Stephen tells a brief tale of valour and heroism … we think he’s boasting a little bit…
Behold, this is Jarl Uthbrok Thorgimsson, Lord of Ballicroney. On this day he slew both a Viking warlord and an Anglo-Dane warlord, and he did this with his mighty war axe RAVENSCLAW.
Andy K tries to pin the tail on his donkey, and ends up pinning its leg instead !
I ran a game a Milton Hundred recently where I needed to give the players the option of taking some pack animals, I had 5 pack donkeys ready, but had another three in the metal mountain, so decided to paint them up. These will be part of my French in Mexico collection.
The figures are from Wargames Foundry, part of the Darkest Africa Range.
As I cleaned up the models prior to painting I found that one of the donkeys was a miscast, part of a rear leg was incomplete. I stuck a small length of wire between the remaining parts of the leg with superglue, and once dried added polystyrene filler to build up the leg. Once the filler had thoroughly dried off I filed it into shape before undercoating the donkeys and the packs matt black.
The donkeys were painted using Vallejo acrylics, some flock added to the bases and matt varnished.
Open Day Coordinator Dave Sime gives the low-down on this year’s games…
Open Day, 22nd June 2019
The Open Day will be held on June 22nd from 11am to 4pm at our usual venue in Linton, just outside Maidstone.
Below is the list of games for the 2019 Open Day – over the next few weeks each game sponsor will be giving us more details on their respective games.
Just to whet your appetites, here are a selection of the games from last year’s event…
Andy K gets to grips with his inner beast…
I needed another eight figures for a Dux Bellorum game at the club recently, so dug into my boxes of Gripping Beast plastics for suitable figures. I decided to split them half and half, four armed with spears and the rest with sword or axe. These figures are made up of four parts: the body including left arm, right arm with a number of weapon options, head and shield.
They were assembled and painted these up in about a week; black undercoat, followed by shades of grey and brown for the tunics and trousers. A variety of hair colours were used. The paints are mostly Vallejo acrylics, with the odd bottle of Army Painter used. Once dry the figures were treated with appropriate shading paints from Army Painter.
The shields were painted white, and Little Big Man Studios transfers applied. All then given a coat of matt varnish
John Lambert brings us up to date on his Scots SAGA warband
I’d bought a Gripping Beast 4 point Warband over a year ago. With the advent of Saga Version 2, I had the incentive to get them table top ready. I added one unit of Levy archers and a third unit of warriors to bulk it out to 6 points and out of 45 figures I only had 3 duplicates – well done Gripping Beast!. I replaced the Warlord with the Welsh Warlord on foot and used wire spears in place of the white metal ones supplied to ward off curious fingers.
I used Artist’s acrylic throughout ensuring that any intense pigments were dulled down to colour matches I had for Dark Age dyes and employed a three shade system that these figures suit. The figures themselves had plenty of flat surfaces on cloaks that would need the plaid treatment so once the basic figures were done, I sprayed with matt polyurethane to apply the plaid using a lining brush.
Levy Archers.
I decided that these would be the Warlord’s Estate workers so would have a shared colour palette – Brown, Yellow, Grey, Green, Blue.
Warriors
These would have a more varied palette and I decided to try wet blending on the shields to get a colour gradient which worked well. For shield designs, I chose simple crosses or Pictish designs.
Hearthguard
These would have more plaid cloth and more red on the clothing. I decided that they would have black shields with a white motif to match the Warlord.
Warlord
I seem to remember a doughty character in Macbeth called Lennox, well this would be my Warlord. Another trip to the Memory Bank reminded me of Bobby Lennox so he had to be kitted out in Green and White. For the cuirass, I used gunmetal/Silver and a thin coat of silver white to highlight. I added a dark purple cloak with yellow plaid. A black shield with Stags head motif completed the figure.
Basing
I added filler and stones to the base before undercoating the figures. When the figure was complete, I started the bases with black all over. I then drybrushed mid grey and then a light grey to pick out stones and boulders. I wanted a dark peaty soil with granite showing through and then the boulders. I then dry brushed the areas I was going to apply static grass in mid then light brown. I then applied Static grass in two shades.
