The Romans Are Coming

After playing a couple of games of Saga yesterday, I took the opportunity to use some of the club scenery to act as a backdrop for some photos of all my Gripping Beast plastic Romans, well all the finished ones anyway because I have a lot more in the pipeline to stick together, as well as a load that are made up but need to be undercoated. These are unarmoured Roman spearmen and archers, plus some Dark Age infantry with spears and slingers.

I also have another box of Roman armoured cavalry to do and a box of Dark Ages cavalry who I will make up as light cavalry with javelins (to be skirmishers). I also have more Dark Age infantry, who I will probably make up as spearmen and a box of Saxon Thegns. Both of these who will be deployed as Germanic foederati heavy and medium infantry, and I will also be using a few of the Saxons as Roman armoured infantry with head and shield swaps. By the time I've finished, I think that I'll have a pretty large army to field in games of Sword and Spear. I am also thinking about using a set of the newly announced Gripping Beast metal Roman Cataphracts as elite cavalry.

Even without all the extra figures, what I have at the moment looks pretty impressive en masse and they will only look better when there are even more of them.

Saga - the Late Romans have a bad day

Well, Sunday was the first outing for my late Roman Saga warband down at the club. I had high hopes for my new troops, but I wasn't sure how the various Roman abilities on the battleboard would play out, especially as many of them are linked to the Roman Impetus feature.

My opponent Clive had brought along an Anglo-Danish warband, so there was a bit of a historical mismatch there, but the game's the thing, so I wasn't really that worried about an anachronistic encounter.

My warband consisted of 3 x 4 Hearthguards, split into two groups of six, 2 x 8 Warriors One with bows) and 1 x 12 javelin-equipped Levies, plus the Warlord. I hoped that this would provide a balanced force.

We ended up playing two games and in both of them, I was massively defeated. I think that the reasons for this were twofold. Firstly, I rolled some truly terrible dice in both combat and as saving throws, meaning that my units ended up losing pretty much every melee, and twice seeing complete units of Hearthguards wiped out in one round of fighting. Secondly, my Saga Dice rolls simply didn't give me the dice I needed to access the right abilities to counter Clive's Anglo-Danes and also be ale to get my troops moving. Losing whole groups early on also meant that I was rolling fewer dice, which made it even harder to trigger the better abilities.

There was, of course, a third reason for my failures. My battle plans were no good. In the second game, my archers were in the wrong place to actually do anything, and in both games my spear-armed Warriors were placed to meet threats that simply weren't there and were therefore similarly isolated away from the action. I also decided to take the battle to the enemy, which was a mistake. I should have sat back and waited for them to come to me.

I think also that the Anglo-Danish abilities maximised the power of Clive's troops while, at the same time exposing weaknesses in the Romans.

Still, this was a learning experience, and the games were fun, well as much fun as they could have been seeing my troops come of worse in every combat with predictable regularity. Having to roll to save 9 or 10 hits on six troops, and then rolling nothing but 1s and 2s does get a bit annoying.

Anyway, it is back to the drawing (i.e. battle) board for the Romans, with some careful thought about how best to use the abilities. They are a lot harder to play with than the Vikings are.

Anyway, here are a few pictures from both games;

Late Romans WIP

I don't usually post any WIP pictures, but these Romans are such a lengthy and complex project that I thought it would be worth showing how far I've got with them.
               

I'm not going to say too much about what is there, because I will leave that for the finished figures, but they have been quite interesting to paint. I've not done any 28mm plastics for ages, and I'd forgotten that they always look a bit crude until the shading, dry-brushing and inking stages are over. Now that I've inked them (using Windsor & Newton Peat Brown drawing ink) I think that they are coming together nicely.

Apart from on my two original test figures, I've undercoated the shields separately, white on the outer side and brown on the inner.

I've also made up 12 Dark Age Warriors as javelin-armed Levies, and made up the four command figures from my second box of Roman Infantry to offer up a bit of variation to my Roman units, two as armoured swordsmen, one unarmoured swordsman and a vexilla bearer. I have undercoated these in brown because I am thinking of painting these levies up in fairly rustic dress, using a pretty restrained palette. For the four Romans, it doesn't really matter what colour they are undercoated, because they will end up looking very different once finished.

The reason I've done the shields separately in white is so I can apply these rather lovely shield transfers from Little Big Men Studios before I glue them onto the troops. The range of different designs is pretty wonderful, and I intend to use a few different patterns over the course of the project, not least on the recently announced Late Roman plastic cavalry from Gripping Beast. I also understand, because I emailed GB and asked about it, that later this year there will be some unarmoured plastic Roman cavalry too, with the option of making some horse archers. That please me greatly.

Now that I've broken the back of the work, I can start thinking about the Dark Age cavalry and how I want to use the rest of the foot figures still on their sprues.

