A Desperate Escort

I have definitely been playing a lot of SAGA recently. I have managed the odd game of Malifaux via VASSAL also but my club nights are dominated by the early medieval period. We will probably move onto some Muskets and Tomahawks after we conclude this phase of the campaign. I need to consider if it worked out as I imagined it would and to make some changes to improve upon the gameplay aspects. I want to have weather factor into the next phase for instance. It is set in winter after all.The deployments are shown above. I wanted to use the river to split the Norman forces. With the positioning of the fords I could get my pigs back across easily and block the other ford to stop the Normans redeploying which is exactly what I did. The battle is the second in the Harrying of the North campaign. After the Norman success in scattering the bulk of the villagers defenders they set about scattering the herds and burning the food stores around the village. The defenders attempted to bring the animals under the shelter of the forest to the north but were intercepted. Once battle was truly joined I was outflanked completely. Retreating back across the ford did indeed slow the Normans but with some fast movement they circled by blocking force and surrounded me. I also gave away my cows far too easily and as such I was therefore always struggling. As the noose tightened I tried to force a hole in the Norman line which I almost managed. We were once again limited by the terrain selection of other tables in the shop. As we tend to start a little later than the other games we get the left overs and a few pieces we can scavenge from games in progress. The river turned out to be an excellent piece to use and made for an interesting encounter. The Normans ended up surrounded me and I had to attempt to break out along the line of the river. However I hadn't factored in a small unit of Hearthguard across the river. These duly thundered across the ford and forced my baggage to retreat out of the defensive position and then they were pounced upon.

Harrying of the North

I started a short SAGA campaign with my usual opponent Steve last week. You can read his angle on the first battle on his blog here. I had a good game though it was an uphill struggle right from the start. I am not having much success with my Anglo-Saxons at the moment. I rely heavily on larger unit of warriors, usually in the of twelve models strong.>

The battleboard is very much focused on defensive abilities and while these are good, I can only use them once per turn leaving me vulnerable to a counter attack if I use them in the offense. As I am often presented with enough shooting to force me to move forward I don't have the option but to be offensive. I deployed to the left of the table in this game, a unit is actually further out to the left and is clipped off in the photograph.

I was flanked a little more quickly than I would have liked and in the centre I wasn't able to move as I wished as the space was too constricted and the Normans once again stood well off and shot me. They actually targetted my shooting troops before I considered targetting his and my numbers were reduced to just above ineffective. I was never able to get on top with the casualty rate and I went down 28.5 : 35 slaughter points in the scenario.

One very notable occurence was the rallying of the troops by Fr. Seward. He managed to stand up to a charge by Alan Rufus and his household guard alone and then drove them back. It would have been an unfortunate way for him to exit the campaign but miraculously he survived the onslaught of the Norman cavalry and lives to lead the defence in tonights game. The campaign represents the first week or so of the Harrying of the North. this phase of the campaign is centered around the village of Lundsby and the attempts of Alan Rufus to destroy the villages winter provisions.

In the year of our Lord 1170 King William unleashed his fury on the lands of the North. He had encamped north of York at the start of winter. With the turning of the year and the late arrival of the snows his armies were divided and struck out at the rebellious towns and villages. Alan Rufus was sent against the village of Lundsby and arrived in the first week of January. His wrath was soon felt across the area. Fr. Seward led the defence of the village. His stalwart faith drove off the rampagers but the cost in blood was great.

The Saga Continues

I am back living in Germany now. My sojourn in Finland was completed a month ago and my SAGA in Germany continues. I am in the process of writing a campaign based on the Harrying of the North and as a preliminary to playing it I decided to get myself back in the gaming saddle so to speak. So last week I pulled out my Anglo-Saxons and faced off against me regular opponent Steve and his Normans.

The game was great but we both quickly realised that we have a lot of catching up to do with the rules and factions before we embark on a campaign. I narrowly won thanks to succesive volleys of fire unto the Norman Hearthguard. This whittled them down to an ineffectual level and allowed my hastily advancing warriors to engage decisely in the centre despite having to weather a storm of arrows and bolts. We will play again this week, tonight to be exact. I will be bringing out my Anglo-Danes to play just for some variety as once the campaign begins we will be locked into our respective forces for a good few battles.

Over 100 Models Already

I figured out today that I have already painted over a hundred models this year. I shocked myself a little when I realised this. I am really setting a blistering pace. These Anglo-dane warriors are the last rendera bases I have and I ordered a hundred. I thought I would have a lot to spare but my box of gripping beast models seems to defy physical space and have no bottom. I see the finish of this warband to six points and another six point band in there easily. That still leaves me with spare models. I must have bought an amazing army deal back when I got these almost ten years ago. Some of these were more or less painted already I have to admit. Still there wasn't a single completed model in the army so I am pretty proud of hitting a hundred in six weeks to tabletop standard. If I keep this pace up I won't have anything at all to paint by the end of the year...

A Glorious Leader

I forgot that I had still to show my Warlord off. Here he is the glorious leader of my Anglo-saxon raiding force. He is mounted on a larger base as the rules for SAGA demand. He provides two dice to the pool used at the start of each turn that determines what abilities and units can be activated. It may sound very random but generally everything you want to activate can though what abilities you can use may vary. The game is quite strategic while the tactics do come down a little bit to luck, you can influence them of course but to varying degrees. I like the game a lot. It is much more casual than Warmachine but it still offers a challenging balanced game. I have yet to play and be annoyed by anything that has happened.