Heather and grass tufts
To make the heather clumps, I used a piece of black pan scourer from B & Q, which I ripped open to make clumps which I attached to greaseproof paper with PVA. I drybrushed the surface with PVA and then sprinkled Heather flock lightly on the surface. Once dry and fixed with sealant spray, I could peel these off and attach to the bases. I bought some 6mm forest green static grass for the tufts. I dropped blobs of PVA onto Greaseproof and then dropped the Static grass on top. I pushed this into a clump as the PVA dried then fixed with sealant before peeling off and fixing to the base.
John Lambert takes us on a bus ride…
One vehicle missing from my Gaslands inventory was a bus. I found a reasonably priced Airport Coach in our local ASDA and started to plan the build. I envisaged a political “Battlebus” that I would turn into a real battle bus. From the deep memory bank I remembered Clint Eastwood in “Gauntlet” where he drives a witness to court in a coach equipped with an improvised armoured driving position. He wins through but the coach is riddled with bullets so it had to feature that. I wanted a massive engine to power it and found the ideal unit in Hot Wheels “Te’ed off”. The coach came apart easily, I cut up the interior to fit the engine and armoured the seat, then drilled bullet holes in the windscreen and side windows. I then put it all together painted it red and scuffed up the paint with a pan scourer, then added the slogans on the sides. I built it for a friend to introduce him to the game. There’s plenty of scope to add more equipment. There’s two hatches, I could use to hide weapons, a minigun perhaps but the standard bus build is quite well armed, I could fit a turret on the roof or a ram to the front.
John Lambert gives us some background on his new fleet of spaceships…
Having enjoyed Gaslands, I was intrigued to learn that the Author, Mike Hutchinson’s next venture was going to be a journey into space, entitled A Billion Suns. I signed up to be a playtester and purchased some excellent American Republic spaceships from Brigade Models. Here’s the result:
What about the game?
I’d never been wowed by Space games that resembled a Naval game and this has many interesting ideas that I really like. Players act as CEOs whose game objective is to fulfil a contract. These are either Commercial or Military in nature and it looks like there will be 12 of each. Each player has an Admiral’s Helm which the player uses to boost his ships capabilities for the turn (seize initiative, speed, firepower, defence shields) and a profit and loss tracker. There are no fleet lists, players have to judge what to buy to fulfil the contract but will only win if they are in profit at the end of the game. Deployment is by jump point. These are placed by the player and ships enter and leave the table via these jump points. It allows for playing between two tables, which sounds great for multi player games as fleets can jump onto a different table! Gravitational effects are governed by Ship size and Planetoid size. We hope to get another game in at the second meeting in April.
Alan K updates us on the club’s two visits to the the Skirmish wargames show in 2018.
As I was putting together the forces for our game at the next Skirmish show (the Second Battle of El Teb, 29 February 1884) I realised that I hadn’t written anything about our two visits last year.
For the first show we had decided on a 28mm Vietnam scenario based on a hastily mounted search and rescue operation for a downed helicopter crew. But as we watched the weather forecast steadily worsen (an interesting contrast to this year) with snow expected it was touch and go whether we might attend at all. In the end we decided to brave it and the snow turned out not to be anywhere near as bad as we had feared. Unfortunately it did have rather a chilling effect (sorry about that) on both the traders and visitors.
In any event, we arrived well in time and set up the game with the crashed chopper over to one side and the landing zone (LZ) over toward the other. The players took control of the small US unit designated to search this area and were duly landed at the LZ. The Viet Cong (VC) and other random encounters were all handled by the FNG rules from Two Hour Wargames.
Between the LZ and the main search area was a fast flowing stream crossed by a single ford on the main route to the nearby village. The players seemed reluctant to use the ford and so decided to cross the stream. Unfortunately the first man lost his footing and if it had not been for some quick reactions on behalf of his squad mates he might have drowned. Of course all the commotion attracted the attention of a lone VC who began taking pot shots from cover at the US troops in the open.
After dealing with this initial threat the Americans advanced and began to make their way slowly through the long grass towards the jungle encountering more VC emerging from cover or well concealed spider holes and always keeping an eye out for booby traps! The US forces made slow progress taking a few casualties before being assaulted by a larger VC force. Having seen them off they finally located the chopper crew and withdrew to the LZ for a dust off.
