Saga AAR - Caroligians vs. Vikings

Recently a friend and me met at Monty's for a little Saga game. Just a small 4 points game but a good opportunity for me to present my slowly growing stock of terrain and for my friend Auld Nick to give his Carolingians their baptism of fire.

The battlefield with my Vikings in front of us and the Carolingians approaching from the other side.

We played with two rather simple warbands. Besides my Warlord Gudmund the Dauntless I fielded a unit of 4 hearthguard, 4 berserkers and two units of 8 warriors. Niclas brought his mounted Warlord accompanied by two units of 4 mounted hearthguard and two units of 8 warriors on foot. Nick's miniatures weren't completely finished since he hadn't painted the bases and the shields so far but that didn't bother us too much.

Finally we decided to play the simple "Clash of Warlords" scenario from the core rulebook.So my Vikings started their advance towards the cottage. During this early stage of the game it was my idea to get into a position where the Carolingians couldn't take too much advantage from their speedy mounted troops.

Gudmund and his men approaching...

As I feared the horsemen attacked quickly and four mounted hearthguard chased one of my warrior units.

First blood...But my warriors survived...

But they underrated the sturdiness of the norsemen. Although I lost four warrior afterwards three Carolingian hearthguards lay dead.

The Viking warriors sneering at the fleeing Carolingian knight

Fearing for one of his Saga dice Nick withdrew the last had the survivor turn tail. Visibly impressed he even stopped the charge of his second hearthguard unit and lead them back to the center of the battlefield.

Meanwhile I occupied the cottage with eight of my warriors.

Carolingians regrouping and my Vikings taking the center.

Now the game seemed to falter slightly. I tried to reposition my left flank while Nick gathered his troops for an attack on the cottage.

The Carolingian milites turning to the cottage.

But after having refused the first attack on the cottage my warriors made a sally and snatched Nick's warlord who was the actual target of the game.

The Carolingian leader cutting down my warriors.

But against all odds he won the melee which brought me into severe trouble.

The Carolingians taking the initiative.

While I lost my units man by man Nick sounded the charge onto my warlord. He outflanked my few survivors and involved Gudmund the Dauntless in a bloody melee.

Gudmund surrounded by enemies.

But like his antagonist before he fought bravely and turned down the attackers. Afterwards the field was rather empty. With my very last turn I managed to sicced my berserkers on Nick's warlord. The second time during this game he was bound in melee and finally met his fate.

The Carolingian warlord meeting his fate.

After all it was an excellent game. Although I won by taking out Nick's warlord the game was extremely close on points. Anyway we both enjoyed it and crowned the time with a very special drink:

Altbierbowle

It's a punch based on Altbier (a top-fermented dark beer from the Rhine area) which is mixed with fruity ingredients. In our case we added strawberries, peaches and a good dash of raspberry syrup. Well chilled it's a delicious, refreshing drink for warm spring or summer days.

Altbierbowle and Vikings. What could one wish more?

With a little barbecue in the evening it was just a perfect day.

Not to forget the cheering fans at the sideline:

Painting Table Saturday - Basing Time

Actually I'll spent most of the day on a festival for Roman re-encators. There a yearly gathering in Xanten, one of the best and largest German museums for Roman history, and this year our family and some friends will visit the event. Hopefully we'll have good weather and will have a good time between legionaries, gladiators and Roman civilians of all kind.

But nevertheless there's some work to do on my painting table. Maybe this evening is basing time. All in all I have four trees, twelve Saga Viking levies and a couple of wattle fence pieces to finish the bases. Probably I'll watch some football this evening and have some static grass and clump foliage spread over them.

Enjoy your weekend !

Undergoing Pentecost thunder-storm...

The weekend started with sweltering heat. Although my wife and me were groaning under 30 °C our daughter had fun. She spent two days with two friends of hers having fun in the paddle pool and yesterday we spent the day on the playground an in the ice cream parlour.

But in the evening the sky darkenend and some thick clouds gathered above the Ruhr area. Quite fitting I though because on TV Richard III. and Anne Neville were weaving the plot to put Richard's nephews out of the way. But what followed was beyond imagination.

Fortunately our area isn't treated by severe whether too often. The Ruhr doesn't leave its riverbed and luckily we never experience more than a filled up basement now an then. But yesterday evening a tempest racked over the Ruhr and Rhine area. I've never experienced such a thunderstorm, heavy rain and demonstration of natural power. The stuff on our balcony was thrown over and small branches were snapped off the trees. The tempest lastet for about an hour and today our housing estate was covered with leaves and small branches over and over.

But a pictures of real devastation awaited me when I left for work this morning:

Universitätsstraße - One of the major exit roads of Bochum...

Another impression of Universitätsstraße

A shattered tree near...

And another one which my wife photographed on her way to the doctors...

Similar pictures all around Bochum and the affected cities. All major streets in Bochum are blocked and most tramlines are interrupted. This morning our main station Bochum Hauptbahnhof was completely decommissioned. Fortunately I've only heard of five fataleties so far. Undoubtlesly every casualty is too much but seeing this destruction a lot more harm could have occured when the tempest had taken place earlier during the day.

So my weekend had a rather thrilling end...

Dark Age Cottage finished !