I went with a fairly standard basing scheme of mine that if you are a regular follower you will be familiar with. I do this with almost all of my models now as it matches the terrain I have in my collection and it will match my flocked and painted board if ever I finish it off. I often want to do stuff like snow or desert bases but then the army looks weird, at least when I play with it at home. I did use the Army Painter Winter Tufts here and they came out fine. I am still not 100% convinced that they are that amazing. I can never seem to get them to come out as well as others have.

Thegns

These are the sadly small but elite core of my Anglo-saxons. I would like to have more of them but I really wanted to use up the Gebur models that I had. Maybe at a later date I can get another four of these done and swap out the Geburs.I practised a little with the freehand on the shields and it came out acceptably well. I am not very good at freehand and it takes me an age to get it to look well. I do want to ave impressive shields on the Jömsvikings and the Thegns presented an excellent chance to test out what I can and can't do.

My beer is doing quite well and over the coming weekend I will be transferring it to a second fermenter, that is going to be fun!

The last ones I assure you!

No more Ceorls, these are the last ones! These make up the last of the thirty two that I need. I divide them down into two units of ten and a third unit with twelve models. Combined with my Warlords dice and the dice from a unit of Thegns I get the maximum of six so I can effectively command he army and get to use my abilities to a maximum effect. Of course over the course of a battle I will be whittled down but as long as I get to use the abilities on the offensive I should be ahead in attrition.

I am making some decent progress on my Jömsvikings and I will start showing them off on Monday. I am trying to paint them to a higher standard as they came mostly unpainted. The problem with the Anglo-saxons is that they were pretty much already painted so I had to match my older and not quite as good techniques which I think I managed despite no longet having 90% of the colours needed.

A banner to believe in

Here is the command group for my Ceorls. They don't have a funtion in the game but as these were intended for Warhammer Ancient Battles I had the models ready and it would be a shame not to use them. Also it would mean I had to paint three more models, no thanks. I painted the banner again based on a design from Littlebigman studios. I think I over compensated for the previous small banner and so this one is rather huge. I also did the nose a little poorly and blacklining it really makes it stand out here. I don't think (hope) it is as bad in real life. The banner can now be used as rules in the latest supplement The Raven's Shadow. I don't know exactly what it can do as I haven't picked up the supplement yet. I am at least prepared for when I do!

Swelling the ranks

More Ceorls and yes there are more to come! The Anglo-saxons get an advantage due to their numbers and to capitalise on this I tried to maximise the numbers of my Ceorls. In my army I have spent four of my six points on warriors giving me a pool of thirty two. In SAGA you can divide these up as much as you want with a minimum of four and a maximum of twelve. Each of these units give you a dice that can be used to activate an ability or unit depending on what was rolled. The problem with this is that I need to have larger units to get the best use of my abilities but that restricts the amount of dice I generate to use those abilities. A nice touch that balances the faction very well.

The rabble is roused

I finally got the Geburs done thankfully. I hate painting the chaff of an army. It isn't worth any points and there are invariably loads of them to do. Between these six models and the previous six this is a unit of Geburs worth a single point. Four Thengs are worth the same and don't take that long to paint. Two of the models are missing their slings. I have no idea where they went or where the spares went either. I have some replacements currently curing and once they are done I will attach them to the models.

This army is finished thankfully. I will put up more pictures during the week while I get started on the next SAGA project - the Jömsvikings. I will have the nice accompanyment of my homebrew fermenting and bubblng away in the background as I paint these guys.

For Mercia!

It has defintely been a busy week of painting the Anglo-saxons. I am ahead of what I have showed here so far and I should be able to field a fully complete army tomorrow depending on how motivated to continue I am today. I have kept the yellow and red scheme on all the shields as I want to be able to identify the army easily from any others I may paint. Dark Aage armies are usually depicted with shields in various colours. That looks great but for a tabletop game I want all mine to look somewhat cohesive. Having the clothing in various colours and designs was good enough. The colours I choose are fine historically as they are the colours of Mercia, one of the Anglo-saxon kingdoms.

Geburs for a change

Here are my first finished Geburs. These are missile armed skirmishers for the Aanglo-saxons. They come in batches of twelve for a point. They do get a big bonus in this army if they are armed with a spear and shield but then I would have no way to differentiate them from my Ceorls. Missile troops aren't so bad and it gives me the chance to get these finished. I can always put them in one of the other armies later if I figure out how to get some spear and shield armed Geburs. These were some of the first models I had painted for the army many years ago when these were destined to be used for Warhammer Ancient Battles. It was nice to finally put some varnish on them and call them done.

More Ceorls!

I should really have started painting these guys in batches of eight as they are then a complete unit worth one point in the game. I usually paint in sixes no matter what the models are and I followed that habit without thinking. I have twelve finished and that is a point and a half. Most games are six points so that is a quarter of the way. I added some crosses to the Ceorls shields as I will be copying another Littlebigman studio banner for this army. It will be a depiction of Christ and so the shields which were originally painted many moons ago should reflect this a little. I also made a start on my Geburs, the poorest quality troops available so that I will have close to a fully painted army for Saturday. I can see myself spending far too much time painting this week to get everything done!

Saxon Ceorls

There are going to be a lot of Saxons here over the coming days. As I promised last year I was bringing my Saxons back to Germany. I have spent the last few days rebasing them and yesterday I got the first batch of six that you see here done. I painted these originally about nine years ago. I never varnished them at the time and while they have never been played with they have been transported during various house moves. They have loads of chips and damage, especially to the weapons as these are lead miniatures I think and the weapons bend really easily. I am continuing over the rest of the week to get more of these done, hopefully six a day at least, as I want to get a game of SAGA played on Saturday. It will be my first time to play it outside of VASSAL so that will be good!