SAGA: Graeculi

 Over the last few weeks I've been playing as Syracusan Greeks against Mr T's Romans. These offer a different playstyle to the Carthaginians and rely mostly upon infantry in the open making use of Phalanx abilities. Units in uneven terrain cannot make use of Phalanx so you need to be careful with the terrain deployment otherwise you severely limit the power of the battle board.

Being able to activate multiple units for one dice is always good in SAGA so Implacable Advance is nice for the Greeks, as it gives you the option to move or charge. The caveat of this moves/charges all being in open terrain does slightly limit it's uses but as you want to stay in the open anyway it's not a massive disadvantage. 

The board does give the Greek general multiple ways of building a good defence in melee and Hammer & Anvil allows you to build on a solid defence. It is best used to absorb an enemy attack when they hopefully burn all their dice and then charge a fresh unit into that fatigued by the combat.

If you are lucky enough for an enemy to charge a unit near your Hearthguard block then you can unleash your main hammer unit when the enemy is least prepared to take a charge.

The board also offers ways to keep your levy skirmishers in the game when they may look like easy pickings. I didn't initially have any javelinmen painted up for the Greeks but in order to use these abilities I ordered some Victrix models and quickly painted them up.

Thureos is a nice little surprise for your opponent as they will need to re-roll all those lovely high scores, as you start with an armour of 4 for the levy javelinmen then this should save you a good few wounds.

If you manage to combine it with Aspis then you should have a really hardy block of infantry. Extra defence dice is always nice but being able to save on a 4 by closing ranks should make them into a decent anvil. You can't combine this with Hammer & Anvil as the levy cannot gain Phalanx but it is good for holding up a flank.

The Greeks don't have any abilities which allow you to cancel enemy activations but they do get one which allows you to give a unit Resilience (1) and also Wall of Pikes. This ability encourages you to keep your Warrior and Hearthguard infantry close together in order to cancel the maximum possible number of wounds. You should enjoy the look of disgust in your enemies eyes when they manage to sneak some wounds past your defences only to have them cancelled out. Combining this with Hammer & Anvil is a good move.

The Greeks do lack a few things from the battle board, most obvious is a way to cancel enemy activations and also shooting reaction for anyone who isn't infantry armed with javelins. You want to get into combat with the enemy and after absorbing the best they can give hit them back in their turn. You do get another ability (Hubris) which allows you to charge a unit which was a defender in a melee after the melee is over. That gives you up to 2 charges in the enemy turn, again these are best made once your opponent has burnt their dice. They also lack any ability to remove fatigue so you need to be careful not to let is build up too much.

SAGA: River Crossing

This week I decided to give the Greek board a try to see how it played as compared to the Carthaginians. The Greeks have three different themes to play with and I went with a Syracusans who field a classic infantry heavy Hoplite force. To get the most out of the army you need to to use the Phalanx abilities, which require your units to be in open terrain.

The Greeks consisted of:
1 * Warlord on Horse
2 * points of Hearthguard on foot in 1 unit of 8
3 * points of Warriors on foot in 3 units of 8
1 * point of Levy with bow in  unit of 12

Mr T played the Romans again and fielded the same force as last time:

1 * Warlord on Horse
2 * points of Hearthguard on foot in 2 units of 4
3 * points of Warriors on foot in 3 units of 8
1 * point of Cretan archers in 1 unit of 8

We rolled for scenario and got the River Crossing scenario, which gives bonus points for units that have managed to cross the river by the end of the game. This was not the best scenario for the Greeks as their abilities really rely on being on open ground so having the board centre being rough or dangerous terrain wasn't good for them to be able to push forwards.

The Romans realised this and opted to use the river as a safe area to stage for an assault on the Greek lines and pushed up on one flank whilst shooting from the other with the Cretans. The Cretans proved that with time to shoot they are pretty deadly and they managed decent chip damage throughout the game.

Once the Romans had cleared the river I was able to launch an attack with the Greeks on hand which pushed the two Warrior units back with some casualties but it wasn't a knockout blow

The Roman counter-attack was pretty devastating and took off most of one unit of Greek Warriors so the Greek Hearthguard went on the attack again and managed to wipe out one unit of Roman Warriors and damage another but at the cost of being wiped out. The Greeks have an ability which allows them to make a charge with a unit that is the defender in a melee once the melee is over, essentially taking a charge and then counter-attacking in the oppositions turn.

