Napoleonic Saga?

The joy of wargaming with friends is that every now and then, someone comes up with an idea that you, yourself would have just dismissed as crazy. So when Duncan said that he wanted to do a Napoleonic version of Saga, I was a bit sceptical that it would work. There are already enough Napoleonic Skirmish games out there, why do another?

But before we get to that, perhaps a bit of back ground. I’m lucky enough to be wargaming each week with a group of great group of friends at a local pub. I suppose that we are a club, there’s no subs or secretary or chairman or anything like that. We just meet at the pub for a meal and then get on with the gaming. The pub, the White Hart, very kindly allows us to use their function room for free, so long as we have a meal & a couple of drinks. A great arrangement for both parties!

The nearest thing to formality is the gathering at the end of the evening when we have a brief discussion about who’s playing what next week. This spirit of informality also extends to the way that we play our games. We are happy to tinker with rules sets so that they play to our liking and are more interested in enjoying the game than worrying too much about the rules. ( we have our moments though…)

An Intro game of Black Powder for a new member at the club

An Intro game of Black Powder for a new member at the club

We tend to play a lot of Black powder, all of us having large Napoleonic armies built over the last few years. However, we also alternate with other rules sets and tend to use skirmish rules sets to explore new periods or perhaps give us an excuse to paint yet more models! At the moment, one of the rules sets that we are trying out is ‘The Men Who Would be Kings’. Its’s written by Dan Mersey and based on the ‘Lion Rampant’ rules engine. So far we have had a good deal of fun with these rules – here’s the latest game at the club.

This weeks set up for the Men Who Would be Kings

This weeks set up for the Men Who Would be Kings

And so back to Napoleonic Saga. I asked Duncan why go down this route when there were already so many good skirmish games out there, Sharpe Practice and Muskets and Tomahawks to name but two.  The answer was that he wanted to create some rules for the ‘small revolutionary wars’ that took place as part of the wider Napoleonic conflict but give them their own flavour. A skirmish type game would give people the chance to build smaller armies but the Saga boards idea would be a way of introducing unique qualities or ‘flavour’ to the particular protagonists.

A British force observes the Itish Rebels as they advance!

A British force observes the Irish Rebels as they advance!

The Irish uprising of 1798 being a case in point. Not everyone would want to build a huge Irish Army or British Militia and refight the Battle of Castle Bar or even the Battle of Arklow , as featured in Wargames Illustrated issue 319, now sadly out of print. However, a smaller game would allow scope to build and paint a few typical units and refight some of the smaller skirmishes or simply enjoy gaming with the particular units of that conflict.

With this in mind Duncan put together a set of embryonic rules. Now these rules will possibly  feature in a future Wargames Illustrated release, so I can only give you a flavour of the game here. As with Saga, you will use your points to purchase a small mixed force of Regulars (Hearth guard) Militia (warriors) or ‘Local rebels’ and support units (Levy) and these in turn will generate the Saga dice for your army. The Commanders (warlords) have a slightly different function as they will not get so involved in the actual fighting as a Viking warlord might! They are key to keeping your force moving, rallying, if fatigued and of course encouraging them in battle!

Contact! The Irish Pikes Block charges the British line.

Contact! The Irish Pikes Block charges the British line.

As usual with Saga, the limited number of Saga dice mean that you have to decide which units that you will activate and whether you will use any special abilities on the Saga board. The Saga boards for our game were still not quite complete but I can tell you that the abilities are fairly straight forward and down to earth, giving your units an edge in a particular aspect of combat. What is clever is that they are based on specific quotes or events from the Irish uprising.

Dragoons impetously charge a Pike block!

Dragoons impetuously charge a Pike block!

Movement and shooting is very similar to the original Saga rules set, with fixed Long, Medium, Short and Very Short distances being used for both movement and to modify firing effectiveness. Fatigue also played it’s part as a measure of a units morale. The game played surprisingly well for a first outing and copious notes were made for the next play test. It was the Irish rebels that won the day – their more numerous pikemen overrunning the Government troops. Duncan has much work to do before bringing a full set to publication but the good news is that if it works with the Irish, the game can be adapted to other areas with new battle boards for say, the Chouans and Vendee rebellion or may be at last I will get my Caribbean game…

If you are interested in purchasing any of the rules sets mentioned above, Arcane Scenery has a comprehensive selection in our shop here:

Rules for Wargaming

We currently post free to most worldwide locations.

Take your Pict!

Yes, I know that I am supposed to be finishing those last 12 Portuguese on the work bench but distractions abound. None more so than the new Picts that Footsore will be releasing later this month. In preparation for the launch, they have been busy casting stock this week and as the casting room is practically in the same building as Arcane, it’s pretty difficult to resist being nosey and having a look at the figures as they are cast. I really liked the look of the new Pict Warlord. I had seen the first pictures on the Footsore web store and he was just as good in the flesh, or more accurately , metal.

Great excitement as the Footsore Picts molds arrive on site!

Great excitement as the Footsore Picts molds arrive on site!

You can imagine the conversation…

Me , drooling, ‘Ooh, he looks really nice!’

That nice Mr Hobday, ‘Would you like one to paint?’

Me, ‘yes please!’ Snatching it out of Andy’s hand and galloping back to my unit with the treasure!

Well, that was this Monday and as I am not a hoarder when it comes to figures, I accepted Andy’s generosity as I wanted to paint the figure and not just to add it to a lead mountain in my garage. To be fair, as hinted at in my last blog article, I am happy to be distracted from churning out units for my Napoleonic Black powder army and the Pict Warlord was something different.

Move over you Portuguese, a new kid is in town!

Move over you Portuguese, a new kid is in town!

I’m afraid I didn’t do too much in the way of research when it came to deciding on the colour scheme. I had been planning a fairly basic tartan and was thinking along the lines of a green/blue scheme but Bill Thornhill, the talented sculptor behind Footsore, had already used these colours, so I looked for something different. I used the easy way to get some ideas –  a quick search on Google images gave me some inspiration. An increasingly useful tool for me is the Pinterest Site. A quick search on here also revealed some interesting subjects. The beauty of Pinterest is that you can create your own set of reference pictures – I don’t yet have a board for Picts but my Dark Age Irish and Celts has a few useful pictures. In the end I decided to go for something a bit different and perhaps not entirely realistic but I wanted my warlord to stand out on the battlefield.

