Crescent & Cross Battle Report

Nearly two years ago, Grace, Dave and I placed a group order to Legio Heroica miniatures to get the figures we needed to make crusader-era Saga armies. Last night, we were able to get all three of our armies on the table together for the first time!

Some of Dave's Saracens.

My Hospitalliers.

Some of Grace's Saracens.

The scenario we chose was Last Stand, wherein the victory conditions are simple: if there is a single non-Warlord figure left of the defender's side on the table at game end, the defender wins. The slaughter must be complete! The attacker uses the Endless warband rule, meaning they can recycle their dead figures into new units, which can arrive from any table edge.

Which force is attacking and which defending is decided by bidding: the side that thinks they can wipe out the enemy army in the fewest number of turns is the attacker. We both bid the same number, seven, though, so we rolled off and the Hospitalliers were the high roll, and thus the attackers!

This caused some consternation on the Saracen side, because Grace was playing Mutatawwi'a, and most of their Saga abilities depend on sacrificing figures, something she was reluctant to do when each dead figure brought me closer to victory!

I had my own problems: I was playing an 8-point force against Grace's and Dave's 4-point forces, which gave me a lot of figures to use, but it also meant that I would have a hard time activating my troops: I only got the same number of Saga dice per turn that Grace and Dave each got individually, meaning I couldn't move all my troops each turn, and I couldn't afford many dice for Saga abilities.


Grace and Dave deployed first, and I had first activation.

Turn 1

End of Hospitallier turn 1

Dave had a group of eight archers on top of the tallest building (North in this picture), so I decided to ignore that side and focus on the other directions. I brought my combined Hearthguard unit, with the Warrior Priest, in from the west, a unit of mounted Sergeants in from the east, another unit of mounted Sergeants from the southeast with my Warlord, and my three units of foot Sergeants from the South.

On the Saracen turn, Grace charged my Sergeants in the east with her mounted Warriors unit. The battle was a draw with two casualties on each side.

There was some other adjustment of the troops, mounted units of Grace's and Dave's coming around from the north to engage. Besides that, not much action in the first turn.

End of Saracen turn 1

Turn 2

In the first turn, the attackers generate no Saga dice, so each unit gets one free activation to move onto the table. Starting in turn 2, though, I rolled Saga dice as normal, and I was able to drive forward with my big Hearthguard unit, led by the priest, and engage a unit of Saracen warriors guarding the west entrance to the compound. All but 3 of the Saracens were killed.

In the east, both of my units of mounted Sergeants were able to engage and destroy the rest of the Saracen warriors.

At this point Grace and Dave had a little conference, and the Saracen turn was mostly about running away to the North with their mounted Hearthguard units. I wasn't too concerned about chasing them: when I had had enough figures killed, I could just create a new unit out of the dead guys and bring them on wherever the Saracens had fled to, so there weren't many good places to hide on the board.

End of Saracen Turn 2

Turn 3

I mostly neglected my foot troops for the game, since I needed to use my activations on the mounted troops to chase the Saracens around. I was able to assault one of the buildings with Saracens inside, though it didn't go very well for me.

Meanwhile, my mounted Hearthguard were able to clean up the Saracens lurking in the northwest house.

Meanwhile, in the East, my mounted Sergeants were able to beat up on Grace's "princesses", her mounted Hearthguard on matching white horses, leaving only one alive to flee with her warlord.

Dave's archers shot some holes in my Sergeants in the east, and they mounted an ineffectual charge against the building.

Turn 4

I turned the attention of my (now half-strength) Hearthguard unit to attacking Dave's mounted Hearthguard in the northwest corner, but he was able to use some sort of sneaky Saracen ability to cancel my priest's action, so they ended up just standing there, looking like idiots.



Then, in the east, the charge of my Sergeants against the house full of archers was disrupted by another, different Saracen ploy and they ended up just running around the north side of the house (where they are hidden from the camera and from where I was sitting, so I mostly forgot about them after that).

I put together a unit of Hearthguard and a small unit of Sergeants from my dead guys (you can see them at the top of the picture), but I didn't have the activations to use them this turn, so they went back to the graveyard.

The Saracens continued their policy of evasion, forcing me to chase them around the table.