The Romans had blocked my attempt to advance over the bridge and also push some infantry across on the right flank.

In an attempt to even the odds up my General launched himself into some Roman Warriors and managed to wipe them out, it's easy to forget how powerful the Warlord is in melee.

On the other flank I chipped away at the other Roman unit but as the battle drew to a close it was the Romans who ran out the victors by a few points.

It was an interesting game and the Greeks have an interesting board which I will look at another week which encourages clumping up and moving forwards, but it needs open terrain to really shine.

Clash of Spears: Last of the Greeks

 This week I completed the last of the models I have for Clash of Spears, the Iberians army box has sadly still not been released. That does mean I can work on a couple of other projects and I have some plans for some scenery pieces to help decorate the battlefield.

Another 12 heavy Hoplites have been painted up to join with the 10 I'd already done to give enough for a couple of units to join either the Romans or Carthaginians. In fact with the Greek Cavalry I have from the earlier Basilea project I probably have enough for an all Greek force. 

I also painted up a couple of Greek commanders, again these can be used to help bulk out either of the two main forces, that gives me up to 4 commanders per side now.

So that gives a nice sizeable force which can be used to depict a decent variety of Hoplite types as we saw last week. 

Whilst I've been painted these up Mick & I have been getting some practice games in for Kings of War: Vanguard, the Mantic fantasy skirmish game. With the arrival of the latest Kings of War campaign and rule supplement book being imminent we are going to switch over to some Kings of War games.

The idea is to do a linked Vanguard and KoW campaign like I did before for the Tale of Two Forts. As I've only managed one game of KoW 3rd edition we will be doing some practice games to brush up on the rules and also to give me time to write the campaign. The Halpi's Rift book comes with extra magic rules so the plan will be to use those to frame the campaign.

Clash of Spears: Greeks Sir, Thousands of 'em

 Whilst I wait for Victrix to release the Iberian army box for Clash I've been working on painting up some Greeks to use as allies for either the Romans or Carthaginians. These are all Victrix so will fit in with the other models already painted.
I started with a unit of archers who with a simple tunic and no fancy armour or shields went together very quickly. As with the others I have tried to keep the unit looking bright and with a good mix of colours.

The Greek list has two entries for archers with the normal peasant with a bow type being complimented by the mercenary Cretan archer. The Cretan has a one better shoot stat but also the ability to 'aim' as an action and then when they shoot re-roll any misses, that should help with the hit rate.

Victrix do packs of 12 archers but these come without the shield option which is included in the larger Greek skirmishers pack they do. Both types of archer have the option to pay one point per model for a buckler which increases the melee save to a 6+.

Of course no Greek army of this time would be complete without the iconic Hoplites and Clash allows you to field these in several different configurations. Whichever you choose you will be getting the standard spear and large shield abilities seen in the other armies.

As the Hoplites increase in quality you get better armour and grit as the main benefits but also 3+ melee in the top levels.

So far I've completed ten each of the unarmoured and armoured Hoplites with some more armoured Hoplites and a couple of leaders on the way. I do like a good Hoplite so it's been fun to paint these chaps up and the Little Big Men shield transfers look great, certainly beats trying to freehand all those shields!

The Hoplites could also be used to represent the Etruscan or Campanian allies of the Romans which would give them a good way of adding more milites level troops into the list to open up more rare choices.

The style of armour isn't quite correct, but close enough to look ok on the table.

So up next are some more Hoplites and leaders and then on to some terrain pieces for the table.

Holy Lancers

The one advantage of not playing games is that it gives me more time to paint and with Mick off on his holidays I have completed the first of the two Basilean formations. The Holy Lancers formation gives two Regiments of Knights the Elite rule which would normally cost 25 points for one unit to do via the Blessings of the Gods magic item. This takes them up to hitting on 3's and rerolling 1's in melee which is very good.

The formation adds Gnaeus Sallustis to two Regiments of Knights which provides plenty of long range punch to the army. Being a unique Hero means you cannot add any further items to Gnaeus but as he already has plenty of rules that isn't a problem. Being height 3 and nimble and with a move of 9 he should be able to pull off some unexpected charges from behind other units.

The Knight Regiments have been mounted on 25mm*50mm bases and then are attached to the movement tray via magnets, this is to give me the flexibility to use them in other games if needs be.

In historical terms have the long Macedonian lance and shield would not have happened but it does help with depicting the Armour 5 and Thunderous Charge (2) side of the unit.

I also completed two Troops of Panther Lancers to go along with the Knights, these are lightening quick and nimble so as well as being able to provide a screen they also have the potential to get in position for flank charges.

The whole mounted force comes to 870 points and with the infantry formation coming in at a mere 575 points you can have both for under 1500 points.

The other big job started this week is rebasing the old Mycenaean Greeks I had so they fit with the Mythic Battles ones. Having bought some Reaper 1 inch plastic bases I have started the process of removing the models from the old bases and getting them stuck onto the new ones. So far it has gone well with only a couple of shields coming loose during the process and no spear wounds being inflicted.

Pantheon Interlude

A very quick update as I have managed to paint a few of the troops that came with Mythic Battle : Pantheon. I have sketched out an KoW army list for these figures and wanted to get an idea of how they would paint up. Starting with the groups of troops rather than the main character models gives some freedom to muck up if needed.

Skeleton Warriors

I also wanted something that would be quick to do whilst I waited for the Pagan Rus / Viking models to arrive.

The models are well put together so didn't really require any cleaning up but the second group benefited from a quick wash as the paint didn't quick stick to the larger surfaces on the Skeletons.

Spartan  & Myrmidon Warriors

I haven't decided on a basing theme yet for the army so at present they are just getting a plain black base.

I also started the Bellerophon on Pegasus model as it looks rather good so hopefully that may be completed by the weekend. 

Mythic Battles: Pantheon

Yesterday I received my Mythic Battles: Pantheon God level pledge, the first ever Kickstarter project that I have backed. I was expecting a reasonably large box but in fact received two reasonably large boxes inside an even larger one.
The boxes came crammed full of models and cards and all sorts of other bits and bobs and so today I set to sorting it all out. The models themselves are plastic and came pre-assembled so you could pretty much play the game straight out of the box. Two of them had come away from the bases in transit but as they had been made in China and then shipped to Bristol via France that's pretty good. A quick dab of superglue later and they joined the happy throng.

I had pledged pretty much on the strength of wanting the models and at around £100 for over 100 models that feels like good value. The models are well cast with lots of good detail on them with only a little cleaning up going to be needed before they are ready to paint.

They can be split into a few groups : Gods & Titans, Monsters, Heroes and then Troops.

The largest model is the Titan who is an impressive 100mm tall and then the Gods are just below that with the Troops and most Heroes being about 40-50mm tall.

As such they are rather larger than the Mycenaeans that I already have but it is safe to assume that Gods & Heroes are better fed than the average foot soldier so should be a bit taller.

All of the Heroes, Gods, & Monsters are unique casts with only the Troops being single pose multi-figure groups.

The plastic used is of a good quality and seems tough, if fact Athena has already managed to draw blood when she jammed her spear into my finger, she is probably one to watch!

I hadn't really noticed before that the Greeks seem to have had a thing about snakes and lizards but the set contains a good variety of them.

Here you can see a size comparison with Achillles, Bellerophon, Athena, Hydra, & the Titan. With such a variety of scale and figure type the painting should be fun.

For the actual game part each unit comes with a stat card and those stats change as the unit takes damage, this is done with a slider to help keep track of the current stats, a rather neat trick. I did have a panic as the cards have the French version on one side and English on the other. On initial inspection I thought I had been sent a French set.

The game also came with two reversible maps, movement is done by areas rather than measuring, these came with a scenario book which no doubt with offer different modes of play.

I have not yet had a proper look at the actual game side but the games starts with players building an army from the pool of available units based on the cost of those units and then the aim is to either kill the opposing God or power up your God twice with mystical crystals. After a proper read I suspect all will become clear.

Units in the game are activated using cards drawn from a desk, the cards in the deck are decided by the units in your army. Some units will generate more cards than others and each unit has a special ability or two that it can use.

Overall I am very happy with what arrived and having taken a chance a year ago on the Kickstarter it is really good to get the final product in my hands.
I am now planning how to make the most of the models, with SAGA 2 inbound which will feature a ancient Greeks source book and the promise of including magical monsters and also Kings Of War being so flexible it may be I can use the models for three games.
I have also put some money into the latest Mantic Kickstarter called Kings of War: Vanguard again mainly based on the models, the Nightstalkers look very nice and rumour has it they will be allies for the Twilight Kin when we get a proper army list. Hopefully that KS will end up being as good as the Pantheon one.