So in Monday nights session, I cleaned up the model and primed him with Army Painter Matt Black spray.

Tuesday evening, I block painted the model. I use Vallejo model colour paints .

Dark Flesh 927, Face & hands; Steel 864 Chain mail, sword & helmet; 871, Leather Brown & 940 Saddle brown for the belts & accessories; 981 Orange brown for the hair; 801 Brass for buckles etc; 814 burnt red for the cloak. The Warlords tunic was painted in Vallejo beige 70917. I like this colour as it has quite a bit of yellow in it but is about right for dark age cloth. Once the figure was block painted, I used army painter ink to shade the colours. I used the Black or strong tone over the chain mail & Steel. Everything else got a wash of dark tone, or brown.

Last night I set too and tried to get the model finished. This involves re painting over the inked bits using the original colours to set the mid tone and I used the following paints as highlights, sometimes in combination: 819 Iraqi sand; 820 Off white; 877 Gold Brown; 996 gold; 997 Silver; 955 flesh; 947 Red. It’s pretty straight forward what was used over what colour but I do tend to improvise…

Footsore Pict warlord with shield - still on painting base!

Footsore Pict warlord with shield – still on painting base!

To get the tartan effect on the cloak it was just a matter of painting a chequer board pattern using first of all 899 dark Prussian blue and then painting inside the lines with 961 Sky blue. From a distance it all looks nice – close up you can see my hand isn’t quite as steady as it could be and perhaps my eyes aren’t as sharp as they were but it will do for me. I should also admit to being slightly red/green colour blind so what may look garish to you looks beautifully blended to me! I was a bit lazy when it came to shading and highlighting the tartan design – I didn’t do it! It does look a bit unnatural but at least it stands out! I should perhaps give it a light ink wash but for now I’ll leave it be.

For the shield, I went for a simple design. I wanted to finish the figure in time for today’s blog. So I used a black red 70859 background and painted a simple pattern on it – dots and lines. So that is my Pict warlord finished for now. I say for now, as I need to base him and to do that I will need to finish the banner man that comes with him. The other issue is that when I see the close up pictures, there are clearly some errors that could do with tidying up… I think that I’ll go back to the Portuguese first!

Footsore Pict Warlord temporarily at home in a DeeZee stone circle.

Footsore Pict Warlord temporarily at home in a DeeZee stone circle.

So one warlord awaits his retinue – it will follow, I quite fancy some cavalry and I might just borrow some of my Irish warband to make up the numbers whilst I think about it.

If you are interested in building your own Pict war band, as soon as they are released we will be stocking them here:

Footsore Miniatures

If you would like to get some more ideas and hints on how to build and paint your models, please visit:

 Footsore face book page

Bill has put up some really useful videos full of hints and tips on how to get the best out of your figures.

 

So, Where was I…?

Christmas and the New Year Holidays have come and gone and despite succumbing to the current version of ‘Man Flu’ that is doing the rounds, I have made some progess with my various projects. This blog entry is really a round up of some of these, with a few photographs to show the state of play and to clear my mind for the next round of painting and gaming.

My Portuguese Brigade is taking shape.

My Portuguese Brigade is taking shape.

First up those pesky Portuguese! Well not really pesky but in committing to paint a full brigade of these troops, they have dominated my painting desk for the last couple of months. I am now at the stage where I have completed 72 figures, or three battalions with a further 12 just needing to be based and the final 12 halfway through painting.

The final 12 figures are on the painting desk.

The final 12 figures are on the painting desk.

I shouldn’t really be too hard on myself in terms of progress. I am about a week away from completing 96 figures. In addition to that I have painted two mounted officers, giving me a total of 98 new figures for my collection. On reflection, not a bad achievement as I now have a core for a future Peninsular Army.

Officer commanding the 11th Line Regiment

Officer commanding the 11th Line Regiment

If you have missed previous blog articles on how and why I have chosen this Brigade please follow this link back to the last article, which does explain how I decided to construct the units in the brigade.

Officer commanding the 23rd Line Regiment

Officer commanding the 23rd Line Regiment

You will notice that I have added some British Officers as they were often attached to the Portuguese Battalions. There is also a couple of Sappers. I have used a bit of licence when it comes to the two Sappers in the Brigade. The only reference that I could find for these came from a picture that I found on Pinterest. To visit my Portuguese pinterest board, click on this link.

Command section, 11th Penamacor Regiment.

Command section, 11th Penamacor Regiment.

I have already prepared the next part of the Portuguese project, another 10 Cacadores to use as Skirmishers. The good news is that they have brown uniforms, so I can take a break from painting blue for a while.

Cacadores ready for priming

Cacadores ready for priming

All the figures are from Warlord games with the exception of a few of the Portuguese line infantry & command , which are Victrix metals, now available I think, from Brigade games in the States.

28th North Gloucestershires ready for painting!

28th North Gloucestershires ready for painting!

Also lurking in the back ground is a prepared and primed Battalion of British infantry for the Waterloo period – they will be the next in the queue after the Cacadores but I am going to try a slightly different approach to painting this unit. I will still complete them as a batch paint job but rather than get bogged down with another long project, I intend to ‘dip in and out’ of painting these whilst getting on with some other less time consuming subjects.

Saga Bases textured

Saga Bases textured

My other project that is now complete is my Irish Saga war band. I had been playing with using some simple Saga movement trays and finally got to texturing these to help them blend in with the figure bases. It was one of those small jobs that kept getting put to one side but well worth the 10 minutes or so that it took. I think that I may well gradually move all of my Saga Warbands into these, if nothing else than to make transporting them easier. The texturing was simply done using my favourite Vallejo Dark Earth Paste, painted & dry brushed with a chocolate brown/Iraqi Sand mix and some green scatter added on top.

Sarissa Precision Grain Store

Sarissa Precision Grain Store

I’ve also finished another Sarissa Precision Dark Age Building – the grain store. I’ve added some extra details using match sticks and the Vallejo dark earth paste as ‘daube’. I have covered how I detailed the Sarissa buildings in a previous post and to read more, click here. I now have four buildings for my Saga settlement.

