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.

Painting Table Saturday No. 30

Actually my current main project are the KGL riflemen but as a little distraction I proceeded with my dark ages cottage. I used Mirco's painting guide more or less and yesterday evening I soaked the roof with a PVA glue, water, paint mixture. The construction to let it dry was one of the most unusual construction I've built up for wargaming stuff so far:

Today there is a SAGA meeting with a close friend of mine but I'll try to proceed with the cottage. On Sunday at the latest.

Apropos Saga: Last Friday we had a Saga game with 18mm fantasy figures. During the week I was too busy to prepare the pictures but I'll do my very best to present a short AAR on Sunday. Anyway here a little teaser. The blue guy didn't participate but to my mind the picture's worth showing nonetheless:

 

Enjoy your weekend !

2nd Light Battalion KGL - Eight men finished

Unfortunately I missed the Paint Table Saturday this weekend. But I wasn't lazy anyway. Here are the first eight riflemen for my 2nd Light Battalion KGL:

The battalion was part of the Kings German Legion which was founded in 1803 after England lost its Hanoverian possessions to Napoleon. The legion consisted of eight line battalion, two light battalion which were - at least partly - equipped with Baker rifles, four batteries of foot artillery, two batteries of horse artillery, two regiment of heavy dragoons and three regiments of hussars. Overall there were between 20.000 and 30.000 Germans who gathered under the banner of King George III. Mostly of course from the lost Electorate of Brunswick-Lüneburg but from other occupied German countries as well.

 

The KGL took part in all major British campaigns during the Napoleonic wars. They fought in Hanover, Pomerania, Kopenhagen and during the Peninsular Campaign as well as during the battles of Quatre Bras and Waterloo.

The 2nd Light Battalion KGL gained immortal fame during Napoleon's last battle when they defended La Haye Sainte. Under command of Major Georg Baring the helt the estate until late afternoon when the ran out of ammunition.

 

Some friends and me are planning to revive this very event in a special scenario for Black Powder. As one of the "British guys" - those bumblebrains collecting the British forces for our Napoleonic games - I got swept into the preparations of the game and agreed to paint some riflemen. "Some" in this case means 40 since we decided to play the scenario with a 1:10 ratio...

 

 So these are the first eight and there are some more to follow rather soon. The miniatures are from Alan and Michael Perry's excellent Napoleonic range and although I didn't like the colours that much - too much black - it was real fun to paint them. Once again some figures with very characterful expression.

For further reading about the KGL I highly recommend North Ludlow Beamish's work. It's a contemporary report which was published in 1837. Although there is a reprint edition it's available for free at Googleplay here in German and English.

Rude Scotsmen for Fran

Finally they're finished!

Here are the two Rude Scotsmen I painted for Fran. Please send me your address, mate!

The figures are from the excellent range of Westfalia Miniatures. They're sculpted by Paul Hicks and have an excellent amount of detail below and especially above the kilts.

As usual I painted them with Vallejo Model Colours but didn't deploy Armypainter Quickshade this time. Instead I tried to build up the colours in three stages from dark to light. Actually more work to do but for those excellent sculpts I enjoyed to spent more effords than for simple rank and file troops.

The base is prepared with my usual mix of sand and stones and painted with my usual earth tone. As little bonus I added an additional musket from a Perry plastic sprue. It just didn't make sense to me that one of the boys should taunt the enemy unarmed...

Although I'll be sending them to Fran gladly it's hard to say goodbye to the boys. Probably I'll have to order another set of them sooner or later.

Anyway I hope you like them. Actually they're some of the best results I was able to perdorm thus far...