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!