 2 points from my uncontested corners which was easy and just stop my opponent from taking three points. It was pretty clear that there was no way he was able to catch me anymore if I just moved my units suitably so we decided to agree that I had won and play the turn more as a fun end and just kill everything instead of me moving my units to camp out on the two quarters. I brought 12 Warriors behind one of his groups proceeding to wipe it out and went for his Warlord who managed to survive the encounter. On his turn the 12 Warriors turned back on the board to attack mine only to take more losses than my Saxons. This was followed by a unit of 4 hearthguard attacking only to take more casualties.

So even with the more fun ending I managed to take the game 6-4 in 3 turns.

Game 2: Grudge vs. Milites Christi.
The second game was a custom scenario called Grudge where one enemy unit was randomly selected to yield three times the victory points. Winner would be determined by the side who received 5 more points than the enemy. I got a bit lucky that my troubadour got selected as my enemy's Grudge unit while a 8 man warrior unit was chosen as my Grudge unit.

A mounted force is pretty much the worst thing that an Anglo-Saxon force can fight against and the Milites Christi are especially bad. With the option to stay back over 3 moves away he could safely build up Piety and use his battleboard to nullify all my combat abilities on the turn that he charges. The fact that only one ability reduced the Piety level makes this a very strong board and in my eyes at least the best in the whole game. You really need to move in on turn 1 so that your opponent doesn't have any chance of building up Piety safely and that is extremely hard to do unless you have a mounted force yourself.

I deployed my troops in the classic Anglo-Saxon way in a small bunch to force the enemy to come to me. I also moved one unit into the building to stop them from occupying it. This proved to be a bad idea as it just allowed the Crossbowmen to take potshots at me during the game and there wasn't really anything in his Warband that could take the building as mounted troops can't enter buildings.

After turn 2 it became apparent that I needed to take iniative as my opponent was just building up Piety to make one crushing attack in the end so I went out with my Warriors. The first try ended in a disaster when I only managed to take out 1 hearthguard and lost 7 warriors. Next turn I took more casualties and things were looking quite bad. Luckily no lost Saga dice. I decided to go all in and attack with another Warrior units killing 7 hearthguard. However the warrior unit was attacked next turn and taken down to one warrior.

With the last turn coming my opponent decided to move in to kill my troubadour and take enough points to win the game. I used my Saga dice to get more defence dice and against all odds he survived 6 hits. With only my turn left I tried to kill anything that was close by.

This game really was a battle to the death with me losing nearly all my Warriors. However I did take quite a few hearthguard with me and ended up with a 13-12 game. However it was only enough for a draw.

Game 3: God Will Recognize His vs. Crusaders
The last game was against a new player running Crusaders. The scenario used the Endless Warband rule again so bloodshed was guaranteed.

As always I deployed in one corned safe from missile fire. My opponent moved up with his Pilgrims boosting them to Warrior stats. However I had loaded my board with defensive abilities and only lost 1 man while taking out 10 of the pilgrims. This move had left his Warlord exposed so I quickly rushed out to kill him as a Warlord cannot be brought back. Not surprisingly 11 Warriors took him out quite easily, but were then attacked by 8 mounted hearthguard. I got a bit lucky with my rolls and had plenty of defensive abilities left to protect myself so only ended up losing a few Warriors and wiping the whole Hearthguard unit out. On my turn I cleaned up my area by killing of the two remaining pilgrims.

The 8 Hearthguard showed up again and immediately charged the 6 remaining warriors who were wiped out immediately. I had been waiting for this and brought the 12 Warriors back again and went in to kill the 8 hearthguard again.

On the other flank the mounted and foot warriors of the crusaders made efforts against my Warriors there, but I managed to beat back each assault with the help of my battle board abilities. In the end I took out his 8 hearthguard twice, his 8 mounted warriors twice, 8 foot warriors once and the 12 pilgrims while loosing a 12 man warrior unit twice.

A clear 36-13 win for me. I played to the strenghts of the Anglo-Saxons quite well forcing my enemy to come at me from a distance one or two units at a time while being able to keep most of my Saga dice on battle board abilities. I was also helped by the fact that my opponent was new to the game and made some basic mistakes like leaving his Warlord out in the open.


With two wins and a tie I ended up tied for first place, but won the tie breaker as I had killed more units during the day than my the other player. So after 3 games I took our club championship trophy with me! A rather decent start to the year with a nice casual games day/mini tournament.

Afterthoughts
The Anglo-Saxons are turning out to be my favorite list to play. I had previously tried using Levies with Anglo-Saxons, but they were just rubbish. With Alfred, a troubadour and 5 Warriors in 3 units of 12 and a unit of 4 I am able to take in 8 Saga dice every turn while my opponent has to roll a dice every turn to reduce his and most of the time ends up with only 5 dice. As an added bonus I can always leave one Battleboard ability on the board even after using it so it can effectively give me 10 dice for the turn. This really allows me to dictate the game and always have the upper hand in fights. The bad sides of taking a Bard are also mitigated by the fact that you never want to get Alfred in a fight anyway as he is absolutely rubbish compared to any other Warlord. He is a mastermind after all, not a fighter.

