Saga Welsh Warrior Unit

I finally finished the first of my Welsh Warrior units for SAGA. All the figures are Gripping Beast.

The remaining images are closer shots of them. I used Army Painter Dark dip, painting it on with a brush, and then spraying a matte varnish over that.

 I am still sitting on the fence with regards to the dip. On one hand it gives the models something they really need - a hard protective coating to resist greasy fingers from rubbing off the paint.

 I do wish it was more of a water based product however so that I could dilute it down so as not to have it at full strength all the time. There are some areas that just need a little shading, but overall after spraying the matte overcoat I am pleased with the final results.

I am now working on the next warrior unit. As well the Levies are almost all glued together & soon to be primed.

EWG Game Night

This evening we gathered for a running of Sharp Practice. The scenario was of a Colonial British Column attempting to cross the board unmolested with their mule caravan. Of course the Afghani's had other things in mind.

Dave played the British Convoy while Chen & I split the Afghani forces. Above we see the opening moves of the Afghani blinds moving up through the river valley. Will ran the game.

As Dave moved up the road, he was spotted from the force at the ford & had to deploy his lead elements, the Afghani's moved atop the hill & spotted the remainder of the column.

The force atop the hill was armed with mostly swords & had but 3 Jezzails amongst them. The rocks were their saving grace as it was nigh impossible for the British to remove them, but that didn't stop Dave from starting to whittle them down.

Unfortunately his lead unit was almost obliteratted by the combined fire of the main Afghani force at the ford and lost 6 of their 8 men. The last of the hidden Afghani swordsmen surged from out behind the hills towards the almost unguarded muletrain forcing the British to quickly maneuver to block them. At about this time we had to call it. The game was a test of the ruleset and thus we were all learning as we went. I am sure with more playing of this system things will move along more quickly.

Thanks for bringing it out Will

SAGA Warlord and Hearthguard

Well I have finally finished the first of my Welsh warband, the remainder have joined the production line and are in various states at this time.

Here is the Warlord and his Hearthguard. All the figures are from Gripping Beast and the shield patterns are from Little Big Men Studios.

Another shot of just the Warlord. The figures hands are all in a single pose...open, so that various weapons can be placed in them. This led to a small issue on the inside of his shield where I had to add a bit of greenstuff to appear as a strap. I think it worked well.

The shield patterns are too small for the larger shields and require a bit of touch up around the edges to complete. Not too big a deal & as its the first time I've used them, I am happy with the results. Lord knows I could never paint something that intricate!

The first two Hearthguard I tried doing some patterns on their tunics and cloak. I definately need to pratice this more. As for actual information on  clothing for the Welsh, there isn't really much available on the web. As they were somewhat poor, they tend to the unbleached, drab browns & grey.

The shield decal on the right hand figure (as you look at the image) seemed to have gotten a bit damaged when cutting the white background prior to placement...I must have cut thru the decal as well & it made a small area of overlap as well as a couple of wrinkles. Guess its something I need to iron out. On a good note, it blended with the other decor...whew!

Next on the table is the first Warrior Unit...

EWG Club night 6 Mar 12

This evening we gathered for a game of SAGA. We played a 4 player game with Will & I sharing a command of Welsh. The other players were Dave, Chen & Scott.

 Here is a shot of the battlefield, as it turned out, the battle had nothing to do with capturing the ruined tower.

The Welsh arrive and crest the hill to fact the Norman Knn-igits! Unbelievably the Welsh Levy held and pushed back the knights. The Knights had 18 dice needing 3's to the Welsh Levies 5 dice needing 5's. It was to be the way of things for the Normans this evening.
 

 The Norman Sergeants decide to try their hand against the Welsh Warriors and avoid the Levy.

This was the second game of SAGA I've played and there are still many nuances to figure out about playing with the battleboards. I've finally finished my Warlord & Hearthguard and this was their first blooding. I will post images later today.

Tim's Birthday Bash Wargaming Weekend

So Friday I loaded up the car and headed off  to Saskatoon to welcome Tim to the years that the body begins to rebel. Ahh well, he will find out in due course.


The drive was fantastic, dry highway, not too busy & this in February in the Prairies. After a quick run into the Dragons Den, I headed to Tim's to have a quick rest & chat before the festivities began.


