Riders on the Storm

September 20th is the SAGA Storm, an all-day SAGA event at Fantasy Flight Game Center. Organizers Eric Hagen and John Stenz are porting their experience running Games Workshop events into SAGA and the results to date are impressive!

Eric created a game day T-shirt and dice. I'm in for both, of course. My only worry is that wearing a T-shirt will clash with my plan to dress Berserker-style for the day.  Eric is a master painter, battleboard creator and terrain guy. He's got 10 themed boards ready for the event, each for a specific scenario.  You might find your warband raiding or defending a Viking village, escorting livestock through the Scottish highlands or fighting on the shores of Normandy. That's only 3 of the 10 scenarios!

John and his wife are master tournament organizers. When I saw John's 40K tournament this spring, I was awed by it's size, professionalism and organization.  35 tables preset with wonderful terrain, pro-painted armies, close to 100 attendants, digital clocks, organizers on the floor and loads of swag. In contrast, we can hardly get 6-8 guys out for our historical game days. All the hard work is paying off as interest in the event is very high. All signs point to an amazing day of SAGA, great company and beer.  I can't wait!

I've been running my Norse-Gael warband to warm up for the big event.  In what may be a sign of things to come, I'm finding it hard to earn a victory with these barefoot fellows.  The NG battleboard requires good dicing during personal challenges to unlock many of their abilities. Clearly, I need to get my hands on Eric's new SAGA dice because the ones I have are broken.

There is nothing quite like a big event to power up one's painting mojo.  Even though I have WW II and Old West aging out in the queue, I'm sticking to my Dark Age painting for a bit longer.  For the last 16 Norman warriors, I chose a Reconquista color scheme.  That makes these a down payment on my future Spanish warband for Crescent & the Cross.

Just when you thought you couldn't possibly look at another Spearman, I've got an angry band of Flemish Mercenaries on the tabletop with a few Anglo-Saxon warlords thrown in.  There is a story behind that, and I'll save it for my next post.

Painting Normans, step by step

SAGA is catching on big here in the Twin Cities. Hoping to help or inspire new SAGAmites everywhere, I'm sharing my Dark Age painting process in a single, overly long post. How fortunate that I have 48 Norman spearmen waiting for a quick coat of paint! 

Basing and priming: I used a glue gun for basing as it's fast, reliable and the glue smooths out the "pitcher's mound" on the base of the figure. I primed in brown to save a bit of brushwork. How much of the primer you keep intact is your call. The back of the shields, spears, and shoes are all good options.

Paint in sets: To maximize efficiencies, I sorted the Normans into 6 sets of 8 figures. I then block-painted each set with a single color. I'll mix sets at the finish line to achieve an irregular look. 

Block and wash: After block painting, I washed the figures with Vallejo's Sepia Game Color.   My other go-to wash is Army Painter Strong tone. Both give great results in shadows and shading.

Highlights: While painting for speed, I want my Dark Age figures to mix well.  Therefore, the Normans got highlights like the rest of my SAGA war bands.  While the primary blocking color was identical in each set, I varied my highlights slightly for variety. I avoided highlighting folds and recesses to keep a shadow effect  At gaming distance, the contrast looks quite nice.

There's a saying in miniature painting that it's all about "faces, bases and flags." To that end, I put use Foundry's flesh triad. I painted the flesh last to avoid the trial that comes from stray paint getting onto a face that is not my own.

Shield Transfers: I use Little Big Man Studios shield transfers for my SAGA painting as they both lovely and a time saver. Transfers were applied over white painted shields. Each shield got a coat of my lightest grey and then white since I can't get one coat coverage with just white. 

Color coordination: I sorted the transfers by color-red, green, blue and brown-and matched them to the warrior set painted the same color. While perhaps ahistorical, color coordination is pleasing to the eye and I do want my warriors to look good.

Paint the shields in: LBMS transfers are not a tight fit over the rimless kite shields. That's where you need to paint the transfers in. By feathering your paint just over the edges of the transfer, you'll fool people into thinking your shields were hand painted. I won't tell if you don't! 

Sealer:  I sealed the transfers with Future acrylic finish. Army Painter Matte varnish knocked down the shine at the finish line.

