Saga Shows

Today I want to share my two favorite Saga shows. Whether you're just starting out or you've been playing SAGA for years, you'll learn loads from both of these.

Joe Rogers produces and hosts Saga Thorsday, a weekly Youtube show of all things Saga.  Joe has a great wit and a deep love & knowledge of the game.  He brings in a new guest each week to talk about the boards and game. You'll learn quite a lot by listening to how other people play the game.  Check it out and subscribe!  Shameless plug, I'm the guest for this week's show about the Welsh.

Joe, Jim and Chris produce the superb Northern Tempest podcast.  You can access the shows via their FaceBook page here or the archives here.  These lads are passionate about the game and very active in UK Saga community.  I keep these queued up for my painting sessions and car trips. While listening to their show on my long drive back from the US Grand Melee, they persuaded me to paint and play Vikings for a time. Well done!

Both Northern Tempest and Saga Thorsday are great inspiration for planning and painting your warbands.  And playing the game too.  Check them out!

To wrap up, here's my current Saga project. 72 Anglo Saxon levy in the zenithal highlight phase.  Now to put some paint on them.

Dead Man's Hand

Great Escape Games keeps DMH fresh with a steady stream of new figures, gangs and color items. First up is the Tong Gang.  If you're a fan of the HBO series Deadwood, you'll recognize the fellow with the meat cleaver as Wu. Sometimes after a bad day at work, I too shake my fist and meat cleaver at the heavens. I had a bit of fun mixing up my blacks with green, blue and grey tints.

More Zombie denizens for the Curse of Dead Man's Hand.  A bit gruesome and colorful!

The Count and his motley gang.  Here's hoping they're as fun to play as they were to paint. 

Lastly, a hodgepodge of color items for the game. Rest easy, I sourced the snake colorings (other than the anaconda) to the American West. Today's post shows why painting for Dead Man's Hand remains one of my favorite subjects 3 years on. Where else do you get to paint snakes, zombies, horses, zombie cattle, Dracula and Wu too?

Bolt Action & Chain of Command

Fellow blogger Jason Meyers aka Der Feldmarschal is running a sharp looking Bolt Action event this weekend.  This set a fire under me to finish my Rubicon T-34/76. I had trouble with my airbrush splattering on my last highlight.  To cover it up, I had to go over everything a 2nd time and wiped out my panel highlights.  Ah well.

I put my 1000 point Soviet force out on my battle board for pictures. Now I need to read the rules a time or two and I'll be set for the big game day.

In other East Front action, my friend Hugh and I fired up a Chain of Command Citadel campaign. We finished the 1st campaign representing Gross Deutschland's attack at Kursk with his German's nudging out a minor victory over my Soviets.  The scenarios featured the early German attempts at a breakout. The Germans fielded a Tiger tank in 3 of the games and it was a monster!  In one, I stopped it only by popping an ambush with a flamethrower at short range.  The Tiger panicked and withdrew.  In another, my ZiS-3 and the Tiger traded shot after shot. The Tiger wised up and moved out of sight behind a building.  My crew manhandled the gun forward until they could take a shot at the beast.  And brewed it up. Epic! I was too engrossed in our games to get many pics but here is the showdown between the ZiS-3 and the Tiger.

We're going to start Part 2 of the campaign. After fighting Round 1 with no tanks, I'll be painting 3 T-34s for a scenario where I can field up to 4 of them.  Should be great fun and I hope to report back "The Tigers are Burning!"

Campaigns are the best.  I love the color, narrative, and story they bring. TooFatLardies always does a great job with their supplements.  I had only one platoon to see me through my first 5 engagements. I had to play conservatively to keep my force intact and that after all is the whole point of a campaign.  Bonus, this gave me the impetus to paint up a platoon of Black Tree Design Soviets to replace my Warlord plastics.