Ravenfeast Anglo Saxon Skirmish

I had a look at these free, simple small scale skirmish rules last year, designed for Viking era scenarios but flexible enough to be adapted for other things. I'd like to explore this further as it is ideal for solo skirmish wargaming with a minimal footprint and small number of figures, but I'm not so keen on the Viking bit. The plan is to shift the action back to the mid-Saxon period of the early 8th to early 9th century, using the 18mm Wiglaf Miniatures range of figures, individually based for skirmish scenarios. I've ordered a few packs that will potentially give me one or even two Anglo Saxon raiding parties, one Mercian and the other West Saxon, with the option to get some Welsh at a later date. It all fits in very well with my medieval focus for this year's wargaming, even if it's very much an early medieval project!

The Mercian Chronicles

I was given a book token for my birthday a few weeks ago and, while browsing in Waterstones, I decided to use it to buy a new hardback copy of Max Adam's book on Offa of Mercia. It covers a lot more than that to be fair, going all the way back to Penda and forward to the ascendancy of the West Saxon kings, so very much worth getting hold of. I'll be reading it in the Easter holidays when I'm off to France again.

Ravenfeast Redux

Although the whole idea of the Ravenfeast project is to make use of my existing, pre-based and base coated 28mm Foundry Vikings, my gaze has been inevitably drawn towards the fantastic 18mm Age of Penda range from Wiglaf Miniatures, sculpted by my favourite artist Mark Copplestone. Although from the period prior to the Viking age, these figures would be perfect for skirmish wargaming between the West Saxons, Mercians and West Welsh in the early eighth century, which is an area of particular interest for me based on my academic studies. Not only that but they are relatively inexpensive, so that I could assemble two or three warbands for minimal cost. Dan Mersey, who commissioned the range and who runs Wiglaf, calls them 'travel sized 28"s' for obvious reasons, which also resonates with my limited space and storage situation. It's definitely something to think about....?

Ravenfeast Stragglers

I have more than enough of the Foundry figures I need for at least one Ravenfeast Viking warband already prepared, except for a handful of archers and hirdmen These are the figures I'm going to have to clean up and base to complete the twenty or so strong raiding party and to potentially fill out the ranks of a second warband. I'll get these sorted over the next few days, ready to start painting the whole shebang next weekend.

Arty Farty Crafty Scratchbuilding Stuff

One of things I'm looking forward to in the Ravenfeast project is a spot of scenery scratch building, something I really enjoy but haven't done for ages. Today I popped in to town and stocked up on some craft materials for constructing Anglo Saxon  buildings, including some foam core, wooden dowels, Hessian strip and natural cord, all of which will be very useful. I've got a stash of coffee stirrers somewhere and some teddy bear fur, so I'm well placed to get started on some Viking era village buildings, wattle fencing and palisades.

Ravenfeast Viking Raiding Party

As it's almost the end of the month, it's time to plan ahead for the next few weeks. I've decided that I'm going to finish the Jasta 18 aircraft over the weekend, then clear the workbench for a new project (I'll come back to the WWI project later in the year and will still be continuing my scenario research in the meantime). After some considerable thought, I've opted for a Viking warband for Ravenfeast, using the excellent Foundry figures that I already have assembled, based and undercoated. I'll paint up one raiding party of around twenty figures in total, which will be fun as I haven't painted anything in 28mm for years! The figures already look absolutely huge compared to my usual tiddly things but I'm looking forward to not having to squint through a magnifier for a change!

Ravenfeast West Saxons

I got a Gripping Beast SAGA 4 point Anglo Saxon warband for my birthday at the weekend, which will give me a perfect starting force or two for Ravenfeast. Although I have a Foundry Viking collection I quite like the idea of putting together one or two mid-Saxon skirmish forces, one of which would be West Saxon and the other possibly Mercian, pitching things in the early ninth century. This was the time of the West Saxon expansion into the South West, which I wrote my undergraduate dissertation on many years ago, so a subject of long term interest for me. I've already picked up some Gripping Beast plastic archers and shield transfers from eBay and so I'm thinking that this would be a cracking project for next month?

Ravenfeast Big Battles

In light of my recent experiments in 2mm and 6mm figure scales, I thought this variant of the Ravenfeast skirmish rules looked really interesting. The basic rules remain the same in most respects but the individual figures are replaced with multiple based 6mm figures, using in the examples provided the Baccus range of Viking, Saxon and Norman armies. The free supplement also includes a mini-campaign for 1066 with all three battles linked together, and there's an additional scenario for the Battle of Ashdown available on the website. I think this may be an even better option than 28mm and would allow me to recreate the Battle of Hengestdun in 838, for example, which is something I've always wanted to do. Yet more food for thought?

Ravenfeast

This year I'm aiming to not start any new projects, apart from the Winter Hammer one, but instead work on things I have already begun, if possible with a new twist to make them more interesting. The focus is on small, solo friendly projects with simple rules and a minimum of terrain, figures and cost.

One idea I've been mulling over is to finish some 28mm Viking figures I've had in a box for years, at least since 2010 or so. These are Foundry figures and were originally destined for SAGA. I have played a few games of SAGA with my Norman warband and enjoyed the rules, but they're not designed for solo play.

Instead, I'm going to use the free Ravenfeast rules which require fewer figures, are simple but also good for solo games, and also need a minimum of terrain as games are played on a roughly four foot square area. The warbands, for want of a better word, are about a dozen figures each, which is just about covered by the ones I've already based, perhaps with a handful of extras like bowmen and berserkers. 

I like the sound of this a lot and may even make it next month's land based skirmish project. It will make use of some stuff I've already got, won't take a lot of time to set up and the figures should paint up nicely, being full of character. It's also scalable and I could even use the rules for larger battles with smaller scale figures, possibly even in 6mm or 2mm.