Warlord, Wild Bill Hickok and a Fish

I've been logging long hours at the painting table tying up loose ends and rushing projects to the tabletop.  As a result, today's drop is a bit eclectic.

Up first is Gripping Beast's Macbeth.  He's a giant of a man who serves as a hero for a Scottish warband in SAGA.  The 3rd photo down gives you some idea of how large this figure is.  Let's just say he was not impressed by the puny Wild Bill.

Wild Bill and the bank heist figures are for Dead Man's Hand.  I think Bill would be pleased with his sculpt, especially the long and lovely locks!

My dad found a ceramic fish at a yard sale over the summer,  Since it was badly worn, he asked me to repaint it.  It looked like an ideal project for an airbrush so I set it aside until I bought one. Six months later, I still don't have an airbrush so I gave it a go with my brush. I'm not used to working in 1 to 1 scale and the flat surfaces were a challenge. A green wash and a sepia wash helped hide my brushstrokes. I don't think taxidermists have to worry about me cutting into their painting business!

In the weeks ahead, my posts will be focused and fish free. Our ancients group is switching rules and I'm painting up two new 15mm ancients armies as part the changeup.  If I want to see our ancients group grow, I need to have spare armies to lend out or field at demos.  Seeing as how I sold off most of my ancients collection last year, I've got a bit of work to do!  

Paging Mr SAGA

Today's post is filed under "Loose Ends."  First up are 8 warriors to round out my Breton warband. I got tired of painting horses in my fall Breton run so these fellows sat while I rested. Combining my Bretons and Normans, I can field 20 mounted warriors and 36 mounted milites, enough for a Hail Caesar army!

I've meant to paint up baggage for SAGA for some time.  SAGA allows you to base baggage on 40mm x 40mm bases up to a 50mm by 100mm.  You can use livestock, civilians, wagons and/or carts to make up baggage.  Each player in the Grand Melee is required to bring 3 pieces of baggage to the event. With this fire under me, I finally got to painting mine up.  I went for a distressed grey wood and I'm reasonably pleased with how it turned out. Carts and peasants are Gripping Beast, as are the mounted warriors above.  

EDIT: I've had requests for the wood painting recipe. Unfortunately, this time it's a little sketchy.  I didn't take notes because I wasn't sure how this was going to turn out. 

I started with black primer, then dark grey applied with a wet brush.  Take care to keep black intact in the recesses where you can. I did this by using the side of my brush. Drybrush with a lighter grey and wash with Army Painter Strong Tone. Finish with a beige green drybrush & highlights on tips and edges. I think I used Vallejo German Camo Beige but I didn't write it down and I have LOTS of light greens. I hope this is helpful and I will take notes next time!

You'll note my baggage train isn't carrying anything at all.  My thinking is that villains and marauders will pass on sacking an empty baggage train and pursue something more loot-tastic. Let's see how this strategy works down at the club.

Last up is my reworked Norse Gael warlord.  After a frustrating stretch of 4 losses, I decided to tweak my list by running my warlord with a Dane axe.  This lowers his armor class but he'll dish out more hits and get 5 dice with the "Howling Axes" ability.  I repainted his base to match the rest of the warband and added a second figure.  The end result is a nice improvement on the original. In his first game out, my warlord not only survived a number of enemy strikes, he also brought home a win. I can only conclude that Odin approves of this revision.

I love a man in a uniform - done!

These WW II Brits for Chain of Command are done, and just in time. I was getting burned out by the sameness of painting up 100 British soldier. Now it's time to move onto something else.

Infantry Section:  An infantry section plus five riflemen. Leftovers and spares perhaps?   

6 pd AT gun crews #1 and #2: They're single mounted to make it easier to remove casualties from the AT gun.

Vickers medium MG team: This was my favorite set from this run of figures.  The Vickers is a WW I throwback.  

While looking for painting inspiration, I learned something interesting about the Vickers.  It was used for indirect fire at ranges of up to 4,500 yards. Such fire could catch the enemy by surprise and restrict movement.  It was used to good effect against trenches, road junctions and dead zones.  The Vickers had a back sight with an extension for this purpose, as seen in the photo below.    

British at Overloon, Netherlands using plunging fire.  

Some of our SAGA players also play Bolt Action so I'm painting up a force to join them. Here's my first drop of Soviets.  With 2 boxes of Warlord Games plastics, I'll be lucky if I have all my fingers left when I'm done.   My hands look like I was in a knife fight that I lost quite badly!  

Everything counts in large amounts

It's time for a quick look back at 2014. With both of my kids off to college, I was able to paint frequently AND get out for weekly games.  This gaming life is the good one!

SAGA is our game of choice since the epic SAGA Storm game day.  The Storm brought many new players in and I can find a match at Fantasy Flight Games on most Thursday nights. I’m thankful for the new friends I made last year through this hobby.

I’m also thankful for my brushes and paints.  Painting quiets my mind like nothing else and helps me forget my workday troubles.  Painting to audiobooks and podcasts is my favorite thing. I try to listen to