Saga - Tips for the Newbie Player I and II

I've been playing Saga for a year and a half now. I've got a lot of games under my belt and have learned a lot. If I were keeping score of my games I'd say my record is under 50%. Literally, I've lost more than half the games I've played.

I'm a slow learner and I best learn by doing. That means anything new I try I will have to fail at it a lot before I start to not fail. This isn't good for many things in today's world but it is what it is and I've been able to make due at 44 years of age.

Also of note, as I have mentioned I am new to wargaming. I started a few years ago and Saga is my 2nd wargame.  Today that list is longer - All the King's Men, Saga, Bolt Action, Pike and Shotte. All of those I have played more than once and have miniatures for. I'm still pretty new at this.

Quantifiers stated, I'm going to put out some tips, things that I wished we knew when we first got into this a few years ago. I'm absolutely sure these are all debatable and subject to a player's taste. All I know is that what I put on the table in my first game is 100% different than what I put on the table in my last game last week.

I. Sourcing

I started with plastics for Saga. Wargames Factory Dark Ages - Viking line. After putting them together and playing with them I found them to be a bit fragile, especially the weapons. I have since tried out Gripping Beast Plasitcs and found them to be more robust and easier to put together. My core 16 Viking Warriors are GBPlastics. Plastics get you good bang for the buck though and $40 will get you right into the game with plenty of options.

My Norman Knights are also plastic - Conquest Norman Knights. I am very pleased with these and they have held out very well in the more than 1 year I have been playing with them.

I've since migrated to metal. I decided this would be a "major" hobby of mine and joined the Old Glory Army and made monthly orders from them. I'm very happy with that choice. I've also picked up smatterings of other brands - some Gripping Beast, some Artizan, and a Reaper here and there to fill a small niche. All are fine choices for my needs.

Saga has special dice - Saga Dice. These an be expensive. $15-$20 expensive. You need Saga Dice though. Fortunately you can find and print off a pdf of the symbols and stick them on dice. StudioTomahawk and Gripping Beast actually supports this as you can find one pdf on their forums for your use. Many of the guys I play in Portland have home-brewed their own dice and they work perfectly. I've home-brewed my own dice as a matter of fact, my Anglo-Dane set is from a PDF. Research the way to do it as there are many. That said I've bought 3 sets of official dice.

Look for sales and support your FLGS. I'm lucky and have a few local stores but neither are "historical wargaming" centric. I do go to them first when looking for something than go online when I know they don't have nor can easily order something I want. When I e-shop my go to is FRP and Amazon.

Saga has a simple mechanic for terrain the basis of which is you've 2 sizes, M(6") and L(12"). I've found that having MDF bases for terrain based off those sizes is key. No question whether you're in contact with that terrain or not. I've gone to Home Depot and bought a 4x8 sheet of MDF and had them cut it down to 12"x12" squares (the last row a little short due to cut loss). A stack of 32 of these cost me $12.

Bases - I've used them all!! One inch works best for me (or 25mm which is a tad under 1 inch). I've used washers, plastics, slotted, beveled, resin, round, square, wood, MDF, ... all of them. I found I like to use a metal washer for plastics as it gives them some "heft" and body. For metal figures I like to use plastics, my current favorite being a 1 inch slight beveled edge with inset. Washers are cheap, under $10 for 100 of them. The plastics I use now are x25 for $11, a bit pricey. If they were more available I'd always get Renedra's round 25mm plastics. Those are cheap but only on the net and half the time are sold out.

For mounted units I use rectangular 25mm x 50mm. I sourced a bag of 100 of those for cheap, clearance at one of my FLGS. I'm set for a few years on these.

For my Warlords and Heroes of the Viking Age characters I use either some 40mm round bases I've had laying around over the years and ... well... I found a pile of old poker chips. They are fake "clay" (plastic) but are thick and very well suited to be a base for a Warlord or Hero. I like to give them a bigger base to better ID them as a Hero or Warlord. 40mm (or a bit under 1 3/4") is the perfect size for this. 50mm/2inch is just too big. Since these poker chips were obviously played with for years prior to me finding them I like to imagine they've some good gaming "ju-ju" in them.

Female Viking (Bronze Age Miniatures) on a 1", inset, quasi beveled base whose manufacturer I am forgetting the name of. On the right is "Gunnar" a Hero of the Viking Age (Old Glory Rus Spearmen) on a poker chip AND rock.

Rule books:
You've got Saga Core which contains the basic rules of the game and the core scenarios. All your games will be based off this. Also included are the rules for the 4 base factions and the corresponding Saga Battle Boards for Viking, Anglo-Dane, Norman, and Welsh.

