Adventures on the Wargames Table

Here's my Anglo-Danish Warlord in all his war-like glory! and Another Gripping Beast figure with LBMS shield transfer of course. Here's his trusty Huscarls wielding those fearsome Dane axes. More GB loveliness. and That takes my warband up to a comfortable 8 SAGA points. Later this week (or at the weekend) I'll be posting some battle reports following their exploits against Dave's Welsh warband.

I found a scrap of MDF whilst tidying the garage the other day and was inspired to create a vegetable garden for my more green-fingered Saxons to tend. That's when they're not away giving the Vikings a good thrashing! ;o) If you look at the Saga rulebook (or WAB Shieldwall) you'll see similar scenery featured in a number of pictures so it's clearly essential. However, I've no clear idea on what the Saxons grew but thankfully such knowledge it not essential for a good game! Anyway, enough rhubarb (pun intended) from me, here it is. OK, it's not all turnips, the white flowers are probably peas ... oh dear! Well, it is the Chelsea Flower Show this week after all. Normal service will be resumed soon.

With the Vikings now able to fire/throw sharp sticks at the Saxons it seemed only right and proper to give the Saxons the ability to throw a few rocks/sticks back at the Vikings. So here are 12 Saxon Levy armed mostly with slings, plus a few with javelins and bucklers. and All Gripping Beast figures. As usual, block painted on a white undercoat, dipped/washed and then quickly highlighted. I may add a few more bucklers but that was all I had ready so they will do for now. It's just a pity that Levies don't generate SAGA dice!

Hot off the painting table, here are a unit of Viking 'levies'. Ideal for Saga but I do hope to use them in games of W&C when I've got more troops painted. and All block painted over a white undercoat, then dipped/washed followed by matt varnish and some highlights of the original colours. More soon!

Last weekend saw us head south for a day in Exeter, where I attended the Legionary 2012 wargaming show run by the Exmouth Wargames Society and held at the Matford Centre. As mentioned in the previous post I was there to help top Wargames Table chum, Rob of Scarab Miniatures , to run a demo game of War & Conquest. Rob has a good over of the game (which I must say was splendid fun!) on the Scarab forum here . But here's a couple more pics anyway. This was only the second time I'd fought with Greeks and Spartans. Mostly Scarab miniatures, and lovely they are too! In the pic above you can see that my Spartans have routed a phalanx of Greeks in the centre. My chaps did very well in the early stages of the battle but the balance of power gradually swung to the Greeks who were able to claim a solid victory! Demo'ing the game to visitors, chatting with gamers, etc, was really good fun. Many thanks to all of you who came over to chat and watch. I managed to g...

Rivers are one of those tricky terrain features to get looking really good. The best method is, without doubt, to build terrain modules that allow the river to be carved in to the module, then use water effect solutions, potentially giving a very realistic result. However, terrain modules are expensive and take lots of room to store, etc, etc. So the only other option is 'place on the table' terrain. I made a river years ago using thin MDF, with polystyrene for the banks, but it was quite a bit of effort and it had occasional problems with the MDF curling, so I sold it. But now here's a marvellous, cost effective solution that didn't take much effort to complete. Vikings defend a bridge. River with small island. They're made of brown rubber so are very durable and flexible. They take paint and flock easily and come in sections either 10"-12" (25-30cm) long, or about 6" (15cm) for the bridge section. There is also a ford availab...