SAGA - A Viking engagement

On Monday night I decided to host the first game of Saga in the shed. This was the first time I had played this ruleset and it gave me the opportunity top pull out a few of the hundreds of Vikings & Saxon 28mm figures I had painted nearly 10 years ago and never played with ! In total I have around 300+ Dark Age figures painted and it was interesting to see how my painting and basing styles have improved (my opinion) over the last few years.

We decided on a very simple engagement affair with equally matched forces both valued at 5 points

These consisted of a Warlord, One Unit of Hearthguard (4 figures), 2 units of Warriors (each 8 figures strong) and a 12 man unit of Levies (Bow armed). If we understood the rules correctly this gave both forces 5 battle dice to play with.

I for my sins chose the Anglo Saxons, and Matt chose the Vikings. It became quite apparent during the game that Matt’s forces were more suitable to his board whereas the Anglo Saxons are more geared to larger units to gain their benefits. We also discovered halfway through that the Warlord receives a free activation and can drag along a unit if it is within 2 inches.

The playing areas was bordered by a beach (complete with Viking Ship and woods on the other side. Both Forces started 30 inches apart.

The following write up will be written from my perspective.

I decided that my archers would move up the right hand open side of the table thereby giving them the opportunity to fire into the opposing forces. These would be supported by the Warlord and Hearthguard. My warriors would occupy the village and seek retribution on the Viking invaders.

Moving forward we quickly realised that with a bow range of 12 inches the opportune archery fire I wanted was not going to happen unless I committed these troops to move forward. In the following round the warriors facing my levies bounded forward twice and crashed into the lightly armed troops. Lots of dice later saw half the levy force slaughtered and maimed for the cost of one viking warrior. Round one to the Nothmen.

With my levies in retreat I threw in my warlord and his hearthguard. Using the opponents fatigue (he’d moved twice and had fought a melee)to make it easier to hit my hardened troops delivered a crushing blow. However in response two of my brave Huscarls hit the dirt. Not good news. It became apparent at this point that the Vikings advantage of creating more battle dice was a big advantage !

What to do next? The Vikings were now moving into the village so I decided to send in a unit of warriors top deal with this menace. A violent struggle left no side with an advantage but casualties were severe. Matt then played the Loki dice forcing my unit of fatigued warriors to flee from the battle. Things were getting desperate for the Saxons. Throwing ion my remaining warrior unit I beat back these remnants of Matts force only to come under sudden attack from his Warlord and Guard. The second of my units bit the dust. With two units lost, my levies in disarray and half the Huscarls wiped out things were bleak. As a final act of desparation I threw my Warlord and his two bodyguards in against Matt’s Warlord.

Could I win and seize back the initiative and win the day....NO. The combination of my fatigue and his superior battle dice won the game. In two hours we had fought a thoroughly entertaining game. We lerarned a great deal about what work and what doesn’t. We realised that despite having similar forces available the unique flavour of the battleboards does create differing game plays. Forward going we will need to adapt the unuts to match the boards. Saga has now joined the list of Shed Wars.

Until next time:

Note: Figures are a range of Foundry, Gripping Beast, BlackTree, the buildings are from PMC.

Tales of Shedwood: Fireforge Mounted Sergeants & Infantry

Being a bit of an insomniac I was up early over the weekend and decided to crack on with the figuires for the Tales of Shedwood. As mentioned earlier I had purchased plastic fireforge mounted sergeants and infantry. Its been some years since i tackled plastic figures so this going to be interesting. At the back of my mind were a number of factors...

1.       At £20 for a box of 12 cavalry (£1.60/figure) was this good value compared with the £3+ I could expect to pay for a metal figure? The Infantry 48 figures for £22 was great value.
2.       Could my clumsy fingers put together these figures in a satisfactory way?

