Reaper Bones Dragon

I can't really remember why I bought this,  it's a pretty shoddy model,  the material is some kind of weird bendy plastic and the details are a tad sparse. Also it came with 6 legs, yeah that's right a dragon with 6 legs. Obviously the middle set had to go so I very imperfectly greenstuffed the resulting hole and it then lingered on my painting table for 12 months or so.

Weirdly I'm not sure why I painted it either,  although it was satisfying to start painting and have a model completed, based and varnished before bed.  Sometimes that's all you need,  the satisfaction of finishing something. 

It doesn't look too shabby, ill probably use it in games of Frostgrave or Saga:AOM, I would try it in MESBG but it way too small for that game.

The Normans are coming! (and some Anglo-Danes)

Posted by Ash

My small casual group of gamers are about to start a SAGA age of the wolf campaign and this inspired me to add some more units to my small collection of dark age warriors. I tend to use Vikings or Anglo-Dane warbands as the minis are generally interchangeable apart from a couple of Hearthguard units - Dane axes for the Anglo-Danes, Berserkers for the Vikings.

One thing I am currently lacking is any kind of Levy unit. I tend to shy away from these as they are pretty poor in combat but I've decided to give them a try to see how ranged attacks work out in SAGA. My new levy unit will also be usable in my in progress Norman warband. Normans gain some advantages with ranged attacked if the SAGA dice gods favour you!

Gripping beast are a great source of dark age miniatures which they sell to compliment the SAGA rules. They also sell Shieldwall miniatures which are a nice alternative to the gripping beast range. Shieldwall miniatures are slightly cheaper but do not come with bases and the sculpts are marginally poorer than Gripping beasts own line. I picked up 3 lots of shieldwall archers, Hereward the Wake (a named hero for the Anglo-Dane faction), a Pagan priest (simply because he's kewl) and a bard. Gripping beast also slipped in a free miniature as the order was delayed by a week or so. Hats off to Gripping beast for the ongoing excellent customer service. They have always been pleasant to deal with.

All the metal minis I ordered from Gripping beast.

Crazy Man McShaman-face the pagan priest.

The bard. This chap follows your warlord around in SAGA
and provides you with additional victory points.

The free guy given by Gripping beast. I LOVE YOU GB!

Hereward the Wake. He means business.

For the Normans, I decided to pick up a pack of Conquest Games Norman knights. This boxed set provides you with 15 knights on horseback which will give you 3 units of Hearthguard and a warlord in SAGA currency. I've also ordered some extra sprues from Conquest games so that I can get another unit of Hearthguard on horseback, 1 unit of Hearthguard on foot and 2 warrior units. I'm quite impressed with the Conquest games models for the price. Some of the horses heads are a little tricky to attach but other than that they look great.

I've already assembled the Norman knights, based them and airbrushed the base colours for the various horses with Tamiya paints - the king of airbrush paint.

3 Units of SAGA Hearthguard.

An unwell looking Norman knight. This will look nice as scatter scenery.

William the Bar Steward. My Norman warlord.

William the Bar Steward - When it comes to weaponry, he likes to branch out...

The horses heads didn't quite sit right for me.

I bet those spears become a sore point further down the road
as they will bend and snap, which is why I only added them to
 4 of the little chaps

UPDATE
William and the bard - now known as gheylord are done (apart from basing).

Saga - Vikings vs Anglo Saxons

Ash and I got together recently to carry on our Saga intro (revival) with a 6 pt game of clash of Warlords. I've decided to deny my hobby butterfly tendencies and stick with Anglo Saxons rather than flit from faction to faction and I have to say I'm quiet enjoying it.

Anyway on to the action, I took 4 units of warriors, hearthguard and levies with Ash opting for 2 nasty hearthguard units, a unit if warriors, berserkers and the Sons of Death (I can't spell the Gaelic name for these nasty mercenaries!)

I was hosting tonight so I decided to use my recently finished hills and river, luckily I remembered to put a ford in the river and also lay a rickety bridge across the gorge made by the two hills.

My tactics for this game were simple, try and draw Ash to me and wear him down with my greater numbers. The river was my friend here as I had no intention of crossing it into the wrath of Ash's marauding Vikings. So it was simply march up and wait

I think I'll let the pics do most of the talking however suffice it to say that my dice were good and Ash's were bad.

The opening shot, thats me on the left with the tons of
warriors.

Sneaking over the crest of the hill are the Sons of Death
(you can just see them peeking over the the top).
Can my only hearthguard unit and some warriors hold them off?

Capture the ford! I send my Warlord and his pet levies to
challenge Ashley's crossing

Another one of Ash's dastardly Hearthguard units sneaking
up my left flank

The Baddie, a Viking warlord in all his glory

Thats me at the bottom, as you can see I'm going for the classic
Saxon shieldwall approach.

Nice saxon shield wall!
"Defend the farm"

Its the Sons of Death sneaking over the hill. Hang on a
minute where's the rest of them. Oh yeah Ash is using there
multiple activations skill to redeploy them. Now my
Hearthguard are stuck on the hill with no-one to play with

But my Hearthguard guard the bridge anyway!

