Some Hanoverians:Feldbattalion Verden

Needed a little break from the Injuns. The 1st Hanoverian Brigade at Waterloo has been a project long sitting on the side table. I have done bits and pieces over the last few years. Initially started when I was still doing 12 figure battalions, at the time I did FB Verden and Bremen, as well as parts of Luneberg and Grubenhagen. I had also substituted some Calpe Landwehr for the feldjager company and have done part of the Hanoverian Foot Battery; both associated with the brigade at Waterloo. Being obsessive  this was driving me crazy, I needed to complete this unit! Over the last two week I have added 12 figures each to the FB's Verden and Bremen as well as almost completed FB Duke of York. The remaining figures needed for the Luneberg and Grubenhagen battalions are in the mail as well as the Howitzer for the foot battery. I hope to get the first 3 battalions painted, terrained and posted in the next few days before I go on my hols.

Viking Warlord:Thorvald Eriksson

Leif Eriksson discovers America by Christian Grogh

I decided to go with the Gripping Beast Heroes of the Viking Age Ragnar Lothbrok figure for my Viking warlord. As my first SAGA games will pit Vikings against the Skraelings in the new world, I needed a figure that just not represented the warlike characteristic of the Viking race, but also more importantly their sense of adventure and exploration. Here we have a figure that is not just imposing in a military sense but one who is searching the horizons for new lands. I also have to say that my wife said the figure looked liked me, I may be just as heavy but certainly not as well built or tall. I believe she more equated my gray hair, receding hair line and beard with the figure. But so much for that, maybe I should shut up now!

Skraeling Warlord and who were the Skraelings anyway?

My postings have almost now caught up with my painting. Next up is my warlord for the Skraeling Warband. I decided to go with a scenic base here, so increased the size to 60 mm and added some decorative elements. I also thought that I would give him a name to commemorate the last chieftain of the Beothuk nation who died in the early nineteenth century. So here we have Nonosbawsut. I will get more into this below. I realized early on that I wanted to add some figures to the base. I initially thought maybe a black or polar bear, but these animals are still plentiful in Newfoundland and did not really fit the dark age/lost nation theme. I then remembered the Newfoundland Wolf, extinct since the early 20th century. It sort of fit.

Viking Beserkers

I enjoyed painting these Vikings. I believe, the last Berserker figures I had seen were some Saruman Orcs from Lord of the Rings that my son had painted some years ago. Really not that much different. Crazed animal type creatures.

In SAGA, these are a Hearthguard unit. You can use only 1 unit of Beserkers in a Viking warband, because they are so crazy I suppose. Generally Viking Hearthguard generate 2 attack dice in melee per figure, but these guys have 4 each. Very crazed indeed, but it comes with a cost as their armour is reduced from 5 to 3. The bear skins apparently do not provide much protection. This is point 2 in my 4 point starter Warband.

Skraeling Warriors (second point)

Here is my second point of Skraelings, a unit of warriors, these are the hand to hand guys. You can see that unlike the levy, they have Mohawk hair styles, a little unlikely for these guys in 1000 AD, but I will get into that bit more in my next Skraeling post. Other then that they are probably right for the period. Their clothing is all made of caribou skin and their weapons are stone.

There will be 3 units of these guys in total in my Skraeling 4 pt warband, there are no hearthguard equivalent in the Skraeling SAGA world.

SAGA Viking Bondi First Pt

My SAGA plan is to build two 4 point war bands to start, so I can test the rules. To make it simple for myself, I just went ahead with two Gripping Beast 4pt starter sets. My post from a couple of days was the Levy from the Skraelings starter set.

Simply put SAGA is a points based game, with most games being 6 points aside. To get new gamers off the ground though, it is recommended that they start with 4 point war bands. Gripping Beast sell these nice starting sets with a Warlord, and any combination of a 4 figure Hearthguard, 8 figure Warrior and 12 figure Levy. The Warlords are free. These are all metal figures and are quite nice and usually quite varied (the Skraeling Levy being a bit of an exception as you have seen in my last post). Generally the Levy are armed with bows, spears or slings, i.e. throwing weapons. The Hearthguard and Warriors are, in most cases, armed for hand to hand combat.

La Bataille pour les Deux Villages

Just a quick link to Iannick's AAR of our recent game in Montreal.

Back to Terre Neuve

I have been looking at SAGA for about 6 months now, it looks like a very innovative game, simple to play, and requires a limited number of figures. I was very attracted.

When I look at the other historical periods that I have tried over the last year (WWII, Japanese Sengoku Period), and my subsequent failure to be enthused, I believe the reason is two fold. First the Napoleonic period will always be number 1 for me, but essentially it requires an enormous amount of time to paint armies at the divisional level, and I like painting Napoleonic armies. I have had a real good go at the French, Prussian and Anglo-Portuguese, but also want to paint the Hanoverians and the Brunswickers to start. Because of this I really have little will left to paint large armies in other periods. Another period really needs to be at the skirmish level. Thirty-60 figures aside and ready to go, is what I need. I also need an interesting and well put together set of rules. I have found nothing for the Sengoku period (there is a SAGA mod, but I am really not good with mods, I need a full colour rulebook with all the extras to get me started). For WWII, I based for non skirmish gaming, it was a mistake. The IABSM rules from TooFatLardies look great, but I have to do some rebasing and I am now unsure if I should have gone with 28mm rather then 15mm.