Freyja's Wrath Kickstarter - a short update

 

For people who are interested in this, you can check the actual Kickstarter here. So far, three stretch goals have been unlocked and there are some nice updates on what the actual minis look like once painted. The next stretch goal is going to be "Freyja on Boar and Foot", which sounds pretty good to me!

There are 11 days left to get pledged.

I have to say that I am very excited about this, the minis are terrific and are going to look great on the table.

Freyja's Wrath - my sample figure is painted

I really wanted to paint up the sample Kickstarter Shieldmaiden that Annie sent me on Saturday, so this morning I primed her with Tamiya light grey spray primer and once the primer was dry I set to work.

First, I just blocked out the various areas in base colours, with the chainmail hauberk in black. After sticking the figure on a 2.5cm round base I set to work with the detailed colours, highlights and dry-brushing, before finishing the figure off with a wash of Windsor and Newton Peat Brown drawing ink.

I painted the shield separately and superglued it on before the ink wash stage. Once the ink was dry, I flocked the base and added a couple of small clumps. Finally, I varnished the figure in matte spray varnish and gave the finished article a good spray of Testor's Dullcote. Unhappily, this never seems to completely remove the shine in close-up flash photos, but I can promise you that in the flesh, she has a proper matte finish.

Anyway, here she is;

OK, not as professional a job as Ralph Plowman or Paul Sanderson could achieve, but I am pretty pleased with the results. Now, all I need to do is logon to the Kickstarter once it is open at 18:00 tomorrow (23rd January).

Freyja's Wrath - A Bad Squiddo Kickstarter

OK, now this is really exciting stuff. Annie Norman of Bad Squiddo Games is launching a new Kickstarter on 23rd January. 

I am sure that many people already know Annie's company and the kind of figures she sells, but for those who don't, here is Annie's own description of Bad Squiddo;

"Hello! Welcome to Bad Squiddo Games, home of Believable Female Miniatures, Baggy the Bag and Annie - The Dice Bag Lady. Bad Squiddo Games provides gamers and painters around the world with the largest selection of female miniatures out there. As well as manufacturing my own line, I carefully hand pick stock from over 50 different manufacturers. This means you have as wide a choice as possible to get that perfect miniature, and it’s a great way to bring many companies to work together in what is a small and friendly industry.
Just like a large portion of the industry, Bad Squiddo Games is a one-person business set up, owned and run by me – Annie Norman. However, I do work with some absolutely outstanding sculptors, casters, painters and concept artists – both in talent and personality – which make up the “Bad Squiddo Family”.
Phil Hynes, John Morris, Alan Marsh, Shane Hoyle, Jo Brumby, Tim Prow, Martin Baker, Delaney King, Kev White, Mark Evans and Andrew May are the putty pushers behind the madness so far, with Paul Cubbin and Andrew Taylor (and John Morris again!) bringing them to life with stunning paint jobs. They all deserve a mention and clap here as the company would not be what it is without them.

The number one aim for Bad Squiddo Games is to create and supply the miniatures that would have made the hobby far far better for my 10 year old self. To welcome more young girls and women into wargaming and miniature painting, as well as providing diverse options to the entire gaming community. And yeah – cool toys!"

So, on to the Kickstarter news. I had a hint of what was coming when I chatted with Annie at Reveille II last November, at the time it was all hush-hush, but now, all can be revealed. The Kickstarter is a comprehensive range of Norse-themed 28mm figures, entitled Freyja's Wrath; Swordmaidens of all kinds, archers and slingers, beasts, goddesses, the range is going to be huge.

Bad Squiddo already has a range of Swordmaidens, and very nice they are too, so it is great news that these new figures will be completely compatible with the existing ones.

I am lucky enough to have been sent a preview figure, and she is fantastic.

My first impression was "Wow!" The casting is incredibly clean, absolutely no flash at all and the detailing is crisp and unfussy. One thing that I love is that her spear is a steel wire one rather than a moulded piece (which are fine but do tend to get bent). I am really looking forward to painting her up (which I hope to do ASAP in the week) and getting some pics posted, but for now, here she is with her shield attached with a blob of Blu-Tac.

Yes, she is a Viking warrior, but I can see lots of other possibilities for these figures. After all, when it comes to Late Antiquity and the Early Mediaeval, there are plenty of similarities in the dress and equipment of most of Western, North and Central Europe. These could also feature in all manner of fantasy armies, from Middle Earth to Frostgrave.

For me, the first things that spring to mind are Dux Brittaniarum and Saga (and there is a new version of Saga being released by Studio Tomahawk very soon), but I am sure that everyone has their own favourite set of rules. They would easily work in a Sword and Spear (or S&S Fantasy) setting too.

So, if you want to get on board, the Kickstarter will be active at 18:00 (UK time) on 23rd January.