Captured

This weeks SAGA game saw another matchup between my Milites Christi and Mick's Normans acting as Crusaders. We did play last week as well with the Crusaders coming out on top, unfortunately I forgot to get any pictures of the battle. It would seem that rather than the victor writing the history, it is the person who recalls to take the pictures.

The boys ready for action

This weeks scenario revolved around attempting to escort the captured Warlord of the opposing warband across the table. Failure to make it across in the time limit or if the Warlord was freed would result in a win for the rescuers. After a roll off Mick opted to attempt the rescue and we set up our forces with my troops being deployed first.

Starting Positions

I went with my standard warband but had to detail two of my Hearthguard to escort the captured Crusader Warlord. Mick opted to have his Warlord on foot in order to reduce at which he could be moved and also drafted in a Warrior Priest. As his Warlord would not be generating any SAGA dice until he was freed he had to accept being short of dice at the start.

I took the first turn and pushed my foot Warriors forward and triple activated the crossbows in an attempt to cause some damage to the foot Hearthguard, this failed to cause any damage.
The Hearthguard then charged my crossbowmen and wiped them out without loss. As Mick was short of dice he opted to push his other troops forward a bit.
On the second turn my remaining Warriors charged the Hearthguard and managed to kill three for no loss to themselves, the rest of the Milites Christi shuffled forward.

The remaining two Crusader Hearthguard then charged my six man mounted Hearthguard causing one casualty for the loss of both men. At this point I realised that I didn't actually need to go straight down the table so started to move over to my right flank.

The Crusader mounted Hearthguard then launched an attack on my larger Hearthguard unit and despite stacking abilities only managed a three to two victory.

My Warlord gathered the remains of that unit and lead them in a countercharge which killed another three of the Crusader Hearthguard. Whilst this was happening my Warriors charged and got rebuffed by the Crusader crossbows and the prisoner and escort made some progress towards the opposite side of the table.

Crusader Warrior Priest and Hearthguard as yet not commited

 The lack of extra SAGA dice had meant that the Crusaders had effectively had to omit moving an extra unit each turn so now with my route plain to see the uncommitted Hearthguard and Priest started to relocate. At the same time my Warlord lead the smaller four man Hearthguard unit into the Crusader crossbowmen and despite the loss of two men managed to clear them out of the way.

This left position on the last turn of the escort having a clear path to the edge of the table and with the dice rolled only the unit of a single mounted Hearthguard being able to reach them. During the combat one of the escorts died but the other lived so the Milites Christi scrapped a victory by the narrowest margin.
This was another bloody battle with lots of casualties on each side, the Crusaders did suffer from the missing Warlord but perhaps not as much as either of us had initially imagined. Having to move an extra unit that did not generate dice also put pressure on the Milites Christi and it was difficult to balance moving my forces with sacrificing deice to increase my Piety to make my abilities more powerful. Overall it was a close game and another well balanced scenario.

Artefacts of Kyron Campaign Battle #5

The fifth battle in the ongoing campaign saw the forces engaged in a Push scenario centred around a river. Both sides had 3 tokens they needed to carry into the opponent's half of the table and one extra token up for grabs in the middle of the table. 

The Men brought back the Mamakil after it sat out battle #4 and also swapped a few troops of archers out for another infantry regiment ( I think ). My Kin replaced the crossbow horde with a regiment of crossbows and a regiment of javelin armed Buccaneers in order to increase the number of units available.

The Setup

 Earlier battles had been very bloody with the action kicking off in turn one but this time the game started with less of a bang as both sides pushed up towards the river with the Men's unopposed cavalry wing making the most rapid progress.

Cavalry storm the gap

The Men roll forward

My Kin also pushed forward with the aim being to fight through my right flank and trying to hold the centre long enough to get the tokens over.

The new marsh area terrain hits the table

First contact was made by one of my chaff heroes ( mounted dark avenger ) into the Men's flying carpets, this combat was to last pretty much the whole game as neither side could wear the other down.

With most of the Men's shooting being concentrated in the centre they put the hurt on my Dark Knights in an effort to kill them off before they could charge home. With some poor rolling and some good armour the knights shrugged off the worst of the incoming fire.

The men also launched some spoiling attacks across the river, having a large number of well armoured infantry regiments means that they can be sacrificed more readily than the Kin can afford to lose units.

The Men get stuck in

In the centre the Dark Knights got the charge off against the Mamakil and as the Lycans had got tied up with an Air Elemental I had to commit my flying hero to support the attack. The Dark Knights wiped out the Mamakil in one turn and got in position to launch another attack.

On my right flank the Blade Dancers managed to survive some withering fire ( thanks to Sut rolling double 1's on nerve ) and then took out a regiment of Foot Guard.

Dark Avenger still plugging away

On the left the sacrifice on another Dark Avenger meant that the Dark Knights had the position for one more charge which could then delay the advance of the Men for another turn.

They charged once more and managed to remove another regiment of Foot Guard. By this time the Lycans had managed to over-power the air elemental in time to turn and face the oncoming heavy cavalry.

In the last but one turn the Men started to make real progress wiping out both the Knights and the Lycans but with the Hero on Pegasus and mounted Dark Avenger still holding up across the river.

On the right the Kin had almost cleared the opposing troops and started to make a move across the river.

At the beginning of the last move it was obvious that the Kin would get some tokens across the river but not enough to beat the men. The battle ended with both sides being in relativity good shape compared to previous engagements. Both sides had enough units that the game could have probably gone on a few more rounds.