Then come the Supplements:
Raven's Shadow - contains rules and boards for  The Franks, Irish, Norse-Gaels and Strathclyde. 
Northern Fury - contains rules and boards for Bretons, Jomsvikings, Scots, Anglo-Saxons.
Varjazi & Baileus - contains rules for Pagan Rus, Rus Princes, Byzantines.

Last Fall Crescent and Cross was released, this encompasses the post Norman Conquest era with Crusdaers and Saracens and such. C&C is a rules update to the core rules linked above. It is fully compatible the the first 4 books. You can have Crusader vs. Scots games. I have all the books except Crescent and Cross.

Battleboards are not sold separately. You must buy the book that has the faction you are interested in to get the Battle Board. You cannot run a faction without it's Battle Board.

II. Painting

I'm no pro. I never will be either. I'm pretty sure that I will also never be in a contest. I've been painting minis since 2001 and in 14 years my progression has indicated that I will never grow to be a kind of painter that people will Oooo and Awwww over. I am confident that my minis look good on that table though and that is what is important to me.

Also, over the years. I have tried all kinds of painting techniques with various results. My top 3 now are:
"Speed Painting"
1-Color Up
3-Color Up
... and I like to speed paint and here is my technique"

Wash and finish mini.
Base and add texture gel.
Base coat in a colored primer - I use Army Painter colored primer.
Unless base coat is black, ink in "strong shade".
Paint "inner to outer" or "flesh, hair, clothes, armor, gear, weapons".
Determine if I need more ink to shade and blend.
Gloss than matte finish.

If I want to go even faster (2 day turn-around) I will skip the inking and shading and just "dip" the minis - brush on Army Painter Quickshade.

One thing to consider - Saga is "historical" so one may want to pay attention to a Dark Ages Palette. What this boils down to is lighter color clothing (instead of blue go light-blue), brighter colors for higher rank, NO BLACK clothing, no uniforms except Byzantium related factions. In the end this has zero bearing on the game. Further, same goes with your choice of minis.

Viking Levy (Old Glory Bondi Archers) speed painted. Lot's of browns and naturals with some blue.

Egil Skallagrimsson (Gripping Beast), 1 Color Up, got some bright blues and reds and jewelry going on befitting his status.

Re No Uniforms: Historically there were very few "uniforms" in the Dark Ages. People wore into battle what they had:

• Levy, peasants: natural color shirts and pants.
• Warrior: same as above but some cloaks, some light color (blue and pink), shields and basic weapons like spears. Throw in a helmet or 2 also.
• Hearthguard: Pros at war - trimmed and bright tunics and cloaks, chain shirts, swords and axes. These are the "Warlord's Men" so they get some nice stuff. 

History aside, it's nice for you and for your opponent to be able to identify what's on the table though. Be a good sportsman and such. This could be hard in a Dark Ages Era game. The Vikings I play with now look like this:

• Levy aka "Old Men With Bows": Mostly natural colors with some blue and yellow tunics thrown in for variance. As prescribed by Saga rules they are all armed with bows. No shields
• Warrior: These are my freemen or Bondi. Called forth from good farms to fight. All with Spear and Shield. No armor but more variance in tunic color. Salmon, darker blue, green, orange. Shields are pretty solid in color with "one detail" e.g. solid color or a stripe of different color at most.
• Hearthguard - the Warlord's Retinue! Chain byrnies, gleaming helms, bright blades, some bronze or silver buckles and chapes. Shields will have multiple colors and be painted in quarters or more. Sometimes even swirls! Good dark blues, bright and deep reds, purple, and sunny yellows.

Recently I've been painting some Bolt Action Finnish Army. WHOA! They are in uniform and, pretty much, all look the same!! That is so very different than painting Dark Ages warriors. You can keep it simple and faster by just grouping your minis and picking a few colors. For example - when I painted my first 8 Viking Warriors I chose yellow, grey, light blue as my 3 colors and split up the 8 figs in 3, 3, and 2 to get those colors. The real differentiation was in shields and hair/cap color.

When I base them I first spread on some texture gel prior to base coat. I glue on the mini and then add the layer of gel. It helps secure the mini with the glue and also obscures the "baseball mound" effect from the mini's base. The gel I use is a fine grit so it also adds a dirt effect while the dried gel itself also adds to the natural ground effect. Texture gel takes some work (adds a step) and is barely noticeable in the end but it's a detail I enjoy - you can skip this one 100%.

Well, this got long. I will blog next "III Saga Tactics" and I know that one will get long winded as there is some stuff to type. Until then, happy gaming and thanks for reading. I hope I was helpful.