Basing: Bases were a mix of 1/3 fine & 1/3 medium Woodland Scenics ballast and 1/3 of a larger grit.  The bases were painted with Americana Milk Chocolate, a wetcoat of Cocoa over that and then a light highlight of Sand. I put tufts down and hit everything with Army Painter Matte Finish. With that, 32 Norman spearmen are done.  Time to crack open a frosty beverage and celebrate!  The next 16 Normans are well under way but I ran out of shield transfers, dang it.  

I'm planning to use these figures to turn my SAGA Norman warband into a playable Hail Caesar or Impetus army. To that end, I need many more mounted warriors. And Warbases bases to rank up my skirmishers. And more shield transfers.  And a local opponent would be good unless I want to paint up both sides.  I guess my last bit of advice today is to look before you leap!

Flemish Mercenaries for Saga

Up next is the last unit for my Norman warband. Because there isn't a single non-shooting ability on the Norman battleboard for foot troops, I wasn't keen on painting these up.  My Saga-savvy friends pointed out that there are scenarios where the Normans need foot warriors to take and hold buildings.  Slow but tough, Flemish Mercenaries might serve a purpose in a Norman warband. Once I figured that out, it was on to the painting table.

Shield colors were carried into a few fashionable helms.  The color-coordinated uniforms are sure to sweep the ladies in waiting off their feet!  Gripping Beast figures with LBMS transfers. The bases still need painting, drybrushing and flocking but all the hard bits are done.

Sir Inksalot strikes again. 

In Saga, Flemish Mercenaries are made up of 8 foot warriors with an armor of 5,  +1 better than other warriors. Their movement is only Short in open terrain due to their equipment and formation. They don't generate Saga dice, which is a big negative. Their abilities include Foreigners, which allows them to activate once a turn for free. Shieldwall means that when they're engaged in melee by an enemy unit or are the target of shooting, the Flemish are considered to be in hard cover.

All in all, they're an interesting option that'll add a new wrinkle to any Norman warband. I'm going to test these fellows to see how it plays out. If nothing else, I do hope they look dashing as they slowly shieldwall their way across the Dark Ages battlefield!

I've been hearing a bit of buzz that about a shortage of sable brushes in the US.  I don't know the truth of it but the idea made me sweat. I use a sable and I never want to go back to working without one.  I went to the excellent Secret Weapons website and bought 2 Raphael Kolinsky Sables, size 0 and a 1 just in case.  In my collection of brushes, the Raphael is my workhorse.  It's durable and most importantly, always keeps a fine point.  Secret Weapons sells many cool products for hobbyists so I'm happy to recommend you check them out and the Raphael brush!

Norman Warlord and his Retinue

More, more, more Saga!  I had 9 Gripping Beast Norman Milites left from the big Norman lot I acquired in December, so I figured I'd paint them up. As they are the last of my mounted Normans, I took extra care in painting them up.  I didn't use the AP dip/brush this time, instead opting for an Agrax Earthshade wash.

No painting pegstands with this lot.  I glued them straight on their horses and painted away.  I was going to base the  warlord and his bannerman together but that fizzled when I discovered only one horse and rider fit neatly on a 50mm warlord base.  In the alternate, I'll  keep the warlord and his faithful bannerman a matching pair on the tabletop.

While painting shields on the last two batches of Normans was good practice, I had LBMS shield transfers sitting unused.  So, shields and banner by the always superb LBMS.

I worked the shield colors into the helmets for some of these lads.  That kind of color coordination is probably fantasy but pleasing to the eye.  I also took care in picking up the shield tranfer colors and blending them into the shield rims.  The result is seamless enough that a couple of my friends thought these were scratch-painted!  I should have said, "why of course..." and let them marvel!

I've got a game of Saga on the books for this weekend.  I hope to post up an AAR next week.  All painting and no play makes Monty a dull boy.

Norman Milites for Saga

Here is the 2nd and final round of my Conquest Games plastic Normans.  To distinguish my milites/hearthguards from the sergeants/warriors, the milites are all chainmail clad and kitted with teardrop shields.

