28mm Crusader Crossbowmen

These are the last figures that I plan to paint for my Saga Crusader army. I didn't need two more units of crossbowmen, but I had the figures, and I'm going to start running some lager multi-player games so I thought it would be nice to be able to field multiple four-point armies for those. 

These figures are a mix from two different bags of Old Glory figures. My uncle and I split two bags to give us each some additional variance in poses, etc. His are fielded in his Templar army, mine in my Crusader army. Old Glory figure have several great qualities: they're good serviceable figures with good pose variation, they're lead which I prefer over plastic or resin, and with the Old Glory club card, these run $0.60 USD per figure. That's a deal you can't feel as an old boss of mine always used to say. 

These were painted in two groups of eight to represent 'warriors' in Saga, but they are just as likely to be fielded in a single unit of twelve as levy so I kept both units consistent with each other. The buff coats are an experiment. Some were painted using traditional methods, some were contrast paints, some were SpeedPaints, and some were a mix. To be honest, all of them came out fine and mix well. I think my techniques with the transparent contrast and SpeedPaints is slowly improving. 

This will add sixteen more figures to this year's painting totals. Each year I strive to paint as many figures as I buy pre-painted. This year I'm not likely to achieve that goal, but these will help get me a step closer.  Next up on the painting table are some terrain projects and a return to my 28mm Finnish WWII Continuation War / Lapland war force. Returning to the Finns should help boost my productivity as WWII figures are pretty quick to paint up and I'm very motivated to work on that army so that I can start running games with it.

28mm Crusader Heavy Cavalry #3

My recent foray into larger multi-player Saga games has put a slight strain on my figure collection. This has required me to press into service several mercenary units, with their more complicated rules. This is not what I want for a beginner-friendly multi-player game, therefore I decided to rummage around in the 'dead lead' box and start painting up the rest of the crusades figures I had in there. These nine cavalry are the first batch of that effort. There are two 'Warlord' figures on circular stands and seven 'Hearthguard' or 'Warrior' mounted figures. With an additional extra figure I already have painted up these will make either a single eight-man warrior unit or two four-man hearthguard units. 

Here are the two warlord figures. The Old Glory figure packs come with a few sword-armed figures. I figured these were the most appropriate poses for a warlord. The transfers are from Little Big Man Studios (LBMS). Although they're made for Gripping Beast shields, I was able to make them work with appropriate trimming. 

Here is a close up of the troopers - positioned to give a better look at the LBMS shield transfers. I have to admit, the transfers really make what are essentially speed-painted figures look a lot better than they have a right to. Well worth the money. I often make my own transfers, but these shields with round bosses in the middle make that very painful. The LBMS transfers come with the boss area already cut out in the decal. What a luxury!

The complete eight man unit with a reinforcement from the figure collection. This is how it will be used on the tabletop. 

Nine mounted figures, which I will count as 18 in the annual painting totals. Next up I'm hoping to finish some 28mm Iberian infantry that I've pushed to the back of the painting table for way too long. It's time I finish them up.

February 2022 Northern Conspiracy Game Night

I'm about a week late posting this. Earlier this month the Northern Conspiracy got together for our February game night. We had an excellent turnout. My game was a fill-in game for another from a host that couldn't attend. 

My concept for this game was to make Saga accessible to newer or first-time Saga players. I created a set of generic battle boards. Each had the same six advanced Saga abilities. I chose them from all of the Crusades battle boards. The six abilities were chosen mostly based on how easy to understand they were and how universally useful they were. This would allow each player to learn Saga without being overwhelmed by a full, complex battle board and an opponent's battle board that is also similarly overwhelming. 

The game was Michael and Kevin helping me test out the system. Both received the simplified battle boards well, with some constructive input. Kevin is a newer Saga player, Michael very much an expert. 

Both players played the simplified battle boards well. In the end, Kevin's crossbows in the ruin carried the day for the Eastern Princes. 

"The Ambush" Game - Multi-Player Saga Scenario

My friend Mike C. has been running a Levantine Crusades Saga campaign. The games have been quite varied. Mike has been creating his own custom Saga scenarios for some of the games. This game was a six-player scenario Mike calls 'The Ambush'. It pits three attacking players, each with four points of troops, against three defending players, each with three points of troops. The defenders get to put one unit each in a hidden position at the start of the game allowing them to spring an ambush on the enemy.

