Saga - Norman Knights almost done

Just some pics of my Conquest Norman Knights.

Knights based in Army Painter plate mail color primer. Horse in AP brown leather. I like to paint shields separately before gluing them onto the mini.

Block colors and shields done.

Dipped and drying.

I'm going to fix up the red on that one kite shield. Will add "shiny" highlights on helmets and weapons.

That bi-color helmet didn't turn out to well after the dip. I might repaint over the coat and then add those metal highlights.

Dungeons and Dragons relaunch this summer

io9 link to D&D relaunch article

^^^^for those interested^^^^

WotC has announced dates for it's release of the new D&D game and all the core rule books and such.

from the above article:

July 15 — Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set, $19.99.
August 19 — Player's Handbook, $49.95.
August 19 — Hoard of the Dragon Queen, $29.95.
September 30 — Monster Manual, $49.95.
October 21 — The Rise of Tiamat, $29.95.
November 19 — Dungeon Master's Guide, $49.95.

They've spread out the releases and that's making some of the nerds grumble. It's also, as stated above, quite pricey. The article also states that Wizards was smart and farmed out some work (miniatures) to other companies that do those things well.

I hope it does well as I want the revenue to go to my FLGSs. Suffice to say I will not be buying it as I do not see myself or my group playing it. I hear the new system is good though and I encourage anyone interested to get the new system and play it... and, please, spare the 7 dollar savings off Amazon and support an FLGS if you have one.

Saga - New player and another win for the Vikings

Friday night wargame night at Spencer's. This time Kyle showed up with the beginnings of his new Anglo-Dane warband. Spencer is better at coaching and looking up rules so he "reffed" the game and tutored Kyle in how to run Anglo-Danes.

After setting up terrain and 4 points worth of respective warbands Spencer showed Kyle how to run the Saga war board.

The scenario was Clash of the Warlords - winner is the first to kill the other's warlord... or whoever has the most victory points after 6 turns. My Viking warband was:
Warlord (Jarl Uthrin)
Hearthguard (Hird)
Hearthguard (Hird)
Warriors
Levy (thrall slingers_

Kyle's Anglo-Danes went with:
Warlord
Hearthguard
Hearthguard
Warriors
Warriors

The first round saw the ADs move up to the brambles in the middle of the field. The Vs countered and sent in some warriors to face the AD hearthguard in the brambles. Thralls moved forward and slung stones, Jarl moved up to direct them all while the Viking hearth guard made a move to flank on the other side of the brambles near the camp.

The AD hearthguard struck the V warriors hard but lost 3 while the V warriors lost 5 and retreated. Seeing another AD hearthguard unit poised to strike Vs went defensive. The remaining warriors moved in front of the left flank of the thralls and the Jarl moved near them while his personal retinue stayed near the camp awaiting the battle's development.

The ADs struck bravely into the thralls BUT THEY HAD FORTUNE upon them! Only 2 V thralls were lost while the AD hearthguard pushed and attacked 3 times!!

The V hearthguard countered by launching into the AD hearthguard and then attacking again into the AD warriors backed by the very brave but slightly ineffective thrall slingers.

The field is clear - move forward!

The Vikings then charged forward and killed almost all the remaining Anglo-Danes except for the Warlord and one of his bodyguards.

Since Kyle was being taught the game I will not count it as a win for myself though. The next time though... beware the wrath of the northmen.

And then my Normans should show up.

Things learned:

1) It is true, Vikings are designed to drink fatigue and piss a bucket of attack dice. Be aggressive with them, and don't worry about any tricky strategy.

2) Kyle picked up the rules right quick, he will be dangerous soon. He's also a damn good painter.

Edit:

3) Again, thralls, or levy (as per the general term), showed to be useful though not scoring a lot of hits. Even when exhausted they are still a good holding/screening force that soak up opponent resources and action economy.

Adventure - I went to a blacksmith class yesterday

Happy Mother's Day!