Our second visit to Skirmish later in the year was another 28mm affair but this time winding back to the Great War. In this case our game was set early in the war, featuring a certain Erwin Rommel and taken directly from his own account of the action in his book Infantry Attacks. In his own, admittedly potentially self-aggrandising narrative, after advancing west from Hill 325, Lt. Rommel stopped his platoon in cover in a field and took a scouting group ahead. Making use of cover and the foggy conditions, they passed one farm and found their way close to the Mussy-la-Ville road. As the scouting team approached they spotted a couple of French squads relaxing along the road. Rommel decided to attack rather than wait to bring up the rest of his platoon. Surprised by Rommel’s bold attack the French put up little resistance and then surrendered.
In our scenario the player who took Rommel was somewhat less bold and when he encounter the French decided to fall back and gather his platoon before attacking. Unfortunately for him that meant another French squad had arrived before the Germans returned and they had more of a fight on their hands!
Stephen brings us up-to-date as the the club’s year-long SAGA campaign comes to a close…
War is finally over. The ravens have glutted themselves.
During 2018 we held a Saga ‘Age Of Wolf’ campaign and we now have a winner.
The background behind the campaign was that it was set in north England (sort of around the Chester area) in 1070AD. The armies we had were Normans, Norse Gaels, two Anglo-Danes, Welsh, and Vikings.
Before we come to who finally came out on top we thought we’d give you some stories from the players (or is the warlords?) on their best moments and reflections on the year’s campaigning.
The first game against Andy was pivotal as my Warlord was killed (a 1/20 chance) losing the Who’s Next challenge, the best ability on the battleboard. In subsequent battles he would never be able to lead from the front. The best battle was against Jeremey’s Anglo Danish where a huge dane-axe melee took place on a river crossing resulting in the complete destruction of a unit of 8 Norse Gael Warriors against 6 Anglo Dane Hearthguard in one combat. This allowed a challenge on his weakened warlord which was won by the Norse Gaels and the Anglo Danish Warlord was killed outright.
Sailing home after a successful raid on the Anglo Danish recruits of Irish axemen from Donegal paid visit to our Hall and after much drinking and feasting agreed to join in our expedition the following summer to raid the Anglo Danish lands again. We were surprised to find an Anglo Danish army lying in wait with additional mercenaries and witchcraft prevented us gaining their Sacred Ground. Sensing that greater battles lay ahead, we left and whilst the Anglo Danes celebrated for many nights, it was an empty victory. Their lands had been stripped bare.
I sought vengeance for my father’s death in turn 1 and raided more Anglo Danish lands. We intercepted them escorting trade, yet more witchcraft confirmed the presence of a large body of Anglo Dane huscarls from their Allies. We heard news that a Norman force was setting sail from the south and rumours of a Viking raid from the North. The Huscarls were nearly all slain but we left without booty to face the greater threats from North and South.
Returning quickly home, we were able to intercept the Normans at a ford near the border of our lands. We learned that these Norman’s do not fight like real men and our valiant men were cut down in wave after wave of cowardly arrows. It will be a long hard winter waiting for the Vikings, we pray for storms to scatter their ships.
It has been a mixed year for Andraes Vilhelmsson; many men have come to pledge their service, his family has expanded through marriage, his fame has grown and a firm friendship forged with Uhtred Beornson.
The year has seen battles with the Welsh, the Norse Gaels, Vikings and the Normans. The high points have been consistent victories over the Norse Gaels of Olaf Tidbit, and after Olaf‘s death at Andraes’s men’s hands, Olaf’s son Iomhair MacAulay. Andreas’s struggle against the invading Normans has not gone well, with three battles lost to Gislebert. Andreas crossed axes with Owain the Cantankerous Welshmen twice, with the Welshman besting Andraes on both occasions and he has also suffered a raid by the sea wolves.
Andraes’s Wealth and Reputation have increased, and he is now considered an Atheling; but his lands have been beset by many raids, a campaign by the Welsh and diverse floods and famine. Andreas himself has been grievously wounded in two of these battles.
Andraes will spend the winter recovering from his wounds, and will set forth again next year determined to keep the invaders at bay.
I started the campaign season with what looks like an unorthodox warband, but my randomly generated special ability (scout), meant that all my levies generated Saga dice. For the Normans this played into our hands.
Motivation of land would also help as the higher this went the more levy units I could have. Initially this was a problem in that I had to generate money to buy land as campaigning with mounted knights and levy is very difficult, so I tended to raid my opponents.