End of Saracen turn 4.

Turn 5

My priest and the remaining Hearthguard were finally able to come to grips with Dave's mounted Saracens and wipe them out, but at a high cost.

After that fight, I had enough dead figures to bring in some new units. A fresh unit of Hearthguard from the northwest corner was able to finish off Dave's mounted Hearthguard, while some mounted Sergeants tried to attack Grace's warriors but were stymied by more Saracen trickery. In the northeast, I was able to jump Grace's one remaining princess with some resurrected foot soldiers, but they weren't able to finish the job.

In the south, Dave's foot abandoned the buildings and fled across the courtyard to the buildings in the north, chased (slowly) by my own soldiers.

The one remaining horseman from Grace's mounted archers unit that I smashed in the second turn ran through a gap and fled to the west, alone.

End of Saracen turn 5.

Turn 6

The victory conditions required the attacker to destroy all non-Warlord units. This means I didn't have to kill Dave's leader to win the game, but there were still good reasons to do so: first, deny him Saga dice; and second, because he's a big jerk. I turned my Hearthguard unit to the task, and a lot of them died, but Dave's leader was finally dragged from his horse and put to the sword.

There was some fairly ineffectual back-and-forth among the houses, while I arranged my crossbow men to start hemming in Grace's lone horse in the west, and her single hearthguard and her leader ran around the hill in the east.

End of Saracen turn 6.

Turn 7

So I had my work cut out for me in the final turn. Most of the Saracens were dead, but there were still a few holdouts in the buildings and in the corners. The guys in the corners weren't too much of a concern, because I had enough deads to generate new units to attack them with. Digging the footmen out of the houses was going to be tough, though - or so I thought.

I sent my mounted Sergeants against the last holdouts of Dave's warriors in the north buildings, and they were able to get most of the job done.

I brought in a new unit of Hearthguard in the East to kill off Grace's remaining princess and her leader, which they were able to do. After, they turned to the remaining footmen in the house and finished them off.

So the game was pretty much in the bag! There was just the one wimpy archer remaining out of the entire Saracen force, the last survivor of the first unit I attacked at the start of the game. I brought in a new unit of Sergeants from the west to finish him off.

...and they couldn't! The Sergeants couldn't get that one last kill and finish off the only Saracen figure left on the table. I think some demotions are in order!

The End

So, at the end of the game, the Hospitalliers were unable to achieve their victory condition of killing every Saracen figure on the board, so victory went to the Saracens!

Here are some photos of Grace with the undisputed hero of the day.

This was the closest game of Saga I've played, and probably the most fun.

Saga Irish: Half Way

With all the new excitement at the local club around Saga (hooray!), a bunch of the guys are building Saga forces. Unfortunately, like most other places, the preferred scale at the club is 28mm. So I decided to put together a 28mm Irish force so I have something to play with!

I chose the Irish because they have a few interesting things going for them that other teams don't: first, war dogs. In the game, the dogs count as Warrior units, with the added ability to move through rough terrain without penalty, so they will be very mobile. Second, the Irish can field Curaidh, which are champions or lieutenants to the Warlord. Each Curadh figure counts as a unit unto itself, but with better combat stats than an individual Hearthguard. 

The figures I got are from Gripping Beast, the "official" Saga miniatures line. The figures themselves are a bit of a mixed bag. The casting is good, but the sculpts are sometimes great, sometimes not so great. On a few of the figures, the hair is just a semi-spherical lump with dimples poked in it, and some of the figures' hands are pretty undefined - the thumb might be just a paddle sticking out the side of the hand, and the fingers aren't separated. Also, the poses of some figures are pretty uninspiring - the Warlord that came with the warband is in a really strange pose, with his right arm sticking straight out and up, and his head kind of leaning into his armpit. Not sure what's going on there. I ordered a set of Scots command figs along with the warband, and I used a couple of them for my Warlord instead. Unfortunately, that pose is mirrored in one of the Hearthguard figs.

For these guys, I decided to paint the shields freehand, rather than using transfers. I don't think the result is quite as nice and clean as I would have had with transfers, but I find that miniatures with shield transfers all end up looking a bit samey, and I wanted to do something a bit different with mine.