Trent Miniatures Sherry Casks

Trent Miniatures Sherry Casks

And so that pretty much brings me up to date. The only other small project on the go is to finish painting a set of Sherry casks from Trent Miniatures. To be honest, I’m not sure what I intend to do with these. I just thought that they were nice replicas and I fancied having a go at trying some new techniques in painting wood, so they are a bit of an experiment. It is this sort of project that I hope to shoe-horn in between painting some of the larger units that I would like to complete my Napoleonic collection.

I am off to play my first Black powder game of the year tonight, so I am now fully back into the swing of my hobby. If the coming year is as productive as last year, it will be a fun year!

Painting War

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Marvellous! Just as you finish a project ( my Irish Warband) along comes the ideal publication that would have helped get an even better result. I’m talking about the release of the latest magazine in the Painting War series, ‘Dark Ages’. If you haven’t come across this series before, then I think that you are missing out. Each magazine, or more accurately, bookazine, takes a particular subject and using a guest artist, shows you how to paint a series of models. They have previously covered WW2 German army, French Napoleonics, WW2 US and Japanese Forces, British Napoleonics, The Spanish Civil War, Feudal Japan and now the Dark Ages. You can see the range here:

Painting War Magazines

The Dark Ages Magazine is by Alberto Mateos. It starts with a general painting guide and some basic techniques before covering general subjects such as how to paint skin, hair, fabric (including tartan), Armour, shields, flags, horses, accessories and even terrain. All of these subjects are referenced against the colours the artist has used and have clear step by step instructions. That’s just the first half of the mag! In the second part, there are 39 tutorials showing you how to paint individual figures, practically all of which are taken from the Saga Warbands. Most of the figures used are from either the Gripping Beast or Crusader ranges but of course, the techniques are applicable to any suitable Dark Age model. An example page is shown below:

002

With so many practical examples of how to paint your Dark Age army, you really cant be lost for inspiration or ideas. There’s one other clever idea. A colour reference chart in the centre of the magazine. So if you want to know how to paint Lambs skin, turn to page 63, not sure how to paint Red hair, turn to page 70, Scottish tartan – Page 20 – you get the idea and it’s very useful. So it’s another title that I will be adding to my reference library and I thoroughly recommend it for yours. If you would like a copy, just click here:

Painting War – Dark Ages

Meanwhile, back at the work bench, the Portuguese are slowly coming along.

Portuguese on the workbench

Portuguese on the workbench

I am at stage 5 out of 8 in my batch painting process, with the red piping to complete before tidying up, and painting the details – brass plates, buttons etc.

Red Piping done. Brass & other details to complete

Red Piping done. Brass & other details to complete

I think that I will struggle to get both Battalions completed in November but given a good couple of sessions, these boys should be ready for basing next week.

Man Down!

Well actually, Woman Down! My wife, Julie has just had a Hip replacement and so I have been confined to domestic and nursing duties. It also means that we are missing both Julie and myself from the business at the moment. Fortunately, Hayley, Rob and Kevin are doing a great job holding the fort and keeping things running whilst I am away. However, I have found some time to sneak off to the garage when Julie has been resting to do some modelling, so some progress has been made with my various projects.

Sarissa Dark Age Stable

Sarissa Dark Age Stable

I have managed to finish another of the Sarissa Dark Age buildings for the village that will form the centre piece of my scenery when playing Saga. This building is the barn/stable J10, the third building in my collection. I have just one more building that I am keen to finish, the Grain store, although I am in no particular rush to do so. The method used to paint it was of course exactly the same as the previous buildings so that they all blend together.

Sarissa Dark age Grain Store

Sarissa Dark age Grain Store awaiting its coat of daub!

I also have a Sarissa Dark age/Saxon church that I started work on some time ago but never actually completed. As usual, I decided that painting figures should take priority and so the Church was relegated to being in the background of many of my pictures but never quite was finished. Perhaps now is the time to get this project completed as this really will give me a nice little village for my warbands to fight over!

Dark Age Village - work in progress

Dark Age Village – work in progress

As I hinted, the lure of painting figures is always a distraction for me and I have already strayed back to my beloved Napoleonics! To be fair, the figures in question were already part finished as I had painted them for an article that will appear in this months Wargames Illustrated ( issue 349 November). The article is entitled, the ‘Perils of Painting Portuguese’ and explains step by step, how I batch paint my Napoleonic infantry units. I was using the Warlord Games Portuguese boxed set and in order to complete the article I actually painted 24 figures to completion to illustrate the main article but also then painted a further 20 in various stages so that the reader could follow the painting process. These figures have been sitting on my work bench queue for some time and I thought that it would be a good idea to get them finished. The other prompt was that I had found some of the old Victrix Portuguese metal figures in the ‘Bring and Buy’ at the recent Derby war games show. There are some really nice Officer, ensign and musician figures, so I will be using these to complete my next Portuguese battalion.

Portuguese 23rd Regiment awaiting final highlight and basing!

Portuguese 23rd Regiment awaiting final highlight and basing!

As you can see the rank and file are now completed and just require basing. Incidentally, the goats are not mascots but will be living in the dark age barn!

Portuguese Command.

Portuguese Command.

The picture above shows the Victrix Figures that I will be using for the Battalion command. I really like the fifer and it makes a change to have another musician present as well as the drummer. Musicians were of course a key part of the Battalion or Regimental organisation in most Napoleonic armies but the tendency is just to field drummers. Trent Miniatures make some very nice Musicians that will eventually find their way onto my paint table to flesh out my Waterloo collection! As ever, plenty to keep me busy, although, as mentioned above, my hobby time may be slightly curtailed over the next couple of weeks.

 

Doing Up The House.

Following the completion of my Irish Warband it was time to move on to a new project. I planned that this would be some scenery for my Saga games and rather than dive into the next pile of miniatures that are waiting on the painting table, I thought that now would be a good time to try my hand at some scenery making. The goal is to have some generic scenery for each period that I am gaming in, so that when I am off to the wargames club, I can just pick up the appropriate boxes and I’m ready for battle. I also thought that having some nice scenery would also improve the look of our games. I dont expect to reach Wargames Illustrated standards but having scenery that is relevant to the game will improve the visual appeal. I have some nice Sarissa Precision Dark Age buildings that I am working on at the moment. Previous blog posts have shown the first of these buildings that I have completed, the A frame Hut,  in the background of my Irish figures.