Damn Sons of Death facing off against my Warriors. Many
insults are slung across the river

Meanwhile Ash pushes his berserkers through the ford, 16 attacks
from 4  models. Thats right 16!

Time to feed them my levies, "Get em boys!"

The Sons get ready to go playing in the river

And the action begins o the left flank. Its almost like Ash
has a plan!

"Oi Brian, whats going on down there do you think"
"Nowt Fred, now then what do ya think of this bridge. It's a
right good bit o'woodwork don't ya think?"

2 levies left, but whats this, no berserkers. Ha!
I'd been saving a Saga ability that turns my levies into warriors,
then I loaded them up on extra attacks and butchered the naked
crazy loons!

The Son attacked but failed to destroy my warriors (and I have
loads of them!)

Mano E Mano. Warlord vs Warlord time and I have warriors to
back me up. At this point Ash had lost a couple of units and
therefore had less Saga dice than me.

Damn Viking Warlords are hard to kill, it was a damn
close thing but I hard some lackeys...err I mean brave
comrades who would die for the cause but unfortunately
Ash had none nearby.

And that was that. I held my nerve whereas Ash took the risks that almost paid off. Its hard playing Anglo Saxons as they have a lack of really offensive abilities but they certainly can wear your opponent down. I guarantee it won't go my way next time though.

We'll see.

Arghhhh, hobby drought!

Yup, that’s right I’m currently on the slippery slope to hobby burnout, I can feel it sneaking up on me like some kind of giant purring tomcat that you can’t quite see in your peripheral vision but you know is just about to pounce and dig its needle like claws into your arm, and I’m bloody well allergic so will end up sneezing with runny eyes, trying to get the slippery little bugger off me cursing all the while.

Sorry, what was I talking about again? Oh yeah, hobby funk/burnout. Over the last few weeks I’ve been trying to make sense of our garden and therefore I’ve not had much energy to motivate me to paint and as any of you know, once you lose the motivation it turns into a mammoth task just trying to muster up the focus required to pick up a paint brush. Arghhhh how bloody annoying. In addition I’m still trying to find a decent place to store all my hobby stuff in the new house, my plan to convert part of the garage has been put on hold whilst everything else gets done. Even more annoyingly many of my prized painted mini’s have been damaged in some minor way during our move (that I am only now finding out as I root through my stack of stored stuff) and they have to move over to the “repair“ pile on my painting table, which is slowly growing to Kilimanjaro proportions.

Maybe it’s not a hobby drought but rather a blogging drought (although that is firmly part of my hobby now)? I’ve been listening to the Behind Enemy Lines Podcast quite a bit recently in which they talk quite candidly about their experience of it and it would seem that being a member of a

positive gaming community is pretty much the best way to overcome any sort of hobby slump (and maybe just having the kind of self motivation that kicks you up the ass!). Having a group of hobbyists that you meet regularly is great inspiration and a good way to lift your mood.

Anyway go check them out at http://bel-podcast.blogspot.co.nz/, they laugh a lot!

I have however had a couple of games of Saga with Ashley, which is turning into a bit of fun as we both learn/re-learn the rules and come to grips with the complexity that is the battle boards. Ash’s Anglo Dane Warlord keeps kicking my Saxon Warlord in the teeth, which is evidenced by the really poor pictures below.

Let battle commence

Saxon Hearthguard try to sneak through the marsh

Saxon warriors fancy their chances against some Viking Hearthguard

The left flank, also trying to be sneaky through the trees

Hmm, fatigue on saxon levies, not good!

Trust me Saxon Warriors versus Viking Hearthguard does not end well

Saxon Warlord vs Viking Warlord - what do you think happened?

"Jomsvikings, farsands of em"

Just to illustrate that I haven’t been completely idle whilst moving house, I present to you four Gripping Beast Jomsvikings Hearthguard.

I acquired these some time ago however after Ash decided to get in to Saga (he’s recently watched Vikings!) I decided it may be fun to pay some attention to these models and get them onto the table. I have enough models to make a 4 point warband for Saga and Jomsvikings have their own very unusual play style in the game however I’ll elaborate on that at another time.

If you look at the painted models on the Gripping Beast website you’ll see that they’re rather colourful, I’ve deliberately avoided this look as it doesn’t fit my view of Vikings (Joms or otherwise).

I have spent a little more time on these than I normally do, simply because I wanted to try and paint well rather than get them on the table (quality rather than quantity). 

I’ve even gone so far as to paint eyes, not something I normally do and not something I’m good at (the air turned blue as I tried to get them right for 30 minutes).

 

Also I’ve gone with hand painted shields instead of transfers simply because I have none. It spoils the model if you go to the effort of painting them well and then glue on a tatty shield, however no I have to get creative in how I paint the rest of them! Next up are 4 more Hearthguard and the Warlord and then I can try and smash Ashley’s Normans (I have enough generic Germanic warriors painted to make up a 4 pt warband).