Saga - 2014 PNW Championships!

Two of us left Portland early in the morning to drive up to Gig Harbor, WA and enter the tournament -

Two doughty warriors, faces grim and determined, good blades notched with experience and ringing with many battle songs! Vikings, both of them. Ships laden with war-glad men and women. They braved 2 near white-out flurries of ice. They trudged ahead through the rime-frost, crossed the bridge and came to the Harbor of the Gig.

Then Jeff and Gabe met a bunch of fine fellows in a crisp and slightly wet library parking lot and the fun began.

First - Jeff took Second Place over all with his Viking faction, playing a 12 man hearthguard unit with a banner. Many were took by surprise and learned all about banner rules that came out in Raven's Shadow over two years ago.

Jeff's Second Place medal

banner - does stuff

Second - I was pretty mediocre. I played 3 Jomsviking factions, won 2 of those, and lost to a Byzantine faction that shot me to death.

No time nor do I have the memory so I will not do each battle in any kind of play by play AAR. Some points though... because we like lists and points:

1) Need to follow steps. I stuck to that in the tournament with various degrees of understanding (mostly complete understanding). It is tantamount to having any strategy in this game to follow the steps. You just can't go spending fatigue before anyone had a chance to generate attack dice or some such. This is something I will never concede in any game. 

Yes, this is supposed to be fun. Yes, this is a beer and pretzel game. Y'know what else gets a big "yes"? The steps, which are easy to follow. I'm no genius so I need these steps to be able to play the game as designed and for me to have fun.

Some guys are loose and fast on this. It's OK in a home game but I don't play that way, especially in a tournament.

2) I have a pic of a couple of my lucky dice rolls!

Three sig runes! That'd be a "6" on the dice.

Look at them hits! The 5 misses are on the left, and getting rerolled as I had an Ulr up. Two more hits BTW.

Just looked at the clock and saw I need to go get ready for my Savage Worlds game. Wargame yesterday, RPG today! I'll be back soon to post more. It was awesome and can't wait to tell you guys more.

**Part II**

Got some time before The Walking Dead is on...

3) Failed Engagement of the Day: There I was, sending my 8 axe and sword Hirdmen into the fray against some Jomsviking warriors, 7 of them to be exact. What happened? Did my trusty Hirdmen roll a ton of dice and win the day? Nope. Lost all 8 of them to the last man and the Jomsviking warriors only lost 5. This was my turning point in that battle. It was almost a complete wipe out.

4) Successful Engagement of the Day: Against another Jomsviking faction my Viking Levy, the now famed "Old Men With Bows" held up against not just one, nor 2, but 3 attacks from superior forces. Jomsviking waves of Hearthguard and Warriors were sent against the Old Men With Bows only to be repelled 3 times. This was totally not expected by me and loathed by my honorable opponent.

Old Men With Bows center of pic - "Stay back young men, we'll show you how this is done.

5) The WTF Engagement of the Day: Wolves of Winter Scenario.
Rule 1: Flanking Maneuver - on round 3 a "reserve" unit may enter the battlefield from any point on the player's right side of the board.

Rule 2: Snow - activate unit as normal. Roll a D6, if it is a "1" your unit's move is reduced to S.

So, I had this big plan in the battle pictured above. I "reserved" my Val'Serkers for the flank rule. I would spend the first 2 rounds of the match to push my opponent to my right flank and stay away from my left side of the board (where his reserve flankers would enter). On round 3 I'd deply my flanker Val'Serkers into what ever was most vulnerable on my right. I did this without flaw.

You can see my target above, 4 Dane-Axed Jomsviking Hearthguard, a very shiney thing to destroy. Further, if any of my Val'Serkers survived they could make a B-line to the Jomsviking Warlord! Oh man this was going to be awesome!! In my dreams it looked like this:

What actually happened is my Val'Serker moved the normal M and on the second activation to move and close they rolled that stupid "1" and "hit a snow bank" and were just sitting there within range of the Jomsviking axe-wielding Hearthguard. Uh oh.