Mongols John, Paul and Rob. Paul and John each put two hearthguard units together to make one eight-man unit. John brought a mounted warrior unit and a levy archer unit to round out his force. Paul brought two mounted warrior units to complete his force. Rob made two six-figure hearthguard units from 3 points of troops and rounded his force out with a mounted warrior unit.

Fellow Crusader Greg, and 'unlikely ally' Michael who pushed a Muslim Mutatawwi'a warband. Greg used his three points to bring two six-figure hearthguard units. I brought two mounted warrior units and a four-figure hearthguard unit. Michael brought two eight-figure warrior archer units and a four-figure hearthguard unit mounted on camels.

John brought his forces up cautiously approaching the two rocky outcroppings. Michael revealed his archers and took some pot shots at John's mounted warriors killing two figures. I launched an all-out attack on John's levy archers using all my saga dice for the one attack. I was able to kill nine of the archers, losing one warrior.

On the far flank the Mongols advanced en masse while Greg prepared to hold the flank with one of Michael's archer units taking up a position in the woods.

Paul brought his two mounted warrior units up. One harassed the center while the other waited to in on the attack against Greg's hearthguards. My warlord and hearthguard took the long way around some woods but prepared to support Greg in case his flank faltered.

There's a big gap in the photos here as the action got fast and furious and I forgot to pick up the camera for a couple of turns. Greg prepared his warband to receive the Mongol charge, loading up ever available die on his Saga battle board for defense. These resources were enough to weather Rob's initial attacks to good effect, eliminating one complete unit and reducing the other to half while receiving minimal casualties in return. Depleted of recourses, Greg had to weather Paul's final warrior attack with just guile and determination (and some good dice) but held firm.  I followed up in the following turn with some clean-up attacks from my warlord, who eliminated the remnants of Paul's mounted warriors, but I failed to finish off Rob's warlord and Greg stole that prize. Greg was not to be denied and slaughtered enemies from the start of engagement until the end.

Fun game and I'm very surprised that the underdogs could overcome the 25% army size deficit. I thought both sides played, particularly Paul who used his warrior bowmen to great effect, successfully completing several turns of 'shoot and scoot' fire safely.

Lola the wargaming dog seemed to prefer the Mongol force in this one making friends with Paul. Bribery can get you everywhere with Lola!

Finished! 28mm Gripping Beast Black Hoods Cavalry for Saga

After 23.5 hours painting this unit on my Twitch.tv stream I've completed my Eastern Horsemen 'Black Hoods' mercenary unit for Saga. I've painted this up for the February Saga Thorsday painting contest.

This unit can be fielded in both my Crusader and Eastern Princes armies, the latter being the more likely to use them on a regular basis. I've been using some Lithuanian medium cavalry as a stand in for this unit. When playing the plethora of Mongol opponents from my local club, I find the Black Hoods gives me an affordable mounted warrior option with my Eastern Princes army who otherwise would have to bring hearthguards if they wanted more horse flesh on the battlefield.

I have little to critique about the Gripping beast figures. They are well detailed and nicely cast. I always enjoy painting them. This unit came with only four horse poses, two of each pose, and I got an extra archer in place of the horn blower shown on their website. Both minor concerns. The only other minor complaint is all of the archers have the same body position. Some variance with these would have been nicer.

I took some extra time on this unit to practice some shading with a glazing technique I recently learned by watching other miniature painting streamers. Results are mostly subtle, so I think in the future I need to dial up the contrast in my color selection to '11'.  I'm particularly happy with the two mottled ponies I painted up ant the bone coloring on the skull totem.

I've been using a three-step process on flesh tones lately with a base color, P3 flesh wash, and a highlight of lighter flesh color. This combination was also used on these to good effect. In addition I added some eye detail to really make the faces pop. For shields and horse blankets I kept with the red theme that the Gripping Beast artist used on the web sample images. I also really liked the look of the totem bearer in the samples so I copied that fairly closely as well.

