The Amber Wash

Last night at the club I was planning to split my Viking army and take Mark B and Stephen N through a game of Saga.  With good fortune Andrew was able to lend us his Scots so my Vikings remained together, under Stephen's command, to take on the Scots, commanded by Mark B.  Both are first time Saga players and, as umpire, my bias was with my Vikings.

Note the almost empty beer glass.  See the wet patch on the table.

No harm done, beer easily replaced (in more miniature friendly format). 

The Viking Warlord proved he was no King Canute and stopped the amber wave.

 

The Scots decide to come forward, perhaps inspired by the flood of free beer.

It starts off with mixed results, although the Vikings eventually get their act together and do some of the Scottish warriors.

The berserkers, who bore the brunt of the amber wash, go into action.  Stephen's dice throwing comes good, but they find their way to the enemy Warlord blocked by a single Scottish noble.  In the next turn the Scottish warriors went after the Viking warlord, but unsuccessfully.

Then the berserkers took out the last noble and got stuck into the enemy warlord for a bit of mutual destruction.

Victory to the Vikings (possibly their first in my possession).  Maybe all that was holding them back in previous games was the lack of an amber wash? 

French Reinforcements

These are the French infantry from my July 2015 acquisition now rebased for Napoleon's Battles.  The figures I purchased from Ian Hemmings have been supplemented by about a dozen painted by Chris H that he was divesting himself of.  All I had to do was fix a few paint chips, do a tiny bit of detailing and rebase.  Ian had based them really well and it was my reluctance to spoil the basing that caused the passage of time, but if these wonderful figures are going to get some use it had to be done.  In the end I was able to peel a good bit of Ian's flock off and just had to supplement round the edges.

There's 80 figures in total.

Three different styles of painting in this picture.  

The third from the left (aqua pompoms) are by Chris H.

Fake blue sky and green grass, but real shadows and sunlight.

Detail is fantastic - just look at the piping.

 AB Miniatures are a treat and I'm lucky to have these wonderfully painted figures in my collection.

Now my challenge is to get the them onto the table top.

Stakes Revisited

Back in July last year I finally finished making some stakes for my Burgundian army (the post can be found here: http://onesidedminiaturewargamingdiscourse.blogspot.com.au/2015/07/stakes-and-burgundy.html).  When I came to use them in a game a month later, I had it pointed out to me that the base was too narrow (as specified in the FoG rules).  That wasn't an issue, however their tendency to fall over was.  I steeled myself to rebase.

The stakes (small nails) had been set in a narrow strip of wood (coffee stirrer type thing) and I'd even put magnetic strip on them thinking that would give them some bottom weight.  The magnetic strip peeled off without too much trouble and then I took a gamble and glued them to some new magnetic strip cut to size.  They were then built up with plaster, painted and flocked.

Looking good.

Better still, all done.

I'm also relieved to see that stakes feature in the Impetus rules.  Time to make up an army list for my Burgundians so I can try them out with Impetus.

Romans versus Parthians

Using army lists I constructed, I used Richard's Romans to fight his Parthians.  550 points as follows:

The Parthians I took from the Impetus rule book list and the Romans I created from the list in the same book called Caesar's Romans.  I was aiming for quality Parthians and indifferent Romans.

Richard set the terrain, an oasis which we classified as difficult and two patches of rocky ground that were broken.

As can be seen 550 points gives a sizeable army for both sides.

The coins represent commands and are great in helping to remember who has moved.

I was relieved to find I could deploy in with my left flank on the oasis and my right on the table edge.

The view from the Parthian side.

My Romans sense danger.

The broken ground disorders my legions - can't be helped, I had them do a double move to get there as quickly as possible.

Rolling a double six for Publius on the first turn was a good sign.

My deployment on the left wasn't what I wanted.  The Auxiliaries should have been in the oasis.

With average command and all Roman leaders unattached being able to rally quickly became a problem, but if the broken ground was going to disorder them anyway...

The Parthian heavy cavalry get ready to strike on my right flank

Turn 3 and poor Crassius turns incompetent.

On my right the Auxliaries have pushed forward while the cavalry has held back.

On my left the cavalry did the same thing.

Wisely as the shooting commences.

Casualties and disorder mark the Roman lines.

But by the end of Turn 4 my right flank was starting to look a bit fragile.

On my left my Auxiliaries were destroyed and my cavalry repulsed, but a unit of legionaries pinned some cataphracts.

In the centre progress was slow.

While on the right... Progress.  We are getting clear of the broken ground and the enemy cataphracts are pinned, although you'll notice a gap on the left hand side of the picture due to the obliteration of one unit of legionaries.

Turn 6 and we have victory on the right.

The centre is interesting, but that unit of cataphracts looks to be in trouble.

The centre left looks a bit thin...

While on the far left a mass of horse archers is about to breakthrough.

Turn 7 has the enemy horse archers swamping my left.

The enemy centre is in trouble.

While I am victorious on my right.

The Parthian basing is slightly lighter than the Romans.  If you look closely you can see their remaining seven units of horse archers.  But that is not enough to maintain their army morale.

Pack up the camels.

The Pathians call it quits.  The Romans can have all the sand they can carry... For now.

A refight on the same size table but with just 400 point army is perhaps a better way to go with this tricky encounter.

No problems with the rules, although I did take time to check a number of things.  The game took around five hours including set up and pack up and a short break for lunch.

Vikings flee from Scots

Best to get that out of the way right up front.

First up I send in my warriors and hearthguard against Olivier and his Scots.

It doesn't go so well, but still has some promise.

Using berserkers to mop up was a very bad move on my part.

I'm left cowering behind my levy, I mean "skilfully manoeuvring to a better position".

Olivier won on points.  This is my second loss in the NWS Saga League.