Well... my opponent promptly sent his axe-singing heavies into my Val'Serkers. Result? Mutual destruction. Kind of a wash.

Exciting and fun none-the-less. Memory making move by both of us!

6) Great touch and go fight between my Vikings and the Byzantines of Scott. He took a medal for his paint job BTW. It was an honor to lose to such a good looking faction.

I really liked this game as it was against the only faction I played that day other than Jomsvikings. That's right, 3 out of 4 of my games were against Jomsvikings.

Tip about fighting Byzantines, they shoot a lot. Make sure you can defend against them. They can also shoot over their own soldiers. My Vikings got shot to pieces. Plus there was a river... I was really wishing I had my Normans for this fight.

Then, Strategos Scott sent his lone surviving knight across the bridge. He repelled wave after wave of my Vikings ala Old Men With Bows vs. the Jomsvikings. That was funny.

Before that lone knight earned himself a medal for fending off my horde.

7) I've never played Jomsvikings before. I was matched up with them 3 times in the tourney. All I had was forum advice to pull from in what to do against them and that was "Don't Let Them Build Wrath". That's exactly what I did and I won 2 of the 3 matches. They can still do stuff but that Wrath stuff is pretty scary. Give them 0 Wrath for the first 2/3 of the game. Move on them and attack. Have levies handy for that "kill 3 figures or gain 2 Wrath" ability.

8) What did Mighty Jeff, who got the silver medal and is Second in the PNW, do to win? Well, first he played (haha < smart ass me). His faction was based off a 12 man Hearthguard (Hirdmen) unit with a banner. The gist of banner rules allows a rest activation on top of the normal one you might use. This increases the range of that 12 figure Deathstar and it ends up right in the middle of the ranks of the foe. On top of that his beard played into his strategy... really. Saga has a rule that any tied die rolls, when finding out who goes first, are won by the one with the most impressive facial hair. Jeff has an impressive beard and he used that twice to go first.

This allowed him to get right up into the ranks of his opponent in turn one with 24 dice of whirling axes, swords, and spears.

Thanksgiving and a SAGA tournament

Happy Thanksgiving. I hope all reading this had a good one and you got to go eat what you wanted or had some time off.

I had 4 days off but 2 of those were sick days as I hurt my back. Actually, my upper back has been in knots for weeks but it finally gave out on me Monday night after work. It was hard to get out of bed or move around. Heat and painkillers helped. I talked to a nurse at my Doc's office Wednesday and she gave me some tips and I will get seen Wednesday. Sounds like it's just muscles and nerves, no spine/bone stuff.

I was OK for Thanksgiving activities. I had a lot to do and there was no getting out of any duties. I ended the night at my friends A&A's with some pie and coffee. My back was done at 8PM and with my tummy being overly full I was not comfortable anymore.

Today (Friday) I got up early and my back was a little bit better. Still stiff and tender but not as bad. I was able to hit up my FLGS's Black Friday sale and I picked up the Reaper Bones Cthulhu and a new Chessex case and some small odds and ends on sale.

Stock picture, not mine.

I got home and fed my kid doughnuts as my wife was at work. I then took a nap. 

Right now, getting ready for the big Saga Tournament up in Gig Harbor, WA. Going to leave early as it will be about a two and a half hour drive up there. Weather prediction is cold.

Representing Rose City Bondi will be me and Jeff. We're going up there with all Vikings. We'll see how our raid goes! I'm sure I will fill you in on this very blog... stay tuned.

Portland Historical Wargames Day, November, Guardian Games

It was a cold day for mid a mid November Saturday afternoon. There was a good turn out for the monthly Historical Wargames Day at Guardian though. We even had some folks come down from up north to meet and play with us, Sven Lugar president of the NHGMS and Pat Lowenger from Historical Wargames Podcast. They had also brought some other people down with them.

We had multiple games of SAGA going, I was able to teach some new guys how to play and some of the regulars of Rose City Bondi were able to play some new players.

