Jomsvikings for Saga

Saga has been a little neglected in my gaming world of late, however local gamer Joe decided that it might be fun to put on a Saga tournament at Wellington Warlords annual Call to Arms event. So in the interewsts of being an active participant in this little hobby of ours I signed up to roll dice for a weekend (with the agreement of my wife obviously!).

However this then begs the question 'What force to play?' I've always played Saga with Anglo Saxons, there something about the plucky Fyrd kicking some Viking butt that has always appealed to me however I thought I'd be a little silly and play Jomsvikings. Why Jomsvikings, well because they're completely nuts, have a weird battle board, can only have hearthguard and warriors and cannot take any allies or mercenaries. So it should prove challenging.

Oh did I forget to say that I'd only painted 4 of them at this point? Tournaments are always good motivation for getting something finished aren't they!

I needed 7 pts of Joms, we would only be playing with 6 pts with the 7th being an option should we choose to mess with our lists a little. This didn't really help me as I couldn't have anything but Jomsvikings so it would just have to be a bucket of hearthguard and warriors. So here we have my 6 pts of Jomsvikings (the 7th being some beserkers I heard kicking about thai never got used).

6x Hearthguard

6x Hearthguard

8x Warriors

8x Warriors

8x Warriors

Warlord

Almost all the models are Gripping Beast, I picked these up second hand and have been meaning to paint them for a while. I've also thrown in a few Footsore models too (I think they're from the Goths range) and added a casualty to the Jomsviking Warlords base, its one of the terrible Wargames Factory plastics that I dragged from the bits box!

The tournament was a blast, I went in to it with a master plan, try and get my warlord into combat with my opponents warlord as much as possible. And guess what, it worked as I managed to get my warlord killed the most times out of the six games. I didn't take many pics,  however here's two of my games:

Here my Joms valiantly try and defeat Alix's Norman's (I lost!).

Reg's Vikings try to steal my livestock! Turns out they wanted to be stolen as the cow killed two of my warriors and the sheep beat my hearthguard in melee!

I didn't place anywhere, but then I never expected to, it takes a deft hand to make Jomsvikings effective in Saga v2, and a deft hand I am not!

Joe is planning an Age of Crusades tournament next year, I think I may have to take part, simply to make some connections and promote the hobby. 

More Romans - SPQR Maybe?

I've kind of got into painting Romans, there's something to be said for factory painting, especially when you get into a groove.

These are the same as previous, I think I must have about 60 of these from one of those Warlord Games Roman starter sets, I've also got some cavalry to do too along with a batch of Celts, which may just end up being some local auxiliaries or I may have to do a full ancient celtic force. Those Victrix chariots are just lovely!

Kids are the future, of gaming!

Like many people I have kids, two boys to be precise,  and I'm guessing some of your kids like playing with daddy or mummy's toy soldiers. 

Well below is the outcome of a pleasant sunday afternoon diversion with my 9 and 11 year old where a small Panzer company and a US Recon patrol clash over a crossroads somewhere in Normandy.

The two forces move onto the field of battle

Operation capture the crossroads, who will get there first,  the Jagdpanther or two M8s?

M3 vs PzIV, oh no!

Meanwhile panzergrenadiers try to slow down the two speeding M8

The second squad of grenadiers capture the crossroads and dig in while a jeep patrol sprays them with machine guns. To the south an airborne squad threatens the Stugs

The final outcome turn 6, both sides claim the objective,  this sector of the Normandy campaign is in stalemate!

Both my boys had fun, I adapted Bolt Action and Flames Of War, managed to get the rules onto a single A4, made everything generic (tanks, vehicles and infantry).

Maybe I'll refine and publish on here at some point for feedback.

Space Toys are Fun

I'm busy working on painting my Jomsvikings but there's only so much pastel shades and axes you can paint before you implode, so for a fun deviation I decided to paint up an old toy I managed to recycle from my boys toy box. 

It's supposed to be a Y-Wing but I moved the engines forward and then started kit bashing from my bits box. 

I figured that it would work well for both Star Wars Legion and 40k, I've added a few old 40k decals but kept it neutral so it doesn't place it in a genre.

Random Interlude - Bismarck

Sometimes I forget that my youngest son (9) has a superpower (Autism), until he does something like this. 

 

The Bismarck, in Lego, from memory.

Apparently he wants to build the Hood now,  so watch this space. 

The results of my molding attempts

Not too shabby! Its a little light on the detail around the tracks and the rear looks scruffy. But thats what weathering and mud effects are for!

I could probably have paid for another set for the cost of the craft supplies I used to create this.  However I thoroughly enjoyed the challenge and sometimes that's what this hobby is about. Or maybe my focus is changing and I'm getting more pleasure out of the hobby side these days than I am out of the gaming side. 

Who knows!

First attempt at molding

Last post I talked about the great Rubicon Firefly kitand how it came with an extra hull and turret. This got me to thinking could I get another tank out of this? My wife used to be a professional cake decorator and still had a couple of unused silicon mold kits left which she kindly donated to my crazy idea.  I managed to make a decent mold of both track sections and chassis,  but when it came to casting I made a right mess ad I foolishly used plaster of paris which is not the best material to get out of flexible silicon molds.
So back to the drawing board, and something a bit more sturdy, milliput!

Unfortunately I didn't have enough to build the whole chassis so I had to be creative and after casting only the front and rear I had to build the rest of the chassis from scratch.

Its not the prettiest model but should be passable once painted and weathered.