Fiana, Kern and A frame house.

Fiana, Kern and A frame house.

My next building was to be the Timber Framed House J14. I covered the roof in ‘Teddy Bear Fur’ thatch, to match the A Frame hut and then coated the fur in PVA glue to flatten it down and stiffen it up. Teddy Bear Fur is just one way of making roofing for these buildings. Gary, from March Attack, the designer for the range, prefers to use pan scourers as roofing and they look just as good, if not more effective. Other choices include flannel cloth or even coco fibre hanging basket liners. I think that it is a question of taste as they can all look realistic. I went with the teddy bear fur primarily because I had some to use up! I think that it’s worth pointing out that the Sarissa Buildings look very good with just a coat of paint, I just fancied trying a few ideas to pimp them up! So having covered the roof, the next stage was to add the timber framing.

To do this I used some standard matchsticks. I didn’t actually use the headless hobby variety – we do sell these in the shop in bags of 2000 for just £2.99 – but as I was at home, I resorted to a box of Swan Vesta’s that were handy! I  used the etching on the building as a guide and cut them to the right length. It is then a simple matter to glue them to the building using PVA glue.

Sarissa Dark Age House j14 with framework added

Sarissa Dark Age House j14 with framework added

You need to gently sand down the tops to let the roof fit nicely but it is a relatively simple job to do. Once the frame work was glued into place and dried I used Vallejo Dark Earth Paste to represent the mud or daub filling in the panels. Actually, you can use any of the Vallejo pastes as you will be painting over them At a push Polyfilla or a similar product will do! I used a squared off coffee stirrer to apply the paste, leaving the frame work showing. You can see that I used the stirrer to roughen up the paste to get more of a texture.

Applying the daub!

Applying the daub!

Once the paste had dried the next stage is to paint the building. I confess that I had made a slight mistake here. It would have made more sense to paint the inside of the building black before assembly or even afterwards, before I started to add the framework. As it is. I forgot and it doesn’t really show.

Dark Age house with daub

Dark Age house with daub.

The picture above shows the effect achieved before painting and the picture below show how the building looks from the end with the door.

Dark Age house viewed from the end - note door is left unpainted at this stage.

Dark Age house viewed from the end – note door is left unpainted at this stage.

Once everything was dry, I painted the building with my favourite brown, Vallejo Chocolate Brown, including the door. I then dry brushed everything with a couple of lighter coats, using Iraqi Sand to lighten the brown on the panels of mud. Now, I’m no expert on Dark age buildings, so I wasn’t sure whether to paint the panels in a lighter colour or even whitewash them but I decided that they were best left a dry mud colour – this village hadn’t received a visit from the travelling Dulux Salesman! The next step was to paint the timber framing. I choose a very dark brown. Vallejo German Camouflage Black Brown was a good contrast. I used a light grey to lighten this and then gave the building, in particular, the timber frame, a gentle highlight using the dry brush technique. The final task was to pick out the door hinges with black and to  add some black & grey to the smoke hole in the roof.

The finished dark age house, complete with new owner.

The finished dark age house, complete with new owner.

The building is now ready for the table and my village now consists of two houses. I have a couple more to finish in a similar style and that should give me a nice little settlement for my Dark Age war bands to fight over! Whilst I was thinking about other scenery that I could use, I remembered that Arcane scenery has it’s own small range of Neolithic monuments. Although not specifically designed for the dark ages, they seem to be useful additions to the table top and will add a bit of atmosphere! Here’s a couple of the pieces:

Neothithic Stone Circle

Neolithic Stone Circle

Neolithic Burial Chamber

Neolithic Burial Chamber

If you are interested, the DeeZee scenery range can be found here: DeeZee Scenery

So, my aim of building some new scenery for my wargames has moved forwards. If you would like to undertake a similar project, I would recommend that you visit the March attack site for some very useful Tutorials of how to get the best from the Sarissa Precision MDF buildings. Just a very simple paint job will give superb results as Gary demonstrates in these PDF’s

http://www.marchattack.co.uk/Painting%20Building%201.pdf

http://www.marchattack.co.uk/Painting%20Laser%20Cut%20Terrain.pdf

 

 

 

 

Sons of Dana are ready for battle

The Warband Gathers

The Warband Gathers

It seems like I have been painting my Irish warband for half the year but at last they are complete and ready to take to the table. I actually started to paint them in July, so it has taken me some time to finish the warband. It didn’t help that I had decided to paint the complete collection of Irish warriors from the Footsore range. I had actually finished enough Hearth Guard, Warriors, and Levy to field a warband some time ago but the Heroes in the Footsore range are such lovely sculpts I had to add them to the band. So I now have Ulf The Quarrelsome ( no you don’t…who said that..); Brian Boru, the High King of Ireland; a Priest; Standard Bearer and enough assorted heroes to give me the flexibility to easily field up to 6pts and more, in a Saga game.

The Heroes all took a bit longer to paint than the standard rank and file troops. I wanted them to be wearing more decorative clothes. However, I did stick to a limited pallet of paints and tried to avoid really bright colours. I agonised over how to finish the shields. I couldn’t make up my mind whether to use shield transfers or whether to paint them free hand. I decided to go down the free hand route but as I am no artist, I have kept the designs very simple. I had the same conflict when it came to producing the banners. Despite my concern that the Dark Age Irish would not have access to a graphic designer, I decided that the Little Bigman Studio Banner transfers were too nice not to use…

Brian Boru surveys the battlefield.

Brian Boru surveys the battlefield.

When it came to basing up the figures I put all of them onto 25mm round MDF bases, with the exception of Brian Boru and my ‘reserve Warlord’ – these went on 40mm bases. Although the Footsore Brian comes as a set of three figures, I decided that I would just mount him and the standard bearer on a 40mm round base. I also swapped out the Footsore Warlord with the mean looking guy from the Irish Command set. I think that he makes a better warlord, so the other figure has been relegated to Hearth guard status! So I have the luxury of two warlords to play. If I use Brian Boru, although he is ‘free’ in terms of points, his effectiveness as a warrior may be a challenge. Generating three saga dice and costing no additional points is a great bonus but his combat abilities are very limited – he will need protecting!

