Saga Sunday; Shieldmaidens v Saxons

Well, Vikings v Saxons really, but using my Bad Squiddo Shieldmaidens as the Vikings.

Owen and I played a few games at the club on Sunday afternoon. He hadn't played Saga 2 before, but it didn't stop him using his battleboard to the full, with his army being made up entirely of Warriors, grouped into four 12-man units, giving them access to some annoyingly useful abilities.

I started off with an army containing Thrall archers, as well as the usual Hirdmen and Bondi units, switching things around to give me an actual Shieldmaiden unit (led by a Valkyrie) after the first game. This is a useful addition, with eight attacks, plus a War Banner which allows the unit to remove a point of fatigue for free.

We ended up playing three games, all of them incredibly bloody encounters. We pretty much fought ourselves to a standstill in the first, I lost the second and Owen lost the third one, losing his Warlord in the process.

Anyway, it was a lot of fun, and here are some pictures of the action;

Bad Squiddo specials - Lucrezia Borgia and Caterina Sforza

I bought two blister packs from Annie when I visited the Bad Squiddo stand at Warfare at the end of last year.

One represented Caterina Sforza in two separate poses, one in armour and one without. The other featured two different poses for Lucrezia Borgia.

They have been sitting waiting for me to paint them which I have now done.

First, here is Lucrezia dressed as an assassin with two blades. I think she will work well in all kinds of games.

I think that of the four figures, she is my favourite, but they are all nice miniatures.

Now, here is Lucrezia in more conventional dress, in green, together with both versions of Caterina.

I wanted to stick to a simple colour palette and I liked the idea of Caterina in blue. When I painted her armour, I used silver with some blue gunmetal mixed in, because I wanted her armour to look like an expensive custom-made suit. You occasionally see blue tinged armour, so it seemed like a good idea to keep the blue theme consistent.

These were fun to paint, lovely clean castings with no flash. I think that they have a future in fantasy games, as well as in a more historical setting.

I don't think that these are available from the Bad Squiddo website, so I am glad that I got them when I could.

A Most Despicable Place - Sharp Practice in the North American colonies

Over the weekend, I took part in a massive series of linked games of Sharp Practice set in the French and Indian Wars (part of the Seven Years' War), fought out between the French and their Huron allies and the British on the border between the French possessions and those of the British.

The basic premise was that the British had been repelled in an attack of Fort Frontenac and were seeking to find ways of striking back against the French. One story thread involved British forces trying to make their way back to safety following their failure in front of Fort Frontenac. Another was all about British forces trying to land troops from boats after crossing a lake and advance through French territory to carry out reprisal raids. The other main story line was all about French raiding forces trying to push out British settlers and destroy their farms and villages.

The weekend was played out at Bristol Independent Gaming and the whole jamboree was orchestrated by David Hunter, whose efforts have to be applauded, not only for the huge amount of work he put into the event, but also for his energy and good humour deployed in keeping the whole event moving along as a plausible narrative. 

Although the whole thing went down to the wire, the small advantage gained by the French on the first day was maintained until the end, in part by the victories gained by the Huron forces, which denied the British victories even though these wins didn't count towards the French tally.

On the British side, we saw a lot of line troops, including Grenadiers, supported by a few units of Light Bobs and colonial Rangers, while the French fielded a lot of Compagnies Franches de la Marine Light Infantry, Milice canadienne, some Huron allies and regular French line Fusiliers and a few Grenadiers. The French also had the use of a light cannon.

All the tables, which covered a wide range of terrain, looked absolutely fantastic and gave everyone a lot of challenges in how to best deploy and control their troops. I think that the most difficult table for the British was the beach landing one, which led to them struggling to get moving, which they eventually achieved after the third game of the four sessions played over the two days. The best thing about that particular scenario was that it allows both sides to actually fight an 18th century linear battle, although even here the skirmishers and light infantry had a big role to play.

It was good to catch up with some old faces and new ones too, especially those I knew from the Sharp Practice Facebook page, as well as Rickard Clarke and Nick Skinner (the actual TooFatLardies) who dropped in on Sunday morning on their way home from Crusade in Penarth on Saturday. I will surely treasure the photo of Sidney Roundwood that Rich gave me before he left.

Anyway, I will let the pictures speak for themselves.

My army for this year's Hordes Of The Things tournament

I've had these painted up for a while, but didn't feel like posting them until the tournament was almost upon us (it is this coming Sunday).

I didn't want to field either of my existing HoTT armies (Warhammer Empire Averland and Hyborian Barbarians, the latter now repurposed for Sword and Spear Fantasy) so I spent some time looking for alternatives. I did thing about an Undead theme for a while, also Orcs and Goblins, but nothing grabbed me. In the end I decided to do something that might be difficult to play against, i.e. an all-Aerial army. It was only later that I realised that it would also be difficult to play with as well.

Anyway, I had a few things lying around, and a quick small purchase filled the thing out, so here it is;

It is a fleet of space ships (actually six of them are really Kra'vak drones) from Ground Zero Games, with a small asteroid as the Stronghold. The asteroid is made from a polystyrene ball covered in Basetex textured paint.

The army consists of

1 x Aerial Hero General (with the red flashes on the base and the weapons pods)

1 x Aerial Hero

6 x Flyers

Stronghold

I am pretty happy with how they have turned out. I know that they will be tough to get moving, because in HoTT, aerial units require two PIPs to activate, but it will be interesting to see how they fare.