This list works especially well against other foot lists as it's far easier to have their units separated and coming at you one at a time. An overwhelming attack with one of your units to wipe out enemies and then surviving their attack with your defensive boosts is the way to play this list. Against lists like the Milites Christi it struggles a bit, but better positioning and more aggressive play should help out. I have yet to loose a single game when using Alfred and I've only played a few ties with them. Pretty powerful stuff and I have to admit it's maybe a bit cheesy at times too.


On another note a Flames of War mega battle was running at the same time pitting about 9000 points of Germans versus the Soviets in a Barbarossa game. Pretty epic stuff with the Germans managing a breakthrough in the end and the Soviets retreating after a failed morale test.

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.

Back to the Dark Ages

Well I'm back from the summer cottage and got some painting done after a weeks break. I decided to speed paint a group of more Norse Gaels that I had laying around after I was delivered the wrong pack. I was originally supposed to get the Gall-Gaedhill blister, but ended up getting these guys. The correct box is still somewhere and I've more or less given up on it already after a few months.

It was nice to paint something quickly after a small hobby break, even if I cheated a bit at the cottage by playing Zombicide (with the missus though so it's not exactly breaking the no miniature related stuff rule) and reading all the blog posts being updated.

Nothing fancy here, but I did end up painting an extra highlight layer compared to what I'd normally do to make them pop out a bit more. Half of the shields are with Battle Flag decals and half hand painted. This was actually the first time that I ended up painting slashes and cuts on the shields. Turned out rather nicely even if I say so myself.

The building on the background is one of the Saxon hovels that 4Ground makes. Absolutely fantastic looking stuff! I've got the three now and I think I'll be buying the Anglo-Danish buildings also to make a small village.

Next up some 105mm Artillery for FoW that has finally arrived after being ordered in early February! Though there is a stag party and a wedding coming soon so there are some distractions that keep me from reducing the lead pile. I also finally managed to clean up the rest of the Oldhammer pile so I guess I'll start painting through them too. There's also the last two Red Devils sets waiting for paint. A 6 pounder and a 75mm howitzer. Especially the 6 pounder will be needing paint soon as panzers have been sighted at the club lately.

 

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.

Saga AAR: Sacred Ground

Played a quick game of Saga at the club yesterday to refresh my memory of the rules and also to try the Norse Gaels out for the first time. We have a Saga tournament/game day coming up on Sunday, and as I don't have a beard I need to try find some other edge in the game.

My forces were:
Warlord - Dane Axe
8 Hearthguard - Dane Axes
2x6 Warriors - Dane Axes
4 Warriors - Dane Axes
8 Gall Gaedhill.

My opponent played Vikings with roughly the following composition
Warlord
4 Berserkers
12 Hearthguard
4x4 Warriors.

We decided to play Sacred Ground as it's one of the scenarios in use on Sunday and it's nice and simple. As I had fever units I was finished with deployment first and got to start the game.

The situation after deployment. Vikings deployed in a line while the Norse Gaels are more spread out to grab the objectives (hill, rocks and large forest). Gall Gaedhill are taking advantage of their free move after deployment.

 The smallest group of Warriors seize the forest for Norse Gaels while Gall Gaedhill take the hill. Vikings counter-attack with the 12 man hearthguard unit, which loses 6 men against the Gall Gaedhill, while they lose 5 winning the clash.

Norse Gael Hearthguard move in to finish the warriors finishing them off. In turn they are counter-attacked by Viking Berserkers with both groups perishing in the ensuing melee.

The small group of warriors still bravely hanging back in the forest.

 Viking Warriors kill the last of Gall Gaedhill and things start to look a bit sketchy for the Norse-Gaels

The two 6-man Warrior groups move in to help their Warlord with the closest one attacking two of the 4-man Viking groups, wiping one out and killing 3 out of 4 of the other. In turn they lose 4 men and are left in a difficult position.

 With their Warlord left alone the Warrior group rushes in, but they are too late as the Warlord succumbs to attacks. He does manage to take out all the remaining Viking Warriors in one final attempt at glory.

The Warriors arrive just in time to see their Warlord fall and quickly avenge him by killing the lone Viking Warlord.

Meanwhile the brave warriors in the woods have moved up to the edge to cheer at their comrades.

The game ended quite fast with all the Vikings and all but 8 Norse Gael Warriors wiped out at the beginning of turn 5. Points wise the game ended 35 - 14 for the Norse Gaels so a clear win. Wielding the hearthguard in a unit of 8 did give me an extremely strong unit, but did leave me sorely needing more Saga dice immediately when they went down. Might give them a try as two 4 man units or then ditch the Gall Gaedhill and get more warriors or hearthguard instead. That way I would have a bit more of a buffer of units before losing them starts to hurt.