There were many other games being played too, though being busy I cannot name them. Some WWII stuff and things like that.

Myself? I got in a teaching game with Raven and his 4 points of Vikings. I also played Vikings. It was a Clash of Warlords and we ended in a draw. I then coached Justin and Chibbs in a Viking on Viking match of Clash. Then I ended the day with a Norman vs. Viking Clash and a win. I was William the Bastard and Normans while Chibbs played Vikings.

Starting off, William the B out front and his troops in the corner in the defensive position.

William moves behind the defensive position and starts commanding the crossbowmen and archers to fire.

Vikings moved into the woods and the abandoned Norman camp and take loots!

Vikings close and Normans turtle up more and keep the bolts and arrows flowing.

Finally Norman Knights charge in to wipe some Vikings out.

Suffice to say the Norman knights all died but the archers, crossbows, and mounted warriors - with the help of that defensive structure - held off the attacking Vikings and took the day by a hair (2 points).

It was a great day. All players had fun and advocating of Saga was thorough. I hoped that HWGDay at Guardian would bring in players with wallets thus make money for the store. Apparently this happened. Shoot, I got some paints and another Chessex carry case plus some hard ciders and a pepperoni stick. Our friends from the North thought it was awesome how Guardian Games had a tavern in it. Over 21? Beer and cider while you game! It's called the Critical Sip BTW.

Veteran's Day - Standing in Line

I don't like to go get free meals and stuff on Veteran's Day. I have a few reasons, none of which are salty or horrible or typical of what you see in the media about PTSD-having Vets (hate crowds, isolation, stuff like that).

I just don't like to stand in lines.

To Quantify:
It's not 100% of the time. In life sometimes you've got to stand in line. There are many factors that make standing in line acceptable or unacceptable. The main metric I use is a scale of how much I paid to how long I've got to stand in line. Also weather and indoors or outdoors, who I am in line with, why I am in line plays a role. I found that I can't stand to stand in line for a big ComicCon after I've paid $40 to get into it then stand in another line for 90 minutes or more for a picture or autograph I paid $100 for.

Being in the military means you are always in some line. Your life and career is in a line. Your behavior? Better be in line. Food? Get in line. Going to class? Marching there... in a straight line. Invading a country? Biggest line you will ever be in. You're whole life and existence is to be in some form of a line.

One time, when I ran the paint locker on the USS Shasta, I had a line that was 20 people long. I was issuing them all paint. These weren't my normal crew (Deck Apes). I had Operations and Personnel people in that line. We were having a ship-wide uniform and space inspection by the Skipper in a few days so everyone was tidying up their spaces and painting everything.

Black spray paint and blue enamel? Get in that line.

Another time, and I swear this happened, I was in a line to get in a line for a lunch line. The USS St. Louis was getting some updates for it's galley and mess decks so it got secured for a few weeks. The base galley in Sasebo Japan was about a mile from where our ship was dry-docked. They provided us with buses to get to the base galley and back. First I waited in line to get on the bus. Then I got in a line to get my ration card (lunch ticket) issued. Then, I got into the line that got you food. Base galley food is good! Base galley food was always better than ship food. That's no shot at the Mess Specialists - I blame it on the supply line.

The St. Lou was an amphibious ship thus we had a lot of Marines on board all the time. I have a lot of respect for Marines. Loyal, dutiful, sharpshooting Marines. All Marines are trained riflemen and all Marines are hard. It's their job, to be hard and be able to shoot well regardless of what their rate says they do. They're un-erring discipline was notable and un-matched by any of us surface sailors.

That said we'd still mess with them when they were out to sea with us. One of the hardest pranks to pull off was making them stand in line for nothing. Well, it's not that hard. All any sailor would have to do is stand still in a random but reasonable place like you were waiting for something and in a few minutes you'd get Marines standing in line behind you.

I did this once and got five Marines to line up behind me. I walked away as a saltier Marine explained to them I was messing with them. I felt bad for about 10 seconds and went about my day - off to some random watch or painting something no doubt.