After an enjoyable saturday with a great game of Saga (AAR will follow soon) I found some time on sunday to sit down at the painting table and work a bit on my Dark Ages cottage. For some time I had both unexpected and appreciated help:

Viktoria will turn 4 this August and seeing me at the painting desk has been fascinating for her since her youngest days. She always wants to "help" me or paint some figures on her own and with some old remains of my lead mountain I let her do as she wants. Anyway she helped me with some terrain pieces already and spread sand on them or easy tasks like this. But this weekend we took the gloves off. First I let her slather the teddy fur for the roof of the cottage with white glue and on sunday she helped my to put a dark brown whash (Armypainter Strong Tone) on the coloured fur. Of course I'm still carefull which tasks to grant her but this weekend our joint work went really good.

So only a few finishing touches for me to do. Actually I stuck to Mirco's excellent painting tutorial for the Dark Age barn, at least as close as possible. Teddy fur was a completely new material for me so this it has been an interesting experience to work with this stuff. Actually it is much easier to use than I thought.

Besides this I didn't use anything too special: As always the reliable paints from Vallejo's Model Colour range, some Armypainter washes, pigments, my homemade terrain colour and different grass tufts, moss patches, some clump foliage and some static grass.

Really I like the result of my humble work. But that's mostly due to the excellence of the kit. The parts were well cast, needed only little cleaning and fitted very well. Actually there was no need to fill any gaps or to correct warped pieces. The resin was excellent to paint which can sometime be a problem.

All things considered the kit is really worth the 36€ Stronghold Terrain is charging for it. For value you get a great kit which is not only technically done well but historically accurate. Remarkably Mirco and Elmar sculpt their models strictly after examples they found reconstructed in open air museums. So I will gladly build up my Dark Ages village with some of their nice houses. Next on my workbench is the pit house which I bought earlier this year. My charming apprentice and I already started...

Saga 18mm Fantasy AAR - A song of swords and pointed ears...

At our latest bi-weekly meeting in the club HQ we tried something special: Saga with 18mm miniatures.

Main cause was that one of our club fellows owns an excellent terrain board for medieval or fantasy games with 15mm to 18mm miniatures. It's a complete set of terrain tiles with a river, some woods and a scratchbuilt early medieval village. After he as well as our mates Holger and Michael fell under the spell of Mark Copplestone's current 15mm fantasy range (especially the barbarians) they wanted to field their boys as Saga warbands. So we created a small game with two 4 pt. warbands and had barbarians (Holger / Georg) meet some Elves (Robert / Kalle).

We played the rather basic Clash of Warlords scenario from the basic rules. Since it was the first game of Saga for some of the players we wanted to keep things simple. Here's the board:

The complete board. Well... The angle is a bit strange, but you see Elves from the north and barbarians in the village.

The barbarians started on the side with the - their - village which was attacked by a force of Elves from the nearby Woodland Realm. While the barbarians used the Vikings' battleboard the Elves had one of the unofficial fantasy battleboards.

For now it seems quiet in the sleepy village...

The game started with the barbarians choosing their village to be their zone of entry. They fielded the warlord accompanied by one unit of hearthguard (Yetis), three units of warriors and a unit of levies. Most of them were placed in or besides the village and they seemed ready to face the Elvish charge.

Some of the guarding barbarians...

Not wanting to remain inflexible the barbarians marched forward during their first turns but trying to respect the speed of the Elvish cavalry.

Levies lurking in the woods. Soon they'll be suppressed by an Elvish rain of arrows.

One the other side the Elves unfolded their array. The advanced with their cavalry (two six men units of hearthguard) on their right flank where the terrain seemed rather open and directed two units of warriors (one with bows, one with shields and spears) to the left to counter the barbarian bowmen.

Two units of Elvish bowmen near the river banks.

And they achieved success!
After the first barbarians died by deadly arrow fire the warlord of the norse became fickle. He just didn't find a key to unlock the Elvish barrage and remained motionless for a turn or two.

Middle of the game: The right wing gets stuck while the game focusses on the right wing.

So the first melee actions took place on the barbarians' left flank:

Elvish cavalry approaching...

... and clashing into the barbarian hearthguard.

After a bloody exchange of blows the Elvish hearthguard cavalry prevailed and the barbarians decided to abbreviate the front. So they evaded into the river to negate the Elvish advantage of speed and tried to regroup near the village.

Some tough barbarians trying to secure the ford while the bowmen remain near the woods... Still.

But it was too late. The barbarians had lost their heartguard in the Elvish cavalry charge and lost a unit of warriors that tryed to defend the ford. So the number of Saga dice decreased dangerously. At the end their warlord wasn't able to direct his troops as he wanted or grap the initiative again.

The final melee

So the Elvish warlord crossed the river at the ford and cut off the barbarians' line of retreat. They charged the norse near the river banks and decided the game finally.

Overall it was a very interesting game for me as visitor. Both sides played rather well and the norse died hard. The key to the Elvish success were their deadly archers who temporarly pinned two barbarian units and their fast cavalry which was able to outflank the norse.

But after the meeting some strange fellows met on a hill near the battlefield. Malicious gossip has it that maybe more than just bad luck unfluenced the barbarian dice...

It's a kind of magic... Gathering of Elvish nobles near the battlefield.