Campaign season 4 wasn’t looking good…. I had already lost a raid against the Welsh when we were in turn raided by the Anglo Danes. I took a chance and played the 4 point encounter with myself, 1 unit of warriors with x-bows and 3 units of levy bowmen. If I got into close combat it wasn’t going to be pretty for the levy, but luckily I only lost my warrior unit and ultimately won the game. 3VPs
Campaign season 5, I ended up defending this season. This would have generated no VPs except the Anglo Dane’s were up for revenge and raided trying to stop a baggage train. Although some of the baggage was looted, the game finished as a draw. 1 VP
Campaign season 6 was the turning point. Raided by another Anglo Dane warband, we fought challenge scenario…wrongly. We played it differently to the official errata and I should have lost, but my opponent stated that we keep the original result, as the battle would have undoubtedly been fought differently. I rounded off the campaign with a resounding victory against the Norse Gaels. 4 VPs
I started cautiously and decided to play a devious game. I was lucky at the start because I gained three wealth and my aim was to acquire wealth! Which meant I started as a aetheling with the post-battle benefits that brings.
It was at the Cavalier show in Tonbridge that things started to get political. I overheard Jeremey and Andy (the two anglo-dane players) having a sneaky discussion about forming an alliance. And I could have sworn that I heard them plotting to attack Tony’s Normans. So I decided to deflect attention away from myself and emailed the other players letting them know of such skullduggery.
And I had been partly correct.
Next turn Andy and Jeremey did indeed declare an alliance. But they attacked me!
This meant I had to face two opponents, on the same day, both with reinforced armies. I wasn’t confident.
Somehow, though, I managed to win both games! It was from this turn that Owain became the Wolf Tamer (he’d previously been Owain the Cantankerous because I rolled the ‘Quarrelsome’ personality trait). I gave him a warbanner, and made one up especially for the campaign (yes, I know it looks more like a pair of angel’s wings than two clipped wolf tails. I could re-paint it, I suppose…). I think this banner will be used in other games, outside of the campaign, just to remind Jeremey and Andy of their infamy and how they lost. They deserve nothing less.
This then set me up for the rest of the campaign and put me in a strong position.
The campaign season ended as it had started with the spilling of Norman blood. Our Lord Uhtred Beornson rallied the land to face the first unprovoked attacks of the Norman aggressors. But the lands were ravaged and soon the vultures were gathering on our borders. Lord Uhtred mustering a force strong enough to challenge these other threats launched successive attacks against the Welsh bandits and godless Norse Gaels, but the omens were bad and despite a strong alliance with the fellow Anglo-Danes of Andraes Vilhelmsson, Lord Uhtred was slain during a bloody encounter with the Gaels. Bearing our lord’s body back to Elmslac his first born Erik Uhtredson took up his father’s axe. As the campaign season drew to a close Erik turned towards the Normans determined to seek retribution. Blades clashed, shields were splintered. Many Normans and Danes were slain, Erik fought with the ferocity of his ancestors slaying a number of Norman knights single handed. Supported by his chosen warriors, several blows were landed on the Norman Lord Gislebert, but as the sun set it wasn’t enough. Returning to their lands as the first snows of winter fell, the exhausted warriors reflected on a hard fought campaign.
Firstly, our immense thanks go to our friends at Gripping Beast. What each player did was put a fiver in a kitty to get a prize for the winner. Winner takes all. I then contacted Gripping Beast, told them about our campaign, and asked if we could have a deal on a copy of the Saga 2 rulebook and Age Of Vikings supplement. They very generously agreed! Great stuff.
And so the winner was…Tony G with his Normans.
Yup, the result was quite a historical one: the English (Anglo-Danes) had come out poorly, with the norse still nibbling around the edges but not really having it in them to make a firm hold, whilst out on the Celtic fringes they are still independent (for the time being). Top of the heap, though, are the Normans.
And with that, we have now gone over to Saga 2. Tony won the books, and I have it on good authority that Santa may have visited others as well. As I write this, we are yet to have a game of the second edition, but there is an upcoming session in the club diary. So if you want to play a bit of Saga (or anything else) you’d be more than welcome to join us.
The Royalists started with 15 battle groups. The Scots Covenanters and Parliament had 19 battle groups. The Royalist right flank collapsed under the onslaught of Cromwell’s “Ironsides” Horse regiments which caused an Army break, after the Cavaliers accrued 16 attrition points.
A bad day for the Royalist Cause! Hopefully, there’ll be a re-fight later in the year.
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