3.       Would they stand the test of time compared with the standard lead miniature?

4.       Were they ‘heavy enough – with a steel washer base for the table?

Both sets of figures are really nice, the mouldings appear to be clean and the plastic at first glance looks durable. There are lots of options with regards to weapons, heads, shields and poses. There will be a number of spare bits at the end of the day. I think it is fair to say that these are much better value than the GW plastic ranges with more torsos, legs etc but I still don’t understand why these guys don’t sell torso packs separately – with so many spare parts I do feel that I am missing out?

A few more observations if you are going to buy into the mounted range.

1.       I glued the horses torsos together and then started on their tails. It would appear that the tail needs to be glued to one half of the body first before sticking the torsos together. Otherwise its a bit of a pain to fit cleanly.

2.       The shields and shield arms should be positioned once the rider is sitting on the horse otherwise the shield will get in the way of the saddle pommel/horse neck

3.       If you are looking to create a set of figures in a similar pose – don’t expect you can do from these guys. With bodies turning, horse heads twisting and in a variety of motions (trots, canters & gallops) this is not going to happen.

The infantry figures are far more straightforward and from a box of 48 you can either make up 48 spearmen, 24 xbows/24 spears or all maneer of axe, sword and mace armed troops. With six diffeent body styles, 12 different heads and 54 different shierld types there is loads of variety.

In the end I pushed on with six mounted men at arms , six crossbows and six spears all painted in the same green & white livery

Until next time....

Half Year Report & The 100th Post

This Blog was launched in December 2011 and six months ago I wrote a report on the progress achieved to date. At the time I mentioned that I had achieved in the first year of its life 54 postings, 25,000 page views and 90 followers.

I made a rather bold statement that I wanted to treble the total number of page views to 75,000 and increase my number of followers to 180. Given that we are nearly half way through the year (believe it or not) I thought I would provide a small update on how things were going.

In the first six months of this year I have now broken the 100 post barrier (This post is number 100), achieved close to 50,000 page views and increased the following to 131. With the exception of the followers numbers I have effectively doubled in six months what was achieved in the whole of last year. So if progress continues at the current rate the targets I set for myself a year ago should be attainable.

What can I promise you in the next six months....

More on the Medieval/Robin Hood themed project during the summer months,

More games actions - a big Pirate event is planned for Tuesday 25th June,

Watch my progress as I start to build from scratch hedges, ditches and wattle fences.

Introductory games on Saga, 10mm Napoleonics and Mad Max...

Its going to be fun...

On a final note my better half, Mrs Shed, suggested that some ogf the followers might want to purchase a Shed Wars t-shirt ? So if you are interested in some fancy new beachwear for your summer holidays drop me a line. I can promise you that if I do go ahead with this initiative the Tshirt will be black with the Shedwars green logo. Once I have an idea of numbers (and sizes)I'll put up a reasonable cost (best guess underr a tenner plus P&P) and I'll add a couple of quid to go to Help a Heroes.

I'll try and get a copy made up in the next couple of weeks...

Until next time

Eric the Shed

Three Games - One Day

On Sunday I was kindly invited by another member of the Lead Adventure Forum to attend a day of gaming in Horsham. All credit to Kevin (aka Damas) for organising such a splendid venue, refreshments and a great event.

  

In total eight of us, drawn from as far afield as Oxfordshire & Dorset headed to Sussex. These included the familiar names of Mamalute, Matakashi, Captain Blood, Dr De’Ath, Overlord, Mason. I’d met most of these friendly guys at previous events in the past year and its great to build new friendships at these meets.

Having started off with much gusto in the local cafe for breakfast we headed to the hall booked for our day’s play.

The group discuss the final game of the day

Quite quickly tables for the three games were set up and we could start in earnest. Three games were on offer, Matakashi’s Conan Prison break using his excellent and very clever Crom rules, a Robin Hood six player participation game run by Mamalute and Dr De’ath (using the excellent Jim Bibbly terrain show cased in a previous post) and my own 10mm scale re-enactment of a famous Zulu Wars called defending the mission.