I had the opportunity to go to a blacksmith basics class yesterday at Trackers Earth. My kid goes to the summer camps and my friend Dan is a supervisor/guild leader type guy there.

I've done some work in the arena a few times before in my life - I worked at a few metal shops that would do light smith work like decorative vine work in bronze and wrought iron. I also did some knife and blade smithing in the SCA in the 90s as well as a week of it in 8th grade metal and plastics shop at Lewis Jr. High School in the mid 80s. I would not say that constitutes "experience" though.

I want to be more experienced so I took the class. It's also a prerequisite for Trackers' knife smithing class which I want to take next.

The instructor's name is Matt, he is also the one that taught the kid's smithing camp last summer that my kid went too. He started the class by laying down the basics of safety and showed us how to first taper, then draw, then scroll. Our first project was an S hook.

My next project was advanced for my level - a spoon.

The handle came out as I envisioned it but dishing the spoon out was a pain in the ass.

Next I decided to make a bottle opener which, while ascetically beautiful, was not very useful. I need to take a file to it to shorten up the hook a bit to better fit under the lip of a bottle cap and lock up so the leverage can do it's part.

I had 2 hours left at the end of the class to make whatever I wanted to make. I decided to try my hand at a ringed straight cloak pin like this:

I barely got close but it was a great learning experience and many of the skills I learned were in that project.

Saga - more pics of my minis

I'm just getting excited.

 3 points worth of warriors. 3 different kinds of warriors as per the Saga rules governing Normans. Standard spearmen, crossbows, and mounted.

 Close up of horsey dudes.

My old Foundry Norman infantry on the left, Reaper Anhurian Crossbowmen on the right.

 Gripping Beast Ragnar Lothbrok, block painted and pre shading.

Same mini, mini diorama done, shaded and dipped.

Wargames Foundry Viking on the left, newly put together Gripping Beast Plastics Dark Age Warriror on right with a sling. I put 12 of these guys together last night while watching the documentaries Muscle Shoals and John Milius.

Non-gaming-centric, spring time, outdoors, working out, and going shooting

It's Spring!

My little urban garden is going strong. I have made a few salads from the greens already and also pulled a few smaller radishes. My snap peas are climbing like crazy up the trellis. The only real casualties are the chives. Not a lot going on there. The cilantro is meh too, maybe needs more sun than it's getting.

Looks like I'm getting that workbench for my birthday. Looking forward to that. Also going to go see the US Godzilla 2.0 coming out in a few weeks. I'm hoping it's good. My wife, kid, and I went to go see the original 1954 Gojira yesterday at the Hollywood Theater. 60 years!

If you are SPOILER sensitive - DO NOT watch this trailer. It's the Asian one and has a bunch of stuff in it not in the US trailer.

I've been working out at Hollywood Fitness. Going to get back into power-lifting like in the olden days when I was an athlete. I am woefully out of shape and overweight. My goals are to get a waist back under 40 and back to XL shirts. I've got some work to do and issues to tackle and it's something I've fought all my life.

So far I've found that Tuesday and Thursday are the best nights for me to get to the gym. I alternate between 2 workouts:

A

10-15 minutes on treadmill

bench press

2-3 auxiliary shoulder and upper back exercises

B

10-15 minutes on treadmill

squats

2-3 auxiliary leg, butt, hip, lower back exercises 

I'm working my way into a third day of working out, small steps. It's been 10 years.

Not going to do a lot of bushcrafting this year it seems. My time is getting tight and I need to concentrate on getting into better shape. I do plan on some car camping trips though. I'd still like to get some fishing in this year too, more than I did last year. If I get a chance I will be getting a custom knife by Helmforge:

Helmforge

Here is the knife he made for my friend Lars.