Dark Avenger finally dies

For the next game we will be playing Eliminate which involves killing the 3 more expensive non-individual units of the opposition. We will also be increasing the army sizes upto 2500 points for the the final two games.

Taking the Scenic Route

Having just completed the Norse I felt like doing something a little different before devoting myself to the Mythic Battles models so I thought I would expand my scenery collection a little.
Having bought some fences over the holiday period I decided to add some fields for them to go around and also make up the marsh markers I'd been planning on doing for ages.

Area Bases with light, heavy & wood markers

The scenery I made up last year was designed to allow for different terrain types to be interchangeable on each area base. The markers are all on 45mm rounds which then sit on the 50mm spaces on each base, this allows for the markers to be removed to allow units to sit on the area terrain.
For the fields I wanted to add a different colour into the mix so ordered up some yellow corn/wheat flock in 4mm & 10mm lengths and worked to the same scheme as before.

I used the 10mm static grass on the removable markers through the static grass applicator to give it some depth and just applied the 4mm straight to the area base so it would settle down enough to put models on. My over eagerness to get the matt varnish onto the piece has left a few white glue areas which don't look so bad from a distance but I suspect I will be going back with either extra grass or a yellow wash to cover it up.

The fences came from 4Ground and with the addition of some flock and flowers they look much better than the straight from the box version. I also added some Polyfilla to the base under the flock which adds some weight and hopefully should help keep them upright on the table.

The marsh counters used some old plastic tree stumps I had spare and several layers of water effect that also had left over. Again the base was built up with Polyfilla and then this was painted over to give a nice little basin for the water effect to sit in.

As that method worked pretty well I have started to make an area base using the same method which will increase the amount of wet area on the base.

All in all it has been another fun little project, it's always nice to get something that can go on the table and enhances the look of the game.

Norse Focus

This week I put the finishing touches on my Norse force for SAGA v2. The plan is to be able to use them as one of the several Norse factions being released along with the new rules. At the least this should mean being able to field them as Vikings, Pagan Rus or Jomsvikings.
Without knowing what abilities will be present on the new battleboards it is difficult to say what a good army composition will be so I assembled some extra troops to cover what I expect the basics to be for each army.
The final part for this army was a few coats of spray on matt varnish to help seal the snow and static grass onto the base. With that done the Norse are ready to take to the field of battle.
The Warlord went onto a larger base so I could fit a corpse 'standard bearer' on as well and a V&V miniatures female Viking has been drafted in to act as a Priest if / when one is fielded.
The colour palette for the army is red, blue, green, & white with different tones for the different ranks of troops.

Warlord from the Jomsviking range

Banner Lady / Priest from V&V miniatures

The 16 Hearthguard are mainly Gripping Beast Jomsviking and Pagan Rus with a few extras from Fireforge and I went with the same rich tones and bronze highlights that I used on the Warlord and Priest.

The 32 Warriors are again mostly Gripping Beast Jomsviking and Pagan Rus metal figures with some extras from the plastic Dark Age Warrior kit. The kit gave a good range of armements and heads but the range of body poses isn't great.

For the Warriors I used a slightly duller palette and left out the bronze touches on the armour. As it was Christmas when I did much of the painting a few early Santa types made it into the army.

For ranged troops the Norse armies need to rely on Levy troops so I made up one unit of archers and one of javelinmen. For these troops I used the darkest palette and tried to minimize the amount of metal on show.

I spent the rest of my hobby time this week putting together some new 4Ground fences and huts which can be seen lurking the background of the photos and also doing some prep work for some corn field scenery I want to make.

Progress also continues on the Greek mythology models from Mythic Battles: Pantheon with my first attempt at fire effects on the Phoenix.

The beak was a little wonky on the model but the actual flame effect has come out pretty well. I need to make a decision on the basing scheme soon for these models as the number of almost completed figures is now growing.

Nordic Hordes

One of the benefits of time off work is being able to make some real progress on hobby projects, so being off last week I was able to crack on with my Norse for SAGA. They will be used as one of the Norse factions once SAGA v2 is released which should be next month.

Having decided that I wanted a winter theme I used mostly Gripping Beast Rus & Jomsviking as the some of the models came with fur coats and other warm clothing. I also bulked the force out with some models from the Gripping Beast Dark Age warriors box and some archers which Mick swapped for the left over models in the box. A couple of female Vikings from V&V models and a few chaps from my box of Fireforge Rus infantry that I had spare rounded out the force.

Altogether I have 4 points of Hearthguard, 4 of Warriors and 1 each of Bow & Javelin Levy along with a Warlord and female banner bearer who I plan to use as a priest. The whole army was based with Army painter snow effect over the top of some winter effect static grass. The snow effect was mixed with PVA glue and dolloped onto the bases and then a little more snow was sprinkled on top, all I need to do now is seal the base with some matt varnish spray.

Warlord with Banner planted in foes body

I decided early on that the Hearthguard should have gold/bronze details on them to help them stand apart from the others. The Warriors have a brighter pallet than the Levy troops who I kept as plain as possible and I tried to use plain shield transfers for the Levies.

Warlord flanked by his treasure bearer and Priest

Warriors

Hearthguard

Hearthguard

Javelin Levy

Warriors

Group shots from here on in

All 74 of the new force ready ( almost ) for action

Once the bases have been properly completed I may do some more shots of the individual troop types. 

This big push means that I can now start to fully concentrate on my mythical Greek models, so I plan to work on the smaller models before starting the larger Gods & monsters.