My newly promoted warlord displays his latest victim!

My newly promoted warlord displays his latest victim!

I mentioned that all the other figures are separately based on 25mm MDF bases. This gives me the opportunity to field these figures as separate units or even add them to another warband. I think that the heroes armed with Dane Axes will be quite at home in an Anglo Dane army.

Ulf The Quarrelsome, Priest and Hero

Ulf The Quarrelsome, Priest and Hero

I’ve also been playing with movement tray design for Saga. Whilst my rectangular trays ranked my figures up nicely for display purposes, I didn’t think that they would look so good on the table. I was messing around with some other options and found these smaller skirmish trays that were designed for fire teams in bolt action by Sarissa. A quick conversation with those very helpful people and they produced a Saga Movement tray set. You can put four figures in the tray, allowing you to deploy units of 4, 8 or 12 very simply. The way in which they wrap around each other means that you can change the shape of the unit from a ‘clump’ to a line fairly easily. Of course when you get to combat, it will make sense to take the figures out of their tray but it will make the initial moves in a game easier. They are also good for transporting your army.

movement tray for Saga

movement tray for Saga

My intention is to use some Vallejo paste on the trays to make them blend with my basing scheme, but the picture does show how they might work. So the sharp eyed amongst you will see that I am two war banners short and those with long memories will be asking where are the dogs that you were going to make? Well the banners are ready, I just didn’t have the time to fix them to the poles before I took the pictures. As for the dogs, they are at the back of the work bench. My next project beckons…time to do some scenery!

If you would like to have a go at building your own Irish Warband, Footsore do a 4pt warband (26 figures) for just £36.00. Even better if you purchase before the end of the month through my shop, we are supplying free bases and spears for the warband. Just add the code WARBAND in at checkout. Even better, if you enter SEPT5, you will get an additional 5% discount and of course free postage. Free postage is worldwide, so yes, that does include USA and Australia… Click here to purchase your Warband:

Footsore Irish Warband

If you would like to buy the Saga movement trays that we have designed with Sarrisa, just click the photo:

saga-trays

By the way, the trays also include the 25mm bases, so you will have some spares!

If you would like quick links to my other saga articles for details of the paints used and the basing scheme, just click here:

Saga Articles

Right! I’m off to fight a battle!

Yet more Irish!

I have just about completed enough troops for an Irish Saga warband but the OCD part of my personality has taken over and I’ve decided to finish painting the rest of the figures in the Footsore Dark Ages Irish range. I did need to complete a warlord figure and was trying to decide between the Brian Boru set, The Irish warlord and Standard bearer or the Irish Command group. In the end I decided to paint all of them and have done with it! I also have a priest to add in, so there is another eleven figures on the work bench.

Irish Command ready to paint.

Irish Command ready to paint.

As you can see, there is plenty of work to do! With the Standard Bearer block painted and the chain mail dry brushed on the other figures, it will be a couple of weeks before these are table ready. As well as cleaning these figures up ready for painting, I have been busy elsewhere. I mentioned that there were another eight warriors to finish and these are now complete and based. If you read my post last week, you would have noticed that there was something missing from the first unit of warriors – Shields! Well these are now painted and attached and my war band is close to completion.

 Irish warriors ready for battle

Irish warriors ready for battle

Here is a view of both units with the Slingers in the back ground.

Irish warriors and Slingers

Irish warriors and Slingers

I’ve kept the shield designs fairly simple for these boys but I am thinking of going with shield transfers for the Lords so that I can give them a more affluent look! I also may resort to a decal for the banners. There’s no doubt that they look superb. My only concern is that in the days of Dark Age Warriors, graphic design and silk screen printing was not a skill set possessed by the local banner maker! So I may rely on my own free hand designs, which, whilst they will be more primitive, may look more appropriate. I suspect that I will use both methods. Perhaps use the decals for the Brian Boru and Irish Command set and my own freehand design for the Saga warlord. The next photograph shows my war band as it is now.

Dark Age Irish Saga warband

Dark Age Irish Saga war band

You may notice that I have used a slightly different tray for the four Irish Heroes. I’m thinking of using this style of tray in the game. I know that once combat is joined it makes more sense to move your figures individually, but these trays may be useful at the start of the game to make the movement faster & keep unit cohesion. So with 12 Slingers, 16 warriors and 8 Hearth guard armed with Dane Axes, I can comfortable muster a 5 point Saga war band. The additional 4 Hearth guard ( Irish Heroes) that I have painted can either double up as another Hearth Guard unit or as two Curadh and the Warlord. Once the leaders that are on the work bench are complete, I will comfortably have 6 points, more than enough for the average club game. I haven’t forgotten that the Irish are allowed to take war dogs! That is another unit on the back burner though. I have the dogs, I just need to get them converted and painted.

Finally, I mentioned last week that I was working on some scenery. I have another three Sarissa dark age buildings that I am working on. Although not specifically Irish, the idea is that they will represent a small settlement so that I can use them with either my Anglo Danes, Irish or the next Army that I plan to do, Anglo Saxons. I wanted to add to the MDF finish to make them look a bit more well worn, so as with the A frame hut that I have completed, I have added the teddy bear fur roofs. I also intend to add detail to the timber and daub walls and have started to detail the walls. However, my focus has been on painting, so I have not made very much progress. My plan is to complete the figures in the war band and then I will build the scenery. It’s going to be a busy September!

Sarissa Building with roof added and detailing started.

Sarissa Building with roof added and detailing started.

The Boys are Back in Town!

Well, the boys are on the painting table. As the last few blog posts have been about the gaming side of the hobby I thought it was time to return to the workbench and show you the progress with my latest project, my Irish Saga Band. Progress, as usual, has been rather slow but I have finished the four Irish heroes that I could use either as Curadh or as an extra unit of Hearthguard. When it came to choosing a colour scheme for these figures I was very much influenced by the Footsore web site and of course, in particular, the figures that were painted by Charle Baynon. I have also used some references from elsewhere and I am now finding that the Pinterest site is quite useful in this respect. The following link will take you to my Dark Age Irish and Celts board that I am building.