Having quickly laid out the Zulu game I then joined the crew playing Crom. In our particular game three beautiful warrior maidens had to cross a market town on the fringes of the Shemite desert and spring their lover Conan from the prison. To do this they had to avoid the attentions of the marauding slavers and the rather violent ‘Deathdealer’ warriors. The mechanics of the game are very simple, each character has 10 dice, each turn these are allocated to combat, movement, or initiative. For example if you allocate four dice to movement – you roll and move the totalled number of inches. Combat dice allow either a number of to hit throws or defensive throws. The loser of a combat loses dice thereby preventing them from taking as many actions in the next turn – when you lose all your dice you are dead.

In the first game we played each maiden went their own way with little sign of cooperation – after all they were looking for Conan’s favour ! Quite quickly the attention of the slavers and deathdealer had reduced the number of participant in some rather savage combat. By chance Mason managed to break into prison releasing Conan from his bonds.  A chance find of Subotai hiding in the market place soon balanced the odds and after much merriment of watching Conan stagger around the board (his movement was atrocious) we soon finally brought the locals to heel. We repeated the game at the end of the day in which the maidens opted for a much stronger team approach, suffice to say they won.  

Apologies now but in the heat of the battle I took very few photos...

 

The morning moved on and folks moved across to the Zulu game. Two players would control the Impis, one player would lead the defence of the mission and the final player managing the relief force of Boers. Using a revised version of the Restless Native rules (see link) the game quickly gathered pace. A standard deck of cards activates units (Diamonds – British defenders, Hearts – the Boers, and the Zulu’s Spades & Clubs)  . This is a game of attrition with the Zulus attempting to reach the drift before succumbing to British volleys and cannon fire. In our game the Zulus managed to wipe out all of the British stands bar one before the third joker arrived (went through the pack twice) – a nail biting hotly contested game that went to the wire!

Thanks to Captain Blood for these photos...

Lunch was upon us so we headed out down to the local beefeater for some beer and Sunday roasts, burgers, salads and steak.

The afternoon was dominated by the six player Robin Hood participation. Each player was given a  character with a small retinue and a set of objectives. Achieving these objectives would award points, and subsequently the winner. These included the rescue/kidnap of the fair Maid Marion from the clutches of Max of Clifford, the retrieval/theft of monies from the local taxman, and the escort/assassination of disguised King Richard. Using a variant of the Sharp Practice rules we eagerly set about our tasks. I for my sins was leading a band of disgruntled knights who had been handsomely paid by Price John to murder his brother, King Richard. Sadly for me he was discovered early on by the leprous knights of St Lazarus. A fierce charge by my few knights through the village miserably failed to achieve their target (although the cowardly King Richard and his escort were severely shocked and forced to retire )

Mean whilst Little John rescued Marion and dragged her off in to Sherwood Forest (probably to show her that is name really was wrong!), and Robin with his merry men were engaged in a fierce firefight with Sheriff.

Well what of Guy of Gisbourne, rather cleverly he escorted the taxman into Nottingham castle and awaited news from the forest. He did not have to wait that long...the Sheriff fell to a well placed arrow and Guy promptly declared himself as the new Sheriff. Robin mused, and Alan a dale strummed ‘I shot the Sheriff, but I did not shoot the deputy’.

 

A lovely looking game, some fantastic figures on display and great fun.

Captain Blood has written a great AAR on the first game which can be found here:

http://www.lead-adventure.de/index.php?topic=54869.0

 

With a final game of Crom to play the day soon draw to an end.

With the M25 being kind on the journey return I reflected last night over a glass of wine what a good day it had been. Thank you to all involved.

I look forward to the next event...

Until next time....

Palm Trees Again...

Over the last few weeks I have been receiving a number of parcels for the Shedwood forest project and in amongst them were some Palm Trees I had ordered a few weeks back from China...
sourced on ebay - search for TDT18 40pcs Layout Model Train Palm Trees Scale O 18cm

Basing these was very straight forward and very quick. Last Sunday night I prepped the bases - Off cuts of hardboard cut into 15 irregular shapes and then sanded. Using a drill piece that matched the mounting stem of said palm trees I drilled a few holes in each base. Most of these are clustered in 2’s and 3’s. The Palm tree is then glued into place in the hole with ‘hard as nails glue’ and left to set over night. I reckon this bit took about an hour.

