Adventures on the Wargames Table

The Wargames Table has moved to the Outer Rim but the fun hasn't stopped! Good chum Orange Dave has taken advantage of the brief hobby hiatus to lure me back to gaming in the Dark Ages. I have very fond memories of our games of a few years back and look forward to enjoying lots more fun.

“In a land of myth, and a time of magic…” Yes, good chum Orange Dave has lured me in to trying out Age of Magic. I’ve played a lot of Saga (first edition) over the years mainly with Saxons, Vikings and Normans, so I’m familiar with the basic game mechanics although second edition is obviously going to be a bit different. My plan for this gaming year is to get a few projects finished, so this “new” project might seem at odds with that aim. However, I’ve had most of these figures for ages, only the big fellow was a recent purchase. These are some of my favourite Foundry figures and I’m really looking forward to painting them. Here’s my force primed and ready for painting. A unit of 8 elite warriors (Hearthguard, 2 points) Two units of 12 warriors (3 points) A unit of 12 archers & slingers (Levy, 1 point) The Wicker Man... or 'Alan' is I like to call him. (Monster, Titan, 1 point) He’s from Crooked Dice games ( here ) and is beautifully cast in good quality resi...

As readers will know I occasionally blog about Orange Dave’s modelling exploits, mainly because he’s too busy dealing with groupies, fans and signature-seekers, etc. Here's some of his recent work. It's a faction specific terrain feature for use with Undead in Saga Age of Magic. I think the basic idea is that units within a certain range of this feature get to re-animate fallen warriors? Or perhaps magic is more effective? I'm not really sure, lol! Anyway, I thought Dave was joking when he sent me this picture. But there is a base under those stones. Ah, now with added skellies. Here's a couple more pics. Thanks for looking 😎

At last!!! Orange Dave and I have got our calendars sorted and played the first two rounds of the club Saga campaign which brings me nicely up to date. My faction is a Viking War band led by the indomitable Magnus Håkonsson. I rolled for his traits and got "Learn'd" and "Hard Ruler" - both great for boosting my war band before and after battles, plus the special rule "The Conqueror". Magnus is clearly a man to be reckoned with!! Dave has been busy painting some lovely Foundry figures. The photos are a bit shonky but hopefully you can see how good they are! Some of Dave's lovely Anglo-Danes Game One - I decided to raid the territory of Dave's Warlord, the Anglo-Danish Leofstan the Bastard. The scenario came up as "Scout" so we both cautiously advanced in to an abandoned village. Now, it's been ages since I last played (that's my excuse anyway!) so I was a bit vague about how the game worked, but I soon picked it up. ...

I expect many of you will have already seen the Facebook advert from Gripping Beast about their forthcoming massed battle rules "Swordpoint" ... Well, I'm rather intrigued by this. Penned by Martin Gibbins etc along with all the creative input from the GB team, it has to be worth a look! There was a demo of it at Salute, but I couldn't make it along this year. There's also some vague info from Guy Bowers on the WSS blog here . In the FB comments/replies there's talk of books of lists, etc. They've supported SAGA very well so it looks promising for Swordpoint. Talking of SAGA ... The campaign supplement "Age of the Wolf" was previewed at Salute and will be available generally next month. I'm very excited about this too. SAGA has been crying out for a campaign system and if this review is anything to go by then it looks very promising indeed. Also, in the FB discussion were comments about a forthcoming Arthurian supplement for SAGA....

It's been absolutely ages since I played Saga. Daft really when you consider that it's such a good game! So a recent trip to the club saw Mike and I dust off our Dark Ages figures. To keep things simple we chose standard 6pt warbands; Mike with Vikings and me with Anglo-Danes. We also chose the River Crossing scenario where two warlords vie for control of territory by contesting two bridges. To win you have to get as many of your troops across the river whilst keeping the enemy out of your side. Quite a tricky balance! Here are things a little way in to the game, Mike's force is on the right. My plan was to hold the nearer bridge and make a rush across the other, led by my Warlord. The initial attack by the Anglo-Danes goes well. Some Hirdmen are swept off the bridge and the Warlord with his Huscarls set foot in enemy territory. At the other bridge Mike could do little other than shoot (fairly ineffectively!) with his levies since I was using the Anglo-Dane Inti...

As you may already know I like to decorate my gaming table with suitable 'extras' and for the Dark Ages what could be better than a few pigs, sheep, chickens, cows, etc? The pigs are from Warbases new range of livestock. These chickens are from Redoubt (maybe?). Can't have too many chickens (or Viking "reinforcements" as I've been calling them!?) I also took the opportunity to re-base some my Gripping Beast sheep and cows. They also make for excellent objective markers or baggage counters - depending upon your rules and/or scenario. All kindly painted by my lovely wife (and based by me).

At last, some more painting! These are part of the batch of Dark Age figures that I want to complete before starting on a new project. They're from the Perry's Crusader range and I think they make ideal generic Dark Age bow armed warriors. Painted like all the other Saxon/Viking figures - block colours, dip and some quick highlighting. I can use them as levy for either my Norman or Anglo-Danish SAGA forces, or as a skirmisher unit to support my Saxons in War & Conquest. Still on the table awaiting paint are some villagers and a few casualty dioramas.

All that pillaging can make a chap quite thirsty! Cheers Ragnar ... hic! Figures from Gripping Beast - who else!? Great for adding a bit of extra colour to your Viking Age games.

For a while now I've been using some lengths of wooden dowelling as SAGA measuring sticks but I decided that I'd like something a little more bespoke. After chatting to the guys at Warbases whilst attending Colours I found out that they still made suitable measuring sticks plus they could be customised however I wanted. I opted for one set with SAXON etched on and the other with VIKING (both in the freely available Colonna font). Just £5 pounds for each set. So here they are. Made from 3mm MDF and I think that they're a superb product! In fact it's been a pleasure to deal with Warbases. They're friendly and efficient, the products are great and very reasonably priced. Highly recommended. I also ordered a set of movement trays. They're suitable for 8 x 3 of 20mm square bases - ideal for my Saxons. Here's a picture to illustrate. Again, a top quality product at a good price, only £1.70 each. All I need to do is sand and flock the edge to match my ...

Years ago I bought quite a few of the LotR range of figures from GW. I never really got that in to the so-called "Strategy Battle Game" as I found it quite unrewarding... However, now we have SAGA, plus the forthcoming Hobbit movie has once again piqued my interest in gaming with these figures. Here's a couple of test figures for a paint scheme for my Dwarfen force. I think the deep red plus the white linen effect go quite well, especially with the gold edging. What do you think? I have a large Moria Goblin force already complete, not to mention a whole heap of Orcs. Initially I'd use the standard SAGA boards for Vikings (Dwarfs) and Welsh (Goblins - apologies to any Welsh readers I can assure you it's nothing personal!). The next step would be to get my own dice made by Warbases and then create my own battleboards for each side. Some close ups. I've just noticed that the bases need tidying up with a bit of black around the edges!? Ooop...