Dark Age Irish and Celts

There are some good references on this board and it shows what can be done these days with technology. In the past I would have been scratching around in books and magazines to find such images and it would have been quite impractical to have them at the painting table. Now I can just load this page onto my i-pad and it is there right in front of me when I am painting. So with these four heroes to add to my band, it is starting to take shape:

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Footsore Irish heroes take to the table!

I also took some close up pictures of these figures in my light box. It’s interesting to see some of the ‘blemishes’ that you don’t see when the figures are on the table and I suspect it is the ability to be more careful in blending at this level that makes the professionals so good at what they do. My lads look a bit dark around the eyes!

Irish Heroes with Dane Axes

Irish Heroes

So having painted Irish heroes with big choppers it was time to move on to the Irish Warriors with … I think Bill Thornhill must have modeled this one on his own physique!

Irish Warrior with Javelin

Irish Warrior with Javelin

Enough of the smutty jokes. I have now painted a full unit of eight of these Javelin armed warriors with another eight following closely behind on the work bench. So by the end of this week I will have at least 5 Points for my saga army. The main unit that is missing is a warlord or commander.

Footsore Irish Warriors armed with Javelins

Footsore Irish Warriors armed with Javelins

The second rank! Javelins at the ready!

The second rank! Javelins at the ready!

I haven’t given too many painting details in this article but by and large, I have stayed with the limited pallet that I used for the Irish Finah and other Irish figures. To see the details, just click on these links to the relevant blog articles:

THE SAGA CONTINUES.

FOOTSORE IRISH SLINGERS – DONE!

AN IRISH SAGA

I’ve also made good use of my own technique of block painting the basic colours, then applying a dark tone ink wash, then repainting with the original colours, leaving the shadows and adding just a few highlights where I think that they are needed. I’ve also copied Charles Baynons idea of using multiple layers of light matt varnish between coats to protect the finish.

So that’s it for this week. Next week I will show the complete army and I hope to show you some of the scenery that I have also have been working on.

The saga continues.

On the face of it, painting a war band for Saga shouldn’t really take a month. After all, around 40 figures is all that is required. I suspect that some painters out there could knock these out in a couple of days, if not faster. I know of some wargamers who will paint in concentrated bursts to complete an army and then spend a month or so without painting anything. For me it is a case of slow and steady gets there and so having completed my band of levy, the next job was to paint 8 Fiana or hearth guard.  I tend to paint in short sessions of just an hour or so but manage to get at least three of these sessions in a week.  My method means that there is always something on the painting table and when I get a spare 10 minutes, I move a project on. So although I have been spending time on the Fiana, whenever I have had a spare few minutes I have been preparing and researching the next batch of models.

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So back to the painting table and my unit of Fiana. As you can see, they are all armed with Dane Axes, which makes them pretty lethal in combat, reducing your opponents armour by one. Used at the correct time in a game, these boys will crush the opposition with their ferocity. There’s just one problem, their own armour is reduced to 4, making them a bit of a one hit wonder when faced with equal opposition.  As with my Irish Levy slingers or ‘Kerns’ I have used a fairly limited palette of earthy and drab tones. As these figures represent Hearth guard though, I have painted them with a bit of decoration on their clothes. The basing followed my usual practice of using the Vallejo Dark Earth paste, painted and dry brushed to bring out the texture. I then added some green scatter. I have also made some movement trays for my saga units. I wont be using these in the game but it makes a convenient way of storing and transporting the models. They also look a bit more organised in the figure display cabinet. ( refer to my previous Blog post ‘Round Base, Square hole’ )

Footsore Fiana in their movement tray

Footsore Fiana in their movement tray

Of course I also added some tufts to the bases to give them a bit more texture. Again, I have kept with the Javis Tufts to give the army a cohesive look.

The finished unit of Fiana, complete with tufts!

The finished unit of Fiana, complete with tufts!

I have also completed work on the Sarissa Dark Ages A frame hut. You can see it in the background of the top picture. Here is a better picture of my Irish Warband, based and in their movement trays defending their one and only hut!.

Fiana, Kern and A frame house.

Fiana, Kern and A frame house.

You will see that I have painted 8 Fiana to count as Hearth guard, these will count as two points in my Saga band. However, the plan is to paint at least two other Hearth Guard, that will serve as Curadh. These are used as single warlords and are detatched from their parent unit of Hearth guard to operate as ‘Champions’, generating their own Saga dice, benefiting from the Warlords ability and generally able to cause mayhem! The Footsore pack of Irish Heroes with Dane axes look like good candidates. Although I will use them as ‘standard Curadh’ armed with javelins in the actual game, these models look like they are the Champions that they are supposed to represent. Here they are undercoated and ready for painting.

Footsore Curadh ready for painting

Footsore Curadh ready for painting

You can see that I have use a black undercoat for these figures as the chain mail will be easier to paint by simply dry brushing with Vallejo steel. There are three figures in the photo. The one on the far right will be my Pack master for the wolf hounds that I intend to use as one unit of warriors. Now as regards the Wolfhounds, I am going to take a bit of a liberty and use the Irish Wolf hound from my own DeeZee range. He comes as part of a the ‘Large Dogs’ pack and is a very big model as you will see from the pictures below. I realise that he is out of scale but I don’t think that this will matter for the purposes of the game. I wanted my dogs to look like they really could pull down a fully armoured warrior!  You can just imagine the warriors of the time talking about their encounters with the wolfhounds…’You should have seen them Aeflaed, they were as big as ponies, ‘orrible great things that would rip your throat out!’

Irish warrior wolfhounds!

Irish warrior wolfhounds!

I’ll have to do a bit of conversion work on these as I would like to have at least three different poses. If they look the part, I’ll see about getting them cast as a pack as part of the DeeZee range, so it might be a while before these are ready. In the meantime, I have plenty more to paint!

A final note. Last weeks blog was an account of my day at the Saga Ironman Day at Wargames Illustrated. There is now a very nice video that shows how the day went and as I am in it, it seems appropriate to include a link here:

And the Wooden Spoon Goes to….

