Basement-con 2 AAR: Friday

Compared to Thursday night, Friday's Basement-Con was fairly light. Only Lead Addict showed, which turned out to be cool because the blessing and the curse of the Basement Generals is there's a lot of us. Most Thursdays are, in fact, mini conventions. Its hard to find 6-8 player games we can do in 3 hours or less.
So, when I got a chance to do some games 1-on-1 I was excited.
We started with Black Powder: Pike and Shotte. I dug out my Italian Wars, work in progress troops. I had 4 cavalry and 6 foot units, split into two battalia a side. A relatively small fight by P&S standards, but the last battle we did, I used Hail Caesar, and wanted try these out small.
Pike and Shotte is closer rules-wise to Black Powder than Hail Caesar.
The battle opened with Cavalry charges on the flanks which quickly left us both horseless (I found out later my Gendarmes were tougher, but oh well).
When the pikes finally got to grips in the middle it was bloody and short.
The whole thing lasted about and hour.

Yes, the bases aren't finished...

The heavy horse charges forward

the push of pike

Despite the quick fight, I really liked how it played. We're going to have to be a bit more tactical and subtle. More historical tactics would have paid off better. We should have held the horse back for exploiting the infantry fight.

I was too liquored up to remember to take pictures....

With the evening still early, and the booze flowing, we tried out a game I've wanted to play for a long time: SAGA. I have a full 6 points of viking warband. Lead Addict was able to cobble together 4 points for the battle. My vikings became Saxons and using the intro scenario we began. Whomever kills the other guy's warlord first, wins.
Neither of us really had time to study the Battle Boards, which are the heart of the game. The actually battle mechanics are simple. It's the subtleties of the use of Fatigue, and Battle Board abilities that win the game.
Warlords are tough, but mortal. We found that out about turn 2. We ignored the Warlord's death and kept playing. It was all I hoped it would be. Multi-player would be hard. If we play on Thursday's it would mean setting up 2-3 battles simultaneously.
But over all, SAGA was everything I hoped it would be.
Next: Saturday.....

More Vikings for Saga

Inaar Redhand gets some rank and file (Thegns) for his warband.

These gents are Crusader. Nabbed them just before Old Glory stopped carrying them. Fun and easy to paint. Fit in with the Foundry Vikings (which I like a little more) and are probably a little more historically accurate than their Foundry brothers.

Got a few more archers and some Beserkers and I'll have one warband done. Now, just need someone to fight.

Holiday painting

Here's what I painted over the Thanksgiving break:

Inarr Redhand and his bodyguard, for SAGA.

reverse

Inarr's Hirsir

15mm Bugbears from Splintered Light, a pleasure to paint.

Some troops and tanks for Robofire! or another SciFi rules set

Tanks are Mechwarrior repaints

Finally, Dystopian Wars Prussian flyers.

Weird how I kept getting progressively smaller, huh?

Jumping on the Saga bandwagon

I loves me my Dark Ages. Dunno why. Maybe it was watching Kirk Douglas in "the Vikings", or Chuck Heston in "the Warlord". Or all those Bernard Cornwell books I keep reading.
Whatever the cause, you can't swing a stick in the Wargaming Blogosphere with hitting "Saga". After reading countless reviews, I broke down and ordered it.
It's like a boardgame with it's Battleboards where all the strategy is done. It's like a traditional wargame. Its simple but has depth. I'm sold, and with the low number (by wargame's standards) of minis involved, I'm already envisioning new factions. Crusader just came out with some Dark Age Scots. Hello Old Glory 40% Discount!