I went and did some range time with some old Zombie Squaders and invited a coworker and her brother with. She, after watching some The Walking Dead, was interested in learning the basics of firearms. We took her out and let her shoot a few kinds of pistols and rifles and she decided she wants to get a .22 rifle and get more training. If I'm asked I am going to suggest getting this:

Marlin 795

We're looking at this, plus 3 extra mags (I think 5 mags is the number needed for decent training), a USGI canvas sling, a basic carrying case, a cleaning kit, ears and eye pro, and the ammo. If one is going to an Appleseed one should look at ghost ring sight options too... I am. All the above minus ghost ring sights is under $300 probably.

Personally I have the venerable Ruger 10/22, a "Sporter":

It's a damn good little rifle that needed a good break in period. I wasn't 100% happy until I had about 500 round through it. I bought it early 2008 and by the end of the year had it broke in good. I've added a GI sling and will be adding a Tech Sight ghost ring sight to it soon. I have over 12 rotary mags for it (the standard) and 2 of the good Steel Lipped 25 round mags. Those are great for messing around but I prefer the 10 rounders for any training or "precision" shooting. 

The difference, in my opinion, between the 10/22 and the 795 is that out of the box the Marlin 795 is a better rifle. I bought one for Gretchen in 2010 and I shot it before giving it to her and it was way more accurate and the sights were spot on. It was also about half the price at $149 ($179 out the door minus a $30 rebate). If one wants a rifle that very little needs to be added to (a sling is about all it needs) than the 795 is it. It even comes with lugs already installed for said sling. Magazines are $1 cheaper to boot.

This also got my wife and I some trigger time too. I did about 100 rounds from my Glock and Gretchen fired about 50 from her Taurus .38spl. Gretchen is getting good with that little pistol of hers and I am proud of her. 

Saga Normans, setting up a demo game to teach it to others

Organizing a demo game to introduce 2 new players to Saga. Spencer got on a mail group and found more willing players in Vancouver and a group in Portland (that does not have minis). Spencer and I have been busy ripping out more minis not just for ourselves but to offer up to new players to play with.

*Edit to Clarify: We've got 2 volunteers ON TOP OF the groups Spencer has made contact with in Portland and Vancouver. We are hoping to have a small local "game night" made up of these players this summer.

I have 10 points worth of Viking faction while Spencer has some extras for Anglo Danes. One of the nuances of the game is that many of the lower echelon units (levy and warrior) are pretty interchangeable. Opening things up more we house-ruled that minis in a unit do not need uniformity of weapons unless there is some mechanical difference like javelins or Dane axes. This means I can use my 8 GW Riders of Rohim minis.

Speaking of:

Undercoat is Army Painter leather brown, block painted, (literally) dipped in Minwax Polyshade antique walnut. Did these 6 yesterday and this morning I finished 2 more, for 8, and they are all drying after a coat of matte. I will finish with flocking tomorrow. This will be a unit of Norman warriors, 1 point.

*Edit: You'll notice "lumps" under some of the hooves. One of the design flaws of GW's Rohim is that most of the horses have one point of contact to the base. This, in my experience, equates to a broken mini. I used Miliput balls to add extra support for the horse to add a second, if not third, point of contact to the base.

I also completely finished my random Norman infantry and crossbowmen. Each unit is 8 strong and 1 point.

As I have mentioned in the past on this blog all these minis, except for one crossbowman, has been in my collection for over a decade.

I ordered Gripping Beast's box of random plastic Dark Age Warriors. I have 2 specific plans for these minis. 

1) I need to add a levy unit of slingers to my Vikings.

2) This thing will allow me to make 3 or more points worth of warriors that can fit into most warbands.

I have not started on these guys yet but when I do I am sure I will take pics and blog about it here.

Also ordered and on it's way to my door step are Conquest's Norman Knight minis (Norman Hearth Guard and Warlord!) and some Renendra tents for terrain pieces i have an idea for.

*Edit: Was reading up on some Saga rules just now and saw that I was wrong. What I thought was "all minis in same unit must have same weapons" is actually:
Any unit that has special equipment that offers special abilities (eg Dane Axe) must have minis that have that equipment.

So... no problem at all for my horsey dudes. My crossbows troops are an example of the above though.