Today there is a long list of places that give away free things on Veteran's Day. I've partaken and seen some of the lines that can form up. These last few years I have not partaken (as places offering free stuff have proliferated); I do not want to stand in those lines if I've the day off and on my own time. I don't want to stand in line for free stuff celebrating my time in service, in which I spent much of that time standing in line for free stuff.

Saga - Battle of Stonminster (Vikings vs. Normans)

Nearly a generation ago, when the Saxons were friendly to Normans, The Normans gifted them with a church near a village called Stoney Purch. It was a village that had a great stone quarry and, thusly, a great stone church was built there funded by The Normans. The church was named Stoney Minster or Stonminster.

A Norman Lord, Rainulf Hautel, was charged with protection of Stonminster. In his retinue he had many horsemen including his famed knights led by Callist de Balon, his brother in law.

On a spring morning two ships came from the north bearing Norse (or Danes, or Irish… who knows anymore?) who thought to defile Stonminster and it's priests. Lo! Lord Rainulf responded quickly as was his duty.

*meta note: Clash of the Warlords, 3 terrain pieces (church, small buildings, crop land and wall), the rest of the terrain pictured was considered open ground and was ascetic only.

The Vikings took defensive positions in and around the church and also had some men in the woods to the left flank of Lord Rainulf. The light horse scouted ahead and found:
Viking Chieftain (Warlord)

Berserkers x4

Warrior x12

Warrior x4

Archers x12

Hirdmen 2x4

Lord Rainulf arrayed, from left flank to right flank in front of Stonminster:

Light Horse (mounted warriors x8)

Crossbowmen (warriors x8)

Local Militia (levy x12)

Seargents (warrior x8)

Lord Rainulf himself and his brother Callist and his Knights (Warlord and Hearthguard 2x4)

Negotiations for a peaceful end were not met in parley thus the battle commenced.

Lord Rainulf moved his levy into the vegetable garden of the church as they would need the cover of the walls there. Compensation would be made for any loss of turnips of course. His crossbows moved to the left. Both opened the fight with a volley felling a few of the Viking Hirdmen (helms shining and byrnies glistening in the sun) on the other side. Lord Rainulf positioned himself and the Knights to better react as a reserve unit and exploit any weakness in his savage opponent.

The Vikings countered with a rain of arrows of their own that pierced the coat of one Norman who would later die from infection.

Lord Rainulf countered the shower of northern arrows with a charge of the light mounted troops into the Viking archers. Six Viking archers fell, their blood watering the grass, while the other 6 fled into the woods for cover. Still, some Norman light mounted fell.

*meta note: I used Norman Saga Ability Terrified exhausting the Vik Levy and allowing them only a few attack dice.

The Vikings countered with their Hirdmen and tried to cut down the light horsemen but only three fell to the Northmen's blades. The last three fell back to the relative safety of the vegetable garden wall. The left flank went to what was left of the Viking Hirdmen, four in total.

BUT… this was part of Lord Rainulf's plan!

With mobility on their side a push on the right flank towards the church was made. Hwaet! The Vikings on the left were too far out to aid their kin and shipmates. Alas, the fight in front of Stonminster would not be easy and much blood would be shed.

After the Norman push to the right the Vikings countered with an attack on Norman heavy infantry followed by an attack by the Viking Hirdmen on the left flank into the Norman crossbowmen. Though the Norman heavy footmen were trounced the Norman crossbowmen held their ground (though with four losses) and took down the Vikings to the last man.

Before Stonminster was a Viking shield wall six men deep, spears and blades glinting with crimson hue in the sun. The Norman heavy infantry had fell back from the onslaught. From inside Stonminster the Viking leader issued challenges and threats to Norman mothers and horses.

Lord Rainulf held stern and strong though. He ordered a charge by his brother Callist and his Knights. The charge was made and it was true and mighty after a volley from the doughty local farmers and their slings.