Anyhoo, here are the pics. I have my dogs and handler out front, the warlord in the centre, and a unit of Hearthguard with an associated Curadh on either side. Still to do: a unit of 8 Warriors and a unit of 12 Levy.

Zoom in to get the full details.

Trumpeter Salute 2015

I had a blast this year again at the Trumpeter Society's Salute convention! Huge kudos and thanks are due to the volunteers, game hosts, and vendors who work so hard to put the convention on every year - their efforts really show. We had a full roster of games and healthy attendance, so there were a lot of happy and satisfied gamers at the show this weekend.

I was able to attend the Friday night session and all day Saturday, which means 4 game sessions. I only missed out on Sunday. There were a lot of games registered in which I was interested, but after so much on Friday and Saturday I needed Sunday to recover.

Friday Night

Friday night, Grace and I participated in an All Things Zombie game that took place during the Russian revolution.I was keen to play a game of ATZ, because I've heard about the rules many times and there are other Two Hour Wargames games that I would like to check out sometime, so this was a good 'taster' for the rules.

Kommisar Burnovich and his obedient bodyguards.

Each player had control of three characters, except one (one of the hosts who was participating in the game) who had a light tank. We all started on one side of the table and approached a village that was suspected of harboring a team of rogue scientists working on some secret project.

With six players, plus programmed zombies, the game was a bit slow-moving. Most of the slowness comes down to the rules themselves, which are so chart-heavy they are in danger of collapsing under their own mass into a chart singularity. My only experience with a THW ruleset was when I tried playing Nuts! several years ago, which ended in pure frustration. After having played ATZ, I feel a bit better about being unable to puzzle out the finer points of Nuts - even the hosts seemed to struggle to figure out what the rules mandated in certain circumstances.

Clunky rules aside, the hosts did a great job of providing a fun game, and we managed to clean up most of the zombies - though having a noisy tank rumbling around in the village didn't help.

At one point we encountered a band of Whites. As a Kommissar of the reds, they were my political and ideological enemies, but I was the one who discovered them, and I had a chance to form an alliance of convenience so that we could work together to control the zombies. Unfortunately for the cause of peace, one of the attributes I rolled for my Kommissar at the beginning was 'Dim', so I decided to role-play him appropriately and opened fire on the Whites. At this point I had left my sole bodyguard behind (the other one had been bitten and had to be euthanized for the good of the Party), and when they returned fire I had to duck back into some nearby bushes.

By the end of the scenario, we had searched all of the buildings except the church, but things were looking pretty good for the humans, so the hosts declared it a victory for the living.

Huge thanks to Martin, Tony, and Brian for setting up the game and helping us noobs along!

Saturday Morning and Afternoon

Like last year, I hosted two games. This time it was two sessions of Saga, using the 2x2 terrain board I built last summer and the scenario I developed to go with it, during the Saturday morning and afternoon sessions. The game was well received, and I had full rosters for both sessions with people on the waiting lists, as well as lots of people who came by to check it out. I also won Best In Show for the Saturday morning session, which provided me with a certificate to spend at the Imperial Hobbies booth - more on that later.

I took some photos during the session, but I can't do better than the battle report that David wrote after the second game. You can find it at his blog - Google Translate does a good job, if you don't speak French.

All of the players did a great job and were very gracious and patient in learning a rule set that doesn't lend itself very well to just picking up and playing, and Grace was a huge help in offering rules clarifications and advice to the players through both sessions.

At the end of the day there was a great deal of courage, cowardice, carnage, and arson, of which great Sagas are made.

Saturday Evening

I had hoped to return to Brian's Russian Revolution table on Saturday to try out Chain Of Command, I ruleset I own but which I have never yet played, but the roster was already full by the time I finished packing up my Saga game and eating dinner. So I decided to join Dave and Bryan at their Axles & Alloys game, a set of rules with which I'm pretty familiar. Grace even brought the school bus I painted for A&A to play with - I just used the cars that Dave and Bryan had available.

Axles & Alloys is a ton of chaotic, ridiculous fun, and this game was true to form. Dave and Bryan had it set up as a rolling tournament, where if your car was destroyed, you either picked a new one or kept the same one and brought it on again at the start of the next turn. There was a leader board to show who had the most points (kills were worth 2, assists were worth 1), and who had died the most times.