The next morning before work  I clipped the remainder of the stem off so the base was flat. Liberally soaking the hardboard base in pva I covered these with medium ballast. Time taken for 15 bases c30 minutes.

The following morning  I then painted the bases with acrylic raw umber. Time taken 30 minutes.

The next day (weds?) I had a rest.

Thursday morning 30 minutes of drybushing both the bases (buff) and the leaves (scorpion green)

Friday Morning – adding the static grass – 20 mins

Saturday Morning – putting these new additions out with all the other to show off the palm forest.

I estimate that this little lot has taken around 10 hours to put together and cost in the region of £50  (excludes the £30 spent on Pegasus palms before I realised China sourced product would be a better bet)– Total number trees c80, covering almost a square metre of terrain.

The trees themselves will no doubt feature in Pirate games in the West Indies. Complement my Jungle terrain and will of course be used in any future desert setting.

Until next time

Tales of Shedwood - Inside the Town Walls

So over the last few nights I have been steadily painting the walls of Nottingham – three Games Workshop Fortresses ! Total cost about £70 on ebay.

This equates to 12 towers (more on this in a second), two gatehouses (more on this as well). And nine wall sections.

Having painted (not sprayed) an acrylic black primer, I have just drybrushed on two tones of greyon the walls and one of the towers. Hopefully will finish this off tomorrow. I am going to trial one piece with an ink wash and then give this a final lighter coat.

I also need to paint all the doors and tower trapdoors !

 

I had three gatehouses but only needed two for the walls. The third is being cut up to create the bastion (with round towers) for the Towns castle. More on this soon.

Why the update? Well all my buildings have now arrived ! A mix of Conflix, EM4 & PMC.

My son and I have recently being playing Skyrim on the xbox and when he first saw the city I thought it looked like the Cities in the game – Solitude and Whiterun. For thise of you with an Xbox but have never played Skyrim do so – its an awesome game.

I mentioned that a few more buildings had been bought. I finally managed to secure the Conflix Merchants house on ebay for a tenner and it is a fine addition. A couple more of these standard houses wont go amiss.

In addition I have bought a total of seven 28mm buildings from PMC. These are quite frankly brilliant. Not only do they work really well in my city they will also look great as a village on the outskirts of Shedwood Forest.

Should state that all these buildings have lift off roofs, they appear durable and are really well painted.

As far as the base is concerned I am now leaning towarsds a cloth sheet suitably muddied and flocked.

I am only beginning to realise how massive this project is...the city and terrain is relatively straightforward from here but to populate the town with citizens, carts and livestock will prove to be a herculean task. Not to mention expensive. On top of that I have to build the barons, sheriff and KLings forcers along with Robin Hood and his Merry men. Sourcing this lot may be fun, but painting them could be painful...

Some Piccies

Until next time

Tales of Shedwood - Fortified Priory added

Another quick update from the Tales of Shedwood Forest. Having recently been invited to take part in another Robin Hood game I am beginning to get very excited about how my own project might develop. Rather unusually this particular project has started with the terrain build and not the figures however saying that I have purchased some of the lead & plastic I need but it’s going to take time to get this stuff painted.

Frequent visits to ebay are showing a dearth of suitable cheap figures so I will almost certainly have to pay full whack for ranges from Fireforge, Crusader, Curteys, Foundry, Blacktree Design and a few others. Enough of the moaning and onto the serious stuff.

First up I have almost finished the renovation of the fortified priory. This was built many years ago and ended up in a horrible grey enamel. A new paint job, new roofs, some doors (salvaged from the GW castle sets I have been acquiring) have all lead to a rather impressive building. I have some monks on the painting table so the priory will have a few residents in place soon.