SAGA Crecent and Cross - God will recognize his own

I managed a trip over to Vancouver just in time for the snowpocalypse of 2016. After a day of slushing about with a substandard miniatures carrying solution, I finally arrived in the evening for a game of SAGA with friends.

We played 4 pt warbands, with two of us on each team (8 pts total). The mission was "God will recognize his own" - you only score points for killing in melee, most killing-est team wins, and troops are recycled back onto the board.

Cameron and Jenn led the fanatically hospitaller and crusader forces (including a large group of pilgrim levy). Grace and myself commanded the saracens and mutatawi (including camelry!).

 There was much hilarity as each side some some consistent 'hot' rolling while their opponents couldn't manage to roll dice to save themselves. This, of course, reversed later in the game.

Recycling of troops always gets wacky as suicide squads charge in off the edge of the table to poach off the reduced squads that had killed those same figures the turn before.

The spot lighting was pretty rough for camera work, but I like to think that  the long shadows represent dusk, or a dust storm or something.

While great fun playing, I did have a number of spear and shield injuries. My travel case obviously needs some work to better protect my men from the hostile public transit environment.

SAGA Crescent & Cross - last stand AAR

I had a chance to make it over to Vancouver and play with some friends at the monthly Trumpeter gaming night. Cameron (LINK) has been converting a bunch of locals to SAGA over the last two years or so. It started with regular (viking) SAGA, and for a small group of us, we all ordered up 15mm figs for crusader war gaming (Crescent and Cross).

At long last enough of us have painted figs and the opportunity to throw down some lead on the table. I had never played, Grace has played a few times, and Cameron knows the rules. We did a two vs 1+1 battle. I suspect we had the advantage due to the number of saga (activation essentially) dice we got to throw as two individuals rather than one.

The mission was a last stand, after bidding to see how long we thought it'd take us to table our enemy using endless reinforcements we had chosen the same number. Cameron won the dice off, and it was a typical crusader murder fest against the indigenous peoples of the levant.

6MMRPC Week 8: Saracen pt 3: Cavalry

The final installment of my completed Saracen warband. These are legio heroica 15mm figures.





The flags and shields are (most shields) transfers from little big men studios.

Bases are from Proxie models, with some sand/rock and static grass. There is a metal washer on the bottom to make them stick to my magnetic trays, and give them just a bit of loft to pick up easier.

Spears are some steel spears that I negotiated away from Cameron (Cameron's minis) who used them for his Hospitallers. They are much less bendy (i.e not at all), but are wicked sharp and likely to end up embedded in my hand at some point.

6MMRPC: Week 7.5: Saracen pt 2: Spearmen

Another swarm of Legio Heroica 15mm Saracens swarm my blog. As noted before, these are part of a warband for Saga Crescent and Cross, to vie in the sands of the near east against the despoiling crusader barbarians of the west.


These fellows to the left are all armoured with chainmail, which suggests they are either more wealthy and/or more accomplished warriors. They will probably be hearthguard (or not levies anyway).
 


It's probably important to note that most of the shields were "little big men' transfers. Unfortunately, my shield mix used up all the available round ones, and only a few could be trimmed. I was forced to do some painted ones as well, which I'm sure jump out. 









The bevelled plastic bases I quite like, so I'm always happy to pimp the company "proxie models". Reasonably prices and quick service.  I add a metal washer to the bottom (same size as a penny) so they are able to stick to my magnetic storage trays.



The big bonus to these bases IMO is that it's much easier to grab and pick up, reducing the wear on your figs. Also, the spears have weak attachment points, so break fairly easily.

6MMRPC Week 7.5: Saracen pt 1: Archers

First pictures of a wave of 15mm muslim/saracens from Legio Heroica.


I bought a lot of these guys back in December in order to play the middle east SAGA (Crescent and Cross). While Cameron finished his hospitallers in FEBRUARY, I'm just finishing mine now. Shameful slow on my part.

Part of the delay is the multi-hued and patterned clothing....totally adds to painting time. The past week and a half I've been in basing hell, attempting to base up a ton of loose 15mm figs. Most haven't yet gotten the painted rock treatment, and are just sitting on the bevelled raised bases.

6MMRPC: Week 18 Ogres, Diggas, Musselmen WIP

I managed to miss a week of posting for the challenge, and I'm a day late for this one. Not the best start to the New Year.

I managed to get the legio heroica muslims assembled at last. I ended up getting some advance from Cameron (we piggy backed our order) and bought some CA glue accelerator. Pretty marvelous stuff actually....now your instant drying glue truly does glue instantly. I'm not sure if the glue gets a bit 'tired' over time and glues more slowly, or simply that some materials don't want to stick together. Regardless, a little accelerator on one part, the glue on the other and *presto* they stick together much MUCH easier.

I'm hoping to get these guys primed up sometime in the week when the wife is not working on her clothing project in the craftroom. I can put off figuring out a air scubber/ventilation system for a bit longer yet.

My other work was largely with inking. The ion age Adders get a coat of black ink. I will be able to bring them back up towards their base colour via highlighting now. The camera doesn't quite catch the difference to be honest. The pic below being the 'before' image.

The GW gorkamorka diggas that I am adding to the necromunda/post apoc gang members get an inking of sepia ink.

I think it's probably a bit overboard, but it does work for these guys looking 'grubby'. I'll probably rust up the guns and metal a bit, and start the highlights soon.

These are nice figs for inking as they have deep creases in their faces/muscles/clothing.

Finally we have the mordheim ogre. Also inked with sepia, I can see spots of residue on various flat parts (his hat for instance on the upper left). Not terribly happy about the outcome. I'm sure with highlighting I'll be able to save most of the problem areas though.






I have to say this is a fantastic figure. His wicker backpack has ears of corn in it, a sausage hanging from the side (not shown) and a victim/stowaway as well (seen in the rear shot).

I'm looking forward to yellowing up his teeth as well. I decided to start with a brown and work up to a healthy yellow/khaki.

6MMRPC: Week 16 Legio Heroica Musselmen Wild Card

These actually arrived last week, but I didn't get around to working on them till this week. This is the first set of figs I bought since the challenge started (16 weeks ago!). There was a sale on and a few of my friends are starting Saga Crescent and Cross. It set me back about 40$ with shipping, which I figure is the cost of a box of plastic for many games so I'm going to call this one wild card.

Spears on the top above the metal tray

I went with a variety of arab/bedoin flowing robes with head coverings. Basically every melee fig is armed with a spear, which I thought was a bit annoying, but I couldn't do much about it. The casting are actually quite nice, though they are noticeably beefier than some other manufacturers (including Khurasan).

One of the few successful glue jobs

The spears are actually sharpened steel spikes on the foot troopers (lead on the cavalry), which is pretty fantastic, but they've been driving me nuts trying to glue them. One of my friends suggested CA glue accelerator, which I'll probably have to try, as using blue tac to hold the spear while it sets didn't work out so hot (lots of scraping to remove).

Christmas, of course, is taking up much of the free time, so overall not a lot was accomplished this week, and probably even less for the following week.

 I have 16 bowmen, 16 spear in robes, 8 spear in chainmail, and 11 cavalry. Hopefully I can bang these guys out quickly so 1/. I can get some games in and 2/. so I don't set back the lead mountain reduction project by much.

Happy Solstice everyone!