This adds sixteen figures to my annual painting total. Good progress to start the new year.

Unlikely Allies - Saga Campaign Game at Mike C's

Yesterday a group of us got together at my friend Mike's place to play another game of Saga in Mike's Crusades campaign. This battle used a scenario mike called 'unlikely allies'. I was paired up with Greg, running another Crusades army against John and Paul both with Mongol armies. The main concept was to destroy the enemy while achieving more prestige points than your ally. Capturing the camels was also wort some points but other than shooting them, we all ignored the camels and went for each other's throats.

The Mongols, John and Paul. John brought a war drummer, in my opinion the best heroic unit in Saga, two units of hearthguards, two units of warriors and a unit of levy archers. Paul brought four units of hearthguards and two units of warriors.

Expecting hordes of mounted Mongols to sweep down upon me like a cold wind off the Russian steppes, I set up to hunker my infantry down in some hard, un-burnable cover. My cavalry positioned on my right flank, in the middle of the battlefield prepared to support Greg against Paul's massive onslaught of hearthguard cavalry. At the end, Greg needed no help. He was a force from start to finish this day.

After deploying in the hard cover, John's warlord advanced out in front of his force. I charged it with my mounted warriors, backed by most of my Saga dice abilities. I was able to exhaust the warlord and drive it off, but could not finish it. The hubris of the warriors was met by a counter-charge from John's Warriors and Hearthguards. Combined they were able to eliminate the warriors in detail. The warriors gave as well as they got, taking out a unit of Hearthguards and a good portion of John's mounted warriors in trade.

In the middle, my hearthguards were busy trying to eliminate the enemy archers and war drummer. They gutted the archers, but the war drummer proved resilient and avoided elimination after the first and second charges. Each time my hearthguard being nibbled away by John's mounted archers little by little.

Finally I launched my secret weapon, unarmed, unarmored peasants! They proved to be tougher than they looked. After receiving 13 casualties across three separate melees, they finally lost their first figure. Much to my chagrin, they passed 12 melee savings rolls in a row. I think they did it to punish me for counting on the saga dice they generate when they die.

Still the emboldened peasants started to rip into the Mongols with religious zeal eliminating first the enemy warlord (having been nearly exhausted fighting the last of my hearthguards), then killing the remaining enemy archers then finally finishing off the war drummer. The fanatical pilgrims killed more enemy than the rest of my combat troops and were the battle's MVPs for sure.

In the end, their  efforts were not enough. Greg out did my efforts fighting and eliminating the more prestigious hearthguard-based army commanded by Paul. John, out-did his ally by enough prestige points to end up the big winner of the day even in a losing battle. Fun scenario, great day with friends. Thanks to Mike for organizing it.

28mm Medieval Archers for Saga

This is a unit of twelve medieval archers for my Saga armies. They are Old Glory figures. I think these might be useful in just about any of the crusades era Saga armies as 'scouts', or in most as levy archers. I chose as many of the figures as I could from those I had with fur armor to hopefully also make these appropriate for use with my Eastern Princes army. Honestly they're so generic I think they'll even work in the Viking Saga universe. 

I painted these on stream in three sessions. One of the good things about recording all your painting is that you get accurate time information about your painting. These figures took 7 hours and 35 minutes to paint, not including cleaning, priming and basing. Call it 8 1/2 hours total, bag to tabletop. I'm quite happy with the quality considering I'm into the unit for 45 minutes per figure! I'm not 100% sure what's up next on the painting table. After all of the holiday parties and family activities I'll sit down and see what strikes my fancy.  Until then, I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas, or other winter solstice holiday.

More Saga Crusades Spearmen and Napoleonic French Artillery

Quick update today. These are some odds and ends finally based up. There are eight Old Glory heavy spear men for my Crusades Saga army and two French Napoleonic foot guns. For the latter, the gunners were part of the haul I bought from my friend Ed, but the Guns were painted on my Twitch stream. The guns I got from Ed had four gunners per gun, but my basing system only allows for two gunners per gun, so I needed to paint up two more guns. The guns are Old Glory French 6 lb. guns.  The shields on the spear men are from Little Big Man Studios. Total count for figures painted: 10.