The Norman battleboard in Saga is built for mounted and shooty troops.  Mounted move 12" while foot troops creep along at 6".  Throw in a double move and these boys can  fly across the battlefield!  Just as Superman has his kryptonite,  mounted troops suffer a -1 to armor when shot at so you must hide them from javelins and archers. This tends to make the Normans a finesse warband.

My friend Hugh suggests the Normans shine brightest when employed with the Muhammad Ali strategy. Hunker down against the ropes, er, the back line of the tabletop and let your opponent come to you.  Play rope-a-dope by covering your mounted troops with your archers & crossbowmen.  Jab with missile fire until your opponent charges into your screening shooty troops.  THATS when you unleash a punishing barrage of uppercuts with your mounted troops and drop him to the canvas.

It's pronounced Mil-Eets, sucker!  

Plastic Norman sergeants

Up next are my Conquest Games Norman Sergeants.  As with all plastics, you're trading fiddly prep and assembly for $ saved.  Conquest Games plastics run $30 for a box of 15 mounted Normans versus $5 a figure for metal.  I'll post a side by side comparison of painted Norman metal and plastic figs before this warband is through.

Lots of options off the sprue with both horse and men gluing up nicely.  I employed a painting "cheat" to speed things up.  I sorted the horse into 4 lots and then hit them with either Army Painter Black, Leather Brown, Bone or Fur Brown primer.  I then worked up the socks, manes and tails before washing.  The cheat worked well with Leather Brown but not so much with Bone.  2 tone highlights were in order for some of the models, while others looked fine with just a colored primer and wash. 

Don't look at me, I'm hideous! 

A close look shows who was primed with what color.  

I managed to squander the time saved with colored primers in my next step!  I've seen some of you make painting stands for mounted troops so I tried to copy that.  I drilled out water bottle caps, clipped out piano wire, drilled holes in the the rider's bottoms (hey now!) and blu tacked them down.  This was a poor idea as the figures kept swiveling about on the piano wire until I blu tacked the feet as well.  HINT! Just glue the damn figures on their mounts and paint away. It's not like we're painting for the Louvre.

I should mention I assembled my milites/hearthguard with teardrop shields while sergeants/warriors got spears and round shields.  That way, everyone can tell at a glance what my warband is made up of.  The bare wooden shields were a lifesaver as it meant I only needed 8 fancy shields and not 12!

Saga - Norman archers and crossbow

First up for my Norman warband are my shooty guys.  The Normans have good shooting abilities on the Saga battleboard.  Massed Volley lets bow units shoot at twice as their normal range.  Even better, Storm of Arrows activates ALL ranged weapon units to shoot with no fatigue. Being able to shoot archers and crossbow twice in a turn with no fatigue is a big bonus.

Crossbow units reduce the armor value of their target by 1.  Unfortunately, they suffer a -1 to their armor value in melee due to their cumbersome equipment.  I'll greatly enjoy turning enemy units into pincushions as they approach and then I'll be quite sad when they get sucked into melee.  Crossbow count as warriors so they're easier to activate than levy archers, they generate a Saga die (levy archers don't) and they get more dice per figure for shooting.  They seem like an obvious first choice for any Norman warband!

I painted 8 but count only 7 in the pic.   Hellooooo?

Queue Monty Python's "How Not to be Seen."

Levy bow are my second shooty unit.  The question is, do I take 2 units of levy bow or 1 crossbow and 1 levy bow?  2 units of levy bow kills you in the Saga dice generation phase so it's a tough call.  I may paint up a 2nd unit of bow so I have options. I can see Burkhard shaking his head "NO!" at the idea.

All Gripping Beast figures. Army Painter Strong Tone painted on, not dipped.  I put a coat of Future polish over the top over the highlights for protection, followed by Liquitex Matte Medium to take the shine off.  Basing is Woodland Scenic ballast- 50% Fine, 50% Medium.  And since these metal figures are prone to tumbling around in the box I'm storing them in, I ordered up Litko magnetic bases for the 25mm disks.

Next week, I'll get my Vikings on the tabletop at a small local Con, followed by food and beers with my friends.  I'm thinking the whole event will look something like the picture below. Ah, life is good!