Our table was probably the noisiest, even out-shouting the chariot game next door. I managed to get one or two kills and only died once before I had to get up and cash out my bring-and-buy stuff. It seemed like everybody had a great time smashing and shooting each other to bits.

Other Stuff

Salute again featured a Bring-N-Buy area, where people could unload some of their unwanted gaming gear. I was able to clear out some stuff of mine that I don't think I will ever use, and I made enough money by doing so that I was able to load up on the always-amazing Pulp Figures miniatures - my Pulp Alley games may see reinforcements from German Zeppelin troopers, Gasmask Cultists, and even more She-Wolves Of The SS. I also bought one of Bob Murch's Breadfruit Queens, which is a figure he's selling by donation to plant breadfruit trees in areas that need them, and I got one of the forthcoming Huron figures in my grab-bag.

As I mentioned earlier, I won a gift certificate to Imperial Hobbies. Imperial is always a great sponsor of the club and the convention, and very involved in the gaming scene. My prize was sufficient to get me a copy of Dead Man's Hand, a set of Western miniatures rules. I have enough figures to do a game, I've just never had rules to play with. I think it would be a lot of fun to do a Western-themed Quar game in the future too!

Hadwin Returns

Last night I reprised the Saga scenario I reported on here. This was the last Trumpeter meeting before the convention at the end of March, and I wanted to have one more go at it before I host the game there.

As is normal in Saga, it was a bloodbath. The result was very close - the Picts resigned close to the end of the allotted time, but I think the VPs would have been close to even, despite the casualties.

Vikings mass on one side of the river, Picts on the other.

The first band of Viking Warriors race across the ford and attack the
 Picts in and around the near building, but are rebuffed 
without casualties on either side.

Reinforcements from the neighbouring farm race across the farmstead to engage the Vikings on their left.

More Vikings fight across the river, but the Picts hold fast and prevent them from gaining a foothold on the near bank.

The Viking Warlord enters the ford, while his Berserkers
slog across through the deeper water.

A band of Viking Hearthguard achieve the far side of the bank, but the Pict Warlord and his Hearthguard race forward
on ponies to intercept.

On the other flank, the Vikings have smashed the defending Pict Levy and gained the bank.

The Pict reinforcements race to stop the Vikings.

The Vikings have destroyed a unit of Pict Warriors and surge across the ford, but the Pict Warlord and his Hearthguard
still stand between them and the main building.

The Viking and Pict Warlords face each other at the bank.

The Pict Warlord and his reduced Hearthguard still hold fast on the other side.

The Viking Warlord and his berserkers manage to kill the Pict Warlord.

In the final act of the Saga, the Pict Warlord and the Viking Warlord exchange blows over several activations,
but the Viking eventually manages to slay the Pict and the Picts surrender.

Hospitaller Hearthguard complete, project done!

Last night I put the finishing touches on my 2 units of Hospitaller mounted Hearthguard for Saga: Crescent & Cross, gloss varnished them, matte sprayed them, and took some photos.

As with the standard bearer, I was unsure about adding pennants to the knights' lances, but it serves as a good way to distinguish the Hearthguard from the Warriors - and as a nice visual indicator to my opponent that they are in really big trouble.

I used wire spears on these guys again, and I'm much happier with these than the cast pewter spears that came with the unit. They will be less prone to bending, and they are properly stabby. Don't go reaching for my miniatures without due consideration, or you're likely to end up perforated.



With these guys finished, my 15mm C&C warband is complete. I have figures enough to field any reasonable size force, with good flexibility to refine the composition as I learn the particulars of the force in the game. The Saga rules regarding miniatures are loose enough that I could field any of my figures as Warriors or Hearthguard, depending on how big a unit I want and how many points I want to use up.

Here's a (slightly dark) photo of the whole force together:

From front to back, I have:

- Warlords, a priest, and a trumpeter;
- Two units of mounted Hearthguard and the standard;
- Two units of foot Warriors with spears and one with crossbows;
- Pilgrims and two units of mounted Warriors.