*meta note: This was the first time I used both Terrified and Crush Norman Saga Abilities. Wow! What a combo! I spent the Viking fatigue to raise/lower armor. Vikings got zero hits while Normans, on 17 attack dice, scored 12 hits with Crush doubling that to 24.

** though it did not make too much difference in the end the Crush ability 2 per one "kill" was done wrongly by us. It is not 2 per 1 "hits" but "kills" generated after defense dice are rolled.

At the end of round 5 of the game the reality of points had set in. The score was heavily in Norman favor. The only Viking units left on the table were either exhausted in the woods (6 levy) or in Stonminster (warlord, 4 warriors, 4 'serkers). The Normans were to go first in the top of round 6 and I had said I was going to take the victory points and just use my mobility to get far away from Stonminster. My opponent, Jeff, agreed that is exactly what he'd do and conceded the game as there was no way he could close and either kill enough of my Normans to win by points or get to my Warlord and kill him to win the game.

Dang Vikings! Always lighting things on fire!

Some points I learned this game:

1)      Mobility via mounted, when it is handy… is pretty frikkin handy.

2)      Mounted "cons" are: -1 to armor for ranged attacks, cannot enter buildings, and as per Crescent and Cross rules gain a fatigue when ending a turn in rough terrain.

3)      Above average die rolls are a contributor to Norman wins IMO. I love the faction but truly believe they need lucky rolls to win. I hope to be proven wrong.

4)      Turn Phase order is incredibly important if not absolutely required in Saga.

Saga - One Third of my Pagan Rus Levies are done!

Got them done and dried this morning. I had some trouble with the snow flock. With help from Spencer I figured out why.

When I flock my bases I use PVA glue like most. I tend to use it pure though and not diluted like many others do. When it comes to sand, foliage, and static grass it has not been an issue. THis was the first time I was going for a snow effect. I did my usual application and dip into the white flock. 24 hours later, after a full dry, it looked grey and "slushy". Like no white flock stuck to the glue. I applied a second layer and the same result.

I told Spencer about it at work and he got all science-y on me and said to water it down some. Not a lot, just some. I did, it worked.

Why do I not water the PVA down? Earlier this year I had an issue where I put down watered PVA over primed steel washer bases. When the glue dried it delaminated the layer of primer on the steel washer. It did not do that when I used straight PVA glue. So I stayed with that even though my procedure is totally different now, which would be:
1) I use plastic bases (Renedra).
2) I put down some putty after gluing mini to base.

Here are the results - my first 4 Pagan Rus Levies (Batch 1):

Based off  Slavic conscripts descriptions. Gripping Beast Plastics Dark Age Warriors. I added some weapons from spares I had laying around like the scramsaex.

Grass tufts are Army Painter "Tundra" tufts.

I painted up only four round shields for these guys. They are levies, no need for all of them to have shields. Four in the mix of twelve will look good.

Batch 2 will be done in a few days:

Batch 3 just got the first layer of paint last night:

Also finished is the second third of my Escort Scenario pieces, Hunters with Boar:

Old Glory Civilians With Ox Carts WOR-24

The dirt came out a little too red for my tastes but I guess it will suffice. I primed them in Army Painter Fur Brown, and that is the end result. Also, I did not hit the front hem of the front hunter when I was wiping off excess Quickshade (Army Painter Quickshade "Strong" tone). The base is a Litko 2" 3mm plywood base. I have some of those.

Despite my mistakes, I am happy.

Playing a home game tonight at Jeff's. Got some Northerners coming down to Historical Wargames Day at Guardian on the 15th. Very excited.

Holidays ramping up, got some projects on my painting bench

Halloween down. Veteran's Day, Thanks Giving, (throw in a Brother in Law wedding), Yule, Christmas, and New Year to go.

On top of that this coming weekend is a busy one. OryCon. I'm not tabling nor paneling this year so that's nice. I'm thinking of going to the gaming room and maybe setting up a table for Saga and spreading the good news!