We had a large multi-player battle of DBA in preparation for the campaign that would begin on Saturday. Here are the pics I took focussing on my part of the battle & you can read more here


With 2 Viking Player allies, it was decided I would hold the centre against the Norman Knights

Below we are disheartened to learn that the river would not be of any assistance and the Knights come barrelling across.

Surprisingly enough the battle went totally opposite of what was expected. As knights were hurled back and held at bay. The Knight General broke through but was to meet his demise. It was one of the shortest DBA games I have ever played.

Saturday

On Saturday, the crew arrived and the campaign was afoot. We had to bid how many elements we were willing to lose in order to determine army choice order. I chose to start with my full compliment as did John. So we diced and I got the Pre-Feudal Scots.

Here is where the armies started on a wonderfully painted campaign map by Tim.

I decided to wait for the Spring Turn and just defended the realm to see if my predictions would pan out. Of course I had to be right & saw the Vikings land upon my shores. So the Scottish Army marched to hurl them back into the sea. Here is the deployment. It should be mentioned that the Vikings were down a couple elements from the bidding. This battle should have been a sure victory. Alas, the Vikings had brought a shaman (Kiera Sixspell) with them & her foretelling (dicerolling) would speed the Vikings to victory.



Here after a solid strategy of flanking the outnumbered Vikings, we see Kiera Sixspell waiting to aid her followers. The lesson from this battle was not lost on the Scots..

"Nevah' bet agin a Wee Lass wen it com ta dice"

As expected the Vikings followed the retreating Scots to their capital and another field battle ensued. An Emissary had been sent to the Irish (John) with promise of Wives (aka sheep) for them if they would lend a contingent. The Irish quickly agreed, however as luck would have it, they found the women (aka sheep) before they reached the battle & were not appearing in this battle. The Scots were defeated & forced into Vassalage by the Vikings.

More of the battle reports can be found here

Sunday

Today Tim set up a battle using his modified rules from several different rule sets. Rather than attempt to duplicate the action, it will be easier just to read it and view the images here

It was a good weekend &  ended with playing a game of The Hobbit with Tim and his family. It was nice to finally be able to play games with Tim again. I look forward to the next gathering & will seek the aid of Kiera Sixspell!

EWG Game night 21 Feb 12

Tonight we had a good showing at the club with 3 full games being ran, but I will leave the details to Bob & just focus on the game I played in.  This evening it was a new game for us which Scott brought called War Rockets. The spacecraft we were flying were reminiscent of Buck Rogers & Flash Gordon...ahh the memories

This evenings battle pitted Scott (the host) & myself against Chen & Mark. Here Scott explains the nuances of rolling a 1. He proved it by rolling 3 in a row during the battle.

This is an image of the largest ships in my fleet

At the other end of the table Scott squared off against Mark, it was where the largest of the forces ships engaged & were eventually both destroyed.

After several rounds, I was able to eventually whittle Chens forces. Here the last of his large ships is about to explode as its crew are stunned & unable to do anything. His small ship did try to thwart its end by getting a lucky hit on my ship.

All in all a fun little game, great for a club night as the rules were simple & the dynamics easy to pick up. Of course it all comes down to the lucky dice. Each force differed in that the red ships, while slower, were better at defence, while the blue force had better speed, but weaker defence. The models were well done by Scott (as the images show) and we look forward to seeing more of this game at the club and Mayday!

And so it begins....

Well now it has come to it. The painting desk is ready for the most part..just some fiddling with the shelves & whats on them to do. Most important however is that I can now start painting my miniatures again!!!

Then it hit me. Where do I start? What should I do first? Have a plan? Just grab a box & start?....I think the last will become the norm after my first batch.

The fact that we will be playing some SAGA at Mayday, I decided it was best that I find (2 hours later) the warband I bought for this system.

So here we are with the box of Welsh that I had bought when the game launched. All the figures in this box are equal to a 4pt warband.

This closeup shows the figures split into their types..Warlord, Hearthguard (4 figures), 2 groups of Warriors (8 figures each) and a group of Levies (12 figures)

I figured I would start with the Warlord & his Hearthguard, so here they are with their bases removed & primed white.  The next time you see these fellows will be when they are completed.