SAGA News

Yesterday I received my long awaited SAGA dice! I pre-ordered sets for Normans and Vikings months ago. Production problems delayed shipment, but they have arrived just in time for Christmas - hopefully the impetus I need to paint up my Norman warband!

In other news, Gripping Beast has just announced the first supplement for the game is due out in the first quarter of 2012! Northern Fury will give us 4 new factions to lead into battle, and contains the Battleboards and rules needed to play these warbands. It also has new Heroes of Viking Age for these factions plus a specially designed multi-player scenario.

    

The new factions in the Northern Fury supplement are:

• The Bretons - These warriors fought on horseback using javelins and hit and run tactics to disrupt their enemies before dealing that killer blow.
• The Jomsvikings - Pagan warriors who's wrath and ferocity was legendry, historians still argue about their existence, but now you can field them in your games.
• The Scots - Descendants of the Irish migrants established on the western coasts of Caledonia, the Scots whose spears invited death to all who came near.
• The Anglo-Saxons - Sons of Ælfred the Great, they were known for courage and tenacity in battle, the Vikings feared them and rightly so, at the Battle of Brunanburh the seeds of England were sown.

Viking Berserkers

These are the first of my 'new' Vikings, meaning that I painted them last week. Berserkers are treated as Hearthguard with a bonus in melee and a penalty on their armor.

Viking Levy

Here are four of my Viking Levy models. I still need to paint a few more to field a SAGA 'legal' 12-model unit. If I had any criticism of SAGA so far it would be in requiring the 12-model units be bow armed. Archers would have been very rare in any Viking army, but any warband resorting to Levy end up with what seems like a disproportionate number of them. They aren't great troops and they probably need the numbers to be effective, but my 6-point SAGA warband has 41 models and with 12 Levy, that's roughly a third of my force with bows. Of course, to satisfy my issue I can replace the whole lot with another band of Hearthguard or Warriors and ditch the arrows entirely. Maybe I'll use them for my Anglo-Danish warband...

My Normans arrived this week, but I've got a commission to finish up before I can start on them...

Viking Warriors

Here are a few of the warriors that will form one of the units in my Viking Saga warband (click on each image to see a larger pic)...

Next week I'll post some pics of a few Viking Levy...

Viking Hearthguard

The photos for my Saga Vikings I posted last week were old so I thought I'd take some better pictures (click on each image to see a larger pic)...

These are Wargames Foundry models sculpted by Mark Sims (as are all of my Vikings). These stalwart veterans will form one of my Viking Hearthguard units.

SAGA

My life seems to FINALLY be returning to normal so I can get in some quality hobby time besides Flag Monday (Don't worry - that feature should continue at least through the rest of the year). I have another unit of AWI militia finished and awaiting photography, a unit of TYW infantry around the half way mark, a load of Warfare Miniatures in the mail, and of course I decided to start something new...

I check in over at Dave Imrie's Saxon Dog blog just about every day and he has an annoying habit of making me want to paint the same period he's working on (and he changes gears as often as I do). A week or so ago, he posted a small Anglo-Dane warband designed for use with the new SAGA game from Gripping Beast. I'd heard some interesting things about this game (including Dave writing "I have played 'Saga' three or four times at the SESW Club and I have to say...I'm hooked!") so I ordered a copy and it arrived yesterday. After reading through the rules (yes I read the whole book in a day - not only does it seem like an easy game, it was a fun read) I can't wait to them out.

Without going into great detail about the rules (I can if anyone wants, but there is a great review at The Man Cave), warbands are built with a very simple point system. The Warlord who leads the force (and your alter ego in miniature) is required and is free. Remaining models cost one point per group and the number of models in each depends on the class of troops you choose... 4 Hearthguard, 8 Warriors, or 12 Levy. The basic intro game requires only four points of models, moving to six points standard once you get the hang of things. Once purchased, models are grouped into units of 4-12 models. For instance, if you spend three points on Hearthguard, you could field them as one unit of 12 models, two units of 6 models, three units of 4 models, etc. You can play your first games with only 30 or 40 models per side.

Here's the great part. I ALREADY HAVE enough Vikings painted to field a four and a half point warband (the half point comes from only having six archer levy)!

These models are left over from a WAB project I started YEARS ago. I have nearly sold off this collection several times and I'm glad I didn't. They were painted with my first foray into the Kevin Dallimore style and happen to still resemble my work today. I want to go back and weather them a bit, beat up their shields to give a more battle worn appearance, and touch up the bases, but with the addition of ten models (4 berserkers and 6 archers which I already have in my unpainted mountain of lead) I can field the following six point SAGA Viking Warband:

1 Warlord (Weglaf Ravenshelm)
2 units of Viking Hearthguard (4 models each)
1 unit of Viking Berserkers (4 models)
2 units of Viking Warriors (one unit of 12 models and a reserve of 4 models)
2 units of Viking Levy (6 models each)

The actual composition might vary once I get a few games in, but you get the idea. This afternoon I dropped enough cash on the Perry site to get a six point Norman army (based on their minis from the Crusaders line). There may be a few anachronistic details for games set before 1066, but I think they will work well enough for a heroic style skirmish game.

I am looking forward to getting back into a regular painting groove and hopefully updates will come on a more regular basis in the future.