I mentioned in my last blog that I would be attending the Wargames Illustrated event ‘Saga Iron Man’ held at WI HQ in Nottingham. The Saga Iron man Tournament format was such that all you had to do was pay your entrance fee and turn up on the day. Everything that you needed would be provided, from well painted armies, tables and scenery through to the Saga dice and measuring sticks. Even refreshments and dinner was provided! To make matters interesting and to really test your knowledge of the game, the Armies would be assigned randomly on the day and each game would be played with a different army. There were to be four games for each player in total, each against a new opponent. The word ‘tournament’ usually has me running for cover. I’m not a tournament player and don’t really like the idea of competitive wargaming – it can bring out the worst in players and nothing is quite so sad as grown men arguing over toy soldiers – I speak from shameful experience here!

However, events held at Wargames Illustrated HQ have in my experience been extremely good-natured and thanks to the friendly, approachable nature of Danny, the owner of WI, the Event days are well worth attending. They are as much a social event and a chance to meet like minded people from across the hobby. I put aside any concerns and signed up for the day as a chance to play Saga with armies that I had not used before and an opportunity to learn more about the game. My expectations were happily fulfilled although at times, I was well away from my wargaming comfort zone! The battle scenarios were fairly straight forward. Each side had 5 points of troops and the idea was to kill as many of the enemy as possible. The player with the most points at the end the battle won the game and the player with the most points at the end of the day would be the Saga Iron Man. Here is an account of how the battles went.

Battle 1

Your Byzantine Army awaits you.

Your Byzantine Army awaits you.

Having drawn a random rune, which gave me my starting position, I moved to the relevant table to see which army I had drawn. Flipping ‘eck! I was playing Byzantines and my opponent was using Pagan Russ. Both armies feature in the Varjazi & Basileus supplement which I had not even read , let alone played the armies. Fortunately, my opponent, Nick Simmerson was almost as inexperienced as I was and was prepared to be patient as I blundered along trying to get to grips with my new battle board. Nick lived up to his deserved award of ‘Most Sporting Player of the day’ and patiently explained how he thought both armies would work and the best strategies to use. We got on with the game and thanks to some decent dice rolling I did manage to inflict some damage on my opponents army. At times,  the battle felt a bit like two drunks fighting in a darkened room as we got to grips with our respective battleboards. Nick used the Pagan Russ control of the weather to slow my army and limit the effect of any ranged attacks. However, as the two sides closed and went on to the attack, it was the Byzantine side that edged the contest and gained a narrow victory 11 points to 9 points. Still, a win was a win and feeling a bit more confident, I moved to the next battle, hoping that I would get something that I was familiar with.

The Pagan Russ advance into range

The Pagan Russ advance into range

Battle 2

My next force was the Strathclyde Welsh. Oh dear! I knew very little about this army other than the main advantage it had was that you could deploy off table and still use these units to score hits on your opponent. Furthermore, you could enter at any point to surprise your opponent and outflank him. My opponent, another Steve, was using Jomsvikings, with whom he seemed remarkably comfortable. It turns out that they are his army of choice…bugger! I decided to deploy a large unit of mounted warriors off table in the hope that I could outflank my opponent and roll up the wing of his army before he could react to the danger. With hindsight, I would have been better off splitting this unit into smaller units to gain more abilities from my battle board. I also underestimated the power of the Wrath of the Jomsviking. Initially, I was quite happy to let him build up his store of wrath, thinking that I would be able to punish him before it could be used. Oh boy, was I wrong about that as well. I had a big unit of Levy and for all the good that they did in the battle, I could have sacrificed these guys to keep the Jomsvikings quiet!

Strathclyde Welsh take the flank.

Strathclyde Welsh take the flank.

In the second turn, I unleased my out flanking move by bringing on the large unit of warriors and supporting them with a unit of Hearth guard. The combat was a qualified success as I wiped out all of a warrior unit except one man – this turned out to be critical as the wrath of the Jomsvikings was now unleashed on my army. The counter attack saw the remains of my warrior unit killed out right as well as a unit of hearth guard. By protecting the last man in the Jomsviking warrior unit, my opponent still had his full quota of saga dice to roll, whereas by the end of this turn I had lost two dice and in effect half of my army. From there, it was all down hill as the wrath of the Jomsvikings built, I had very little left on my battle board to fight back with and so the Strathclyde were ground down until just the levy were standing. I conceded defeat and although my initial success had gained 8 points, my total for the morning had left me firmly in the bottom half of the tournament table. Surely things could only get better.

The last charge of the Welsh.

The last charge of the Welsh.

Battle 3

The Russ Princes face the Steppe Tribes onslaught

The Russ Princes face the Steppe Tribes onslaught

After a very nice lunch of meatball stew, potatoes, bread, cheese followed by a lemon meringue tart all washed down with a diet coke, my carb levels were restored and I returned to battle. Any optimism that I had quickly evaporated when I found that I would be commanding  a Russ Prince army and fighting the Steppe Tribes. The Steppe tribes are an official Saga army but their stats only appeared in Wargames Illustrated issue 311. To make matters worse, there was only one copy of the battle board so through out the battle I had no idea what was coming. To go back to my analogy of two drunks fighting in a dark room, it felt like I had one arm tied behind my back as well. To make matters worse, all of the good fortune that I had had with my dice rolling in the morning turned to bad luck. In three rounds of rolling saga dice I managed to roll all crosses, or the worst symbol on the board. If I had been playing yahtzee, my score would have been brilliant. I could barely get my units to move and  as for the abilities on the saga board, they remained a mystery. My combat dice were just as bad. If there was a prize for rolling 1’s, I would have won it in this game. It’s fair to say that I took a hammering and scored a mere 3 points.

Battle 4

I moved to the next table with some trepidation but cheered up a bit when I saw that I would be commanding Normans. They are an army that I have some familiarity with even though I have not played them. Even better, I would be facing the Anglo Danes, my army of choice and at least I knew exactly what they were capable of. Maybe now I could get some points on the table. That initial burst enthusiasm was some what tempered when I found that my opponent was Andy from Ainsty castings, the current Saga World Champion. I was about to get a lesson in how to manage a Saga army!

