2nd Saga game, spray paint, and Happy 2014

Friday after Xmas and had a night of war gaming. It was Saga again - my Vikings vs. Spencer's Anglo-Danes. He whooped up on me again in 2 games.

Game 1:
Clash of Warlords - on my right flank was a rough and rocky hill and on my left was a nice rolling hill. I arrayed my Vikings before me, lessons of the last ass-whooping still fresh in my mind. I moved forward but tried to get all tricky again by sending a warrior unit and hearth guard unit wide around the rocky hill. Never saw them again until the end of the game and it was too late.

Anglo-Danes just spun back on my right flank and created some distance while engaging what I left in the middle with all his strength.

Victory was his and my grand plans fell apart again.

Game 2:
More straight forward. No terrain, line them up and charge. This was more my style and I fared well until the end. All that was left on the battlefield was our warlords and Spencer's Anglo-Danes took the day again with having 2 warriors left on the field with said warlord.

Lessons learned II:
No more grand plans! The victory conditions for "Clash of Warlords" scenario is "points via killing". Get those.
Set short term goals - like what do I want to accomplish this turn? - Use your battle board to accomplish those goals.
Exploit opponent weakness and exploit my own strengths.
a. Viking Strengths are the ability to roll a lot of attack dice.
b. Anglo-Dane weakness is lack of attack dice multipliers... I think (will have to look at battle board).

Some day I'll get this all sorted!

After a few nights of playing Saga I have learned a bit about the game. The rules are simple,  like it confounded me at first simple. I'm so immersed in 3.x and Pathfinder rules that I forget to stop thinking so hard when rule sets are simple. When it comes to hard general rules for the game everything is pretty much the same. All armor is the same (4, 5, or 6). All attacks are the same. Everyone collects fatigue the same. Movement is pretty much standardized for all as well as ambiguous but realistic terrain rules. The majority of the differences and flavor come from the battle boards. Vikings hit hard, Saxons are good at defense, Welsh are good at going through terrain and attacking, Normans have horses.

Know your battle board. Learn to read your opponent and anticipate. Know your scenario and stick to it.

So I am painting up the "extras" of my Wargames Factory sets I bought to make up my Saga Viking warband. I was able to put together 2 more points (16 total figs) of warriors, and one Warlord.
  http://www.wargamesfactory.com/webstore/hammer-of-the-gods 
I also have decided I want to make a berserker unit. I didn't really feel like shelling out the cash right off to buy one so I looked into my own collection of minis to see what I had that would suffice. I have one Reaper Valkyrie/Viking Female (fantasy) already painted.

I also had in my stock another metal Reaper mini, "Viking Girl", and I got that prepped and primed and based.

About a month before, I was shopping at my FLGS and I picked up some very rightly priced Reaper Bones for my general stock. One of them was the later sculpt of the Reaper Valkryie:

I went back to my FLGS, Guardian Games in Portland in particular, and picked up a second one of the above - and completed my 1 point of berserkers. A unit of shield-maidens. Same rules as berserkers, just non-standard minis which is fine at our table.

I took a week off work between Xmas and NYDay. Gave me some time to get this project done and now, one week into it I almost am. I will document my process for the 16 warriors in a later blog post but I would like to mention one product.

Army Painter spray paint... or "undercoat" as they call it:
http://usshop.thearmypainter.com/products.php?ProductGroupId=2
It's expensive as Hell and, so far, the only spray paint that has worked consistently for me to paint minis. It is a colored primer. As advertised, one spray coats well if you do your part. No need for primer then base coat, one step. As advertised it saves time and money in the end. Buy in is $15 per can (yeah, I shit myself seeing that at first too). After 6 months of use I feel it is well worth it as it has given me zero drama regardless of outside conditions - which seems to be the story of spray paint.

Happy 2014 for those of you that care. I hope it is a good for you all and may all the things you are passionate about stay enjoyable to you.