That seems like work though so I might just lay off and be a customer for once and enjoy what others have to show.

The Monday after Orycon we are bringing back The Telling Portland 2014 for one last performance at PSU in the Smith Student Union auditorium. I've been working on my lines for the past week or so. It's all still in there, I have this day off from work. Timely as I first went to boot camp Thanksgiving Week 1989 and I was honorably discharged November 1993.

Tuesday is Veteran's Day and I also have that off. My Wife, Gretchen, bought us tickets to go see GWAR as an anniversary gift. I've been a GWAR fan for ... 20 plus years now?...  I was quite bummed to hear that Dave Brockie - Oderus - died this year and was worried about the fate of the band as he was the lead singer, original member, founder... all that stuff. They changed up the line up some and have some new lead people up front now and even added a female front person, Vulvatron!

This will, after a decade hiatus, be my 15th GWAR show and I will finally be a triple ace. I must get a patch or something to commemorate this. 14 shows with Oderus, 1 without.

RIP dude. Thank you for 14 awesome shows, one fun one with DBX, and decades of music that I have enjoyed. Oh, and some good football blogging.

Wednesday is back to work, the following weekend I hope to get an RPG game in as Sundays were, again, took up with rehearsals. I promise, RPG group... no more! Back to a regular schedule. November 15th is another Historical Wargames Day at Guardian though. There will be Saga and maybe some Lion Rampant.

The weekend after that is my BiL's wedding. I am a groomsmen. We will have a bachelor party, rehearsal, and wedding. In that order Thursday - Saturday.

Then, Thanksgiving.

There's November.

December is not as eventful, what with just Winter Solstice (and my new tradition of Thor dropping off a foam weapon for my kid), probably some Holiday parties, Xmas, NYE, NYE tradition of NoHos Hawaiian buffet, and a week off at the end of the year. My in-laws are coming too and I really like them. I hope to spend some time with them.

I will have to fit in at least one RPG and some war gaming.

Speaking of.... Maybe December will be a good time to debut my Pagan Rus faction for Saga!!?? The first few of my levies are finished, I am making them all wintery with snow flock on the bases. Here's some pics of them last week before I finished them up this weekend. I'm doing them in batches of 4. (all PR levies are Gripping Beast Plastic Dark Age Warriors)

Batch 2 with a brighter "linen white" coat on the tunics.

Batch 2

Batch 1 and batch 2 comparison. Batch 1 was base-coated in brown, tunic painted a very light khaki (white with a drop of cork mixed in). The quickshade is Army Painter "strong tone". They came out pretty dark so that is why batch 2 is primed in white and straight linen white was used on the tunics.

Both batch 1 and batch 2 are dry and flocked, ready for a matte finish right now. Will get some pics up soon. Of the 12 figures I am only giving them 4 shields. They're just levies with javelins, they don't need many shields. 

No pics yet but I also finished some modern "biker" types. Basically 2 males and 2 females with black tops (hoody, vest, jacket, whatever) and blue jeans. Not my best work but usable. I tried my hand at making the bases look like post apocalyptic streets. I've got a growing collection of moderns, mostly post apocalypse. 

As soon as I finish my PR Levy I will start a point of PR Warriors, then PR HG and Warlord. Will be a good start. With that I can proxy in some of my other units and play them. I also can use the Pagan Rus as my Jomsvikings. These minis are all metal, Old Glory to be exact. Here's some streaight out of the pack.

Interestingly enough, one of the things noted about Old Glory is that they are true to 25mm as opposed to the popular 28mm many of us neo-grognards are used to (scale creep). You can see the difference when holding a 25mm Old Glory and a "25mm" Reaper (or whatever newer brand).

I noticed, after handling my Rus Spearmen and Rus Command figures that the OG Rus line was... well... more like 28mm. Here is a picture:

l-r: Gripping Beast Plastic, OG Norman Heavy Infantry, OG Rus Spearman

Ever so slight but I notice it when handling them. The bottom line though? It don't matter to me when I set them all out on the table.