The normans confidently advance

The Normans confidently advance

Rather foolishly, I decided to take the fight to the Anglo Danes, although I tried to pull them out of position by attacking along the flanks. I underestimated just how effective levy slingers could be against mounted troops. Within a couple of turns, I had been badly mauled, losing hearth-guard to mere sling armed levy. The Anglo Danes were solid and were able to keep their defensive shape and resist any attempt to isolate a unit or charge it down. At this point, I realised that my own bow armed levy had the ability to double their range and that by using some of the other saga abilities on the board it could have been my archers that were whittling down the Anglo Dane army whilst they slogged across the table to me. Of course the other ability was that the Norman hearth guard could have been shielded behind the crossbow men and archers ready to charge through them at the right moment. This at least would have given me the initiative in combat. In the event, though, I was goaded into charging the very solid Anglo Dane line and it was again my misfortune to be on the wrong end of a beating! The Anglo Danes had a well prepared battle board and what ever small success I enjoyed was quickly punished by a fierce counter attack. My warlord was eventually pinned and over come by the Dane Axe wielding enemy hearth guard. Once again, I was nearly wiped out to a man but I did manage to score 9 points, a better haul than my previous two games.

The Norman Army attempts to pull the Danes out of position.

The Norman Army attempts to pull the Danes out of position.

Results

Unsurprisingly, I had accrued the least number of points on the day with the exception of one other player, Jon, who also had a total of 31 points as well. The winner, Andy, had 80 points so that will give you some idea as to how far behind the pack I had fallen. If this all sounds like a bit of a disaster, it wasn’t by any means. I had had a great day and whilst I had been on the end of three thrashings, the games were all very enjoyable and I had learnt a tremendous amount about the game of saga. I know have a basic working knowledge of six armies that I had never even considered using and I had been given a masterclass in how to use the battleboard to maximise an armies ability. Furthermore playing against four new opponents had given me a far greater insight into the way in which a Saga army could be deployed and used. Up until the day, I had always discounted levy as being a waste of points, particularly as they do not generate saga dice. I now know differently!

I am confident that should I get the opportunity to play in another such tournament, I would improve not only my points haul but also the way in which I manage my army. I think that I will be a much improved player! I guess the final thought is that if you play like General Custer: carry out insufficient recon; underestimate your enemy; split your forces; fail to capitalize on your strengths and charge in like a bull at a gate, you will get massacred!

Footsore Irish Slingers – Done!

The recent spell of hot weather hasn’t helped with my painting or modelling projects. Apart from the paint drying as fast as I could use it, it’s been too hot in my garage to sit with the lights on whilst painting for any length of time. Far better to sit in the garden with a nice cool drink! Despite that, I have completed the unit of Irish Slingers for my new Saga army, albeit with a bit of a rush to have them ready for this blog. I have finished these guys in some fairly earthy, drab colours and have not worried too much about any decoration or embellishments. I concluded that if all you had on the battlefield was a sling or in the case of some of these boys, a rock to throw, then they weren’t too far up the social ladder ( if even on it) and therefore their clothing would be pretty basic.

Irish Slingers ready for action

Irish Slingers ready for action

I used the Army Painter strong tone ink to get the shading and then highlighted using the original colour with some off white added. As for basing, I used the Sarissa 25mm round MDF bases. I have a general rule that I use MDF bases for Metal figures and plastic bases for plastic figures. There’s no real reason, Renedra plastic bases would be fine, it’s just a personal preference. Once I had glued the figures to the base, I used my new favourite thing to blend the figures to the bases – Vallejo dark earth textured paste. The next job was to paint the base and texture paste with a Chocolate brown and then highlight by adding Iraqi Sand to bring out the texture. Once dry ( which didn’t take long… see my comments above!) I used some watered down PVA to coat the centre of the bases around the figures and dunked them into my green scatter mix. The final task was to add some grass tufts. I decided to ‘road test’ the new range of Javis tufts the we have just started to stock.

The Irish like a bit of cover!

The Irish like a bit of cover!

I decided on the Autumn mix 6mm tufts, which are not too bright a green and blend well with my scatter base. My first thought was that they were a bit too big to use straight form the pack and so I cut one in half. However, on the next figure I used the whole tuft and decided that this gave a good effect. After all, the Irish in Saga like to operate near to cover! To brighten up some of the bases, I added some of the Flower mix 10mm tufts. I did cut these down and unusually for me used them sparingly on just four of the figures. Overall, I am quite happy with the effect and pleased to recommend these new tufts. So my first unit is ready for the table!

Get ready for action! He's rolling dice again!

Get ready for action! He’s rolling dice again!

So it’s onto the next unit. This time I’m going to have a go at the Footsore Irish Fianna with Dane axes. These warriors will hopefully cause mayhem as part of my Saga band and count as Hearth Guard, so eight of these will form a good part of my army. As the photo below shows, once the figures have been cleaned up, I attach them to a board using blutack and spray prime them. In this case I am still using Leather Brown. Blu tacking them to the board enables me to hold them at all angles to ensure that they are well primed. Next step is to put them on temporary bases, again using blutack and to get painting!

Fianna, Primed.

Fianna, Primed.

As well as working on the unit of Slingers, I have been ‘pimping’ a Sarrisa dark age A frame hut as the first piece of scenery for my Saga games. I have made some more progress but not quite finished it. With hindsight I should have made this as a step by step blog article in it’s own right. Here is the progress so far:

Sarissa A frame hut W.I.P.

Sarissa A frame hut W.I.P.

As you can see from the photo, I have highlighted the thatched roof by dry brushing it with Vallejo Desert Yellow first and then again by adding off white to the desert yellow. I’ve added some Vallejo Dark earth paste to the edges of the house to give it a rougher texture. Finally, I’ve base coated the timber that will show with chocolate brown. The next picture shows this a bit better.

timber base coated

timber base coated

As you can see, the paint does not cover the laser etching, allowing this detail to shine through. I will be doing a bit more work on this and I will show you progress in the next blog.

I am at the Wargames Illustrated Saga ‘Iron Man’ day this weekend. I have low expectations as to how well I will perform in a tournament. I don’t really like Tournament wargaming, I’m not comfortable in taking the hobby too seriously and worry that I might…. However, The Wargames Illustrated days have in the past managed to create a nice relaxed atmosphere and I hope that I will learn a great deal and meet some like minded people from the world of wargaming. Read all about it in the next Blog!

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