SAGA: The Age of Hannibal

After a long break from playing any SAGA this week we dusted off the rules and got the new Age of Hannibal armies and book out.

We started off with a straightforward 6 points a piece game using the Kill scenario to get back into the swing of the rules. SAGA is pretty straightforward from a game mechanics point of view with little book keeping, most of the nuance is offered via the battle boards.

I took the chance to dress the edge of the board with the new Iron Age ring fort I'd painted up, and it looked like some Greeks had moved in.

The Romans consisted of:
2 points of Hearth Guard in one unit of 8

3 points of Warriors in three units of 8

1 point of Levies with Javelins in one unit of 12

one Warlord on foot

The Carthaginians consisted of:

2 points of Citizen Hearthguard on foot in one unit of 8

1 point of Contingent (mercenary) Warriors with Javelin on Horse in one unit of 8

1 point of Contingent Warriors on foot in one unit of 8

1 point of Citizen Warriors on foot in one unit of 8

1 point of Levies with bow in one unit of 12

one Warlord on Horse

I'd had a quick look at the Carthaginian board before and playing through the game it became obvious that the board is mostly defensive in nature with the only way to add attack dice being for shooting. So the decision to take a big unit of Hearthguard paid off as the generate lots of attack dice natively. The three warrior units struggled to put out much hurt against the Romans as they lacked the dice.

It may be that the Carthaginians need to invest in the Elephants in order to offer an alternate punching unit. The Elephants can also shoot so would benefit from using the Eagle Eye ability.

The Romans as you would expect like to be moving forwards onto the enemy and they have a couple of abilities which allow them move forwards, the Pilum ability which allows a free Shoot and then Charge is good, especially as it is only one common dice to use. In contrast to the Carthaginians the Romans can also generate extra attack dice pretty easily, again encouraging them to get stuck in.

In the game itself the Romans closed in on the Carthaginians quickly and almost wiped out a unit of Warriors early on with the Carthaginian Hearth Guard counter attacking to stabilise the situation and wiped out the exposed Roman unit. The Hearth Guard followed up with some more fighting and the Carthaginian archers proved effective whilst the Velites hung back in the woods.

The Roman Triarii (Hearth Guard) where eventually committed and managed to maul the Spanish cavalry but by that time it was too late and the Romans had lost two complete units of Warrior with a third almost wiped out.

We picked up the rules again pretty quickly with the only real delay being the need to learn the battle boards so we can distribute the activation dice, this will speed up with practice.

This week also saw the much delayed arrival of my League of Infamy pledge so I can now finish off the Kingdom of Men army by painting up the three General on Winged Beast that I was missing. 

I can then get the game itself painted up and ready to play.

Iron Age: Ring of Stone 2

This being a long bank holiday weekend as well as having time to complete our big battle I've also been working on the Fogou Models iron age ring fort and buildings I recently received. As I'd used a pretty straight forward scheme of dry brushing and sponging colours onto a black base the various parts came together very quickly.

As you may be able to tell from the pictures with models in (28mm Victrix Iberians) the fort itself is pretty darned large. It measures 14" across (wall to wall) and 2 1/2" high, so it will take up a reasonable amount of space on the table.

You could use just a few sections in a corner or on a table edge to add some interest to the edge of a table.

As well as the standard wall and gate section the model came with a breached wall section to allow for the effects of siege weapons in a game.

It also came with a fantasy style gate system consisting of two towers joined by a wooden walk-way over a gate. The kit came with two different gates as well, one obviously fantasy and the other more plain.

With the plain door you could take a little artistic licence and use the fantasy towers in an historic game. It would certainly make a nice centre piece for a siege game.

As I didn't want to glue all the gate pieces together, I wanted a way to be able to swap the gates around but keep them reasonably firmly together during play. I stuck a couple of bits of metal wire to the gateposts and inserted a couple of small magnets into each gate, these give enough hold that the gates don't fall over when nudged.

It wasn't just the fort that came, I also got enough buildings and bits and bobs for a decent sized village. The stone buildings got the same treatment as the walls and the thatched roofs are just a sand yellow undercoat with Iyanden Yellow contrast paint over the top.

I got another well to go with the mud brick ones I have from that Kickstarter and a couple of grain houses and a rather nice animal pen. All in all a good haul and I cannot wait to see these in action when we start playing SAGA: Age of Hannibal in the very near future.

 

Iron Age: Ring of Stone

This week I took delivery of the Iron Age ringfort from the Fogou Models kickstarter project. I'd gone all-in on this project as I'd been so impressed with the quality on the previous project I backed with them. The resin Fogou use doesn't need to be washed before you start to paint it so you can get stuck straight into the painting stage. The fact that they have used grey resin for the stonework also means it could just be given a quick drybrush and put straight into play which is great for the empire builder in a hurry.

I have already started undercoating some of the bits during the week and even completed a test wall piece over a couple of days. In theory with the test out of the way most of the stonework will be pretty quick to get completed.

I've got enough bits for a reasonable sized village and the fort came with a fantasy style tower and door configuration as well as the more historic plain door. I think I may want to magnetise the fantasy door parts so they stay together during play but don't require both towers and the gates to be stuck together. 

In amongst the various wall parts are a breached section for siege games and some grain stores on stilts as well as a large range of pots and other produce storage.

I've completed one test wall section this week which didn't take very long. It's a black undercoat with two progressively lighter grey dry brush layers and then some browns and a blue-grey applied with a sponge, a black wash went over the top of all that. A couple of mini grass tufts where then added on to give an extra splash of colour and interest.

I suspect this will be several weeks work to get all the bits completed but it should look great as a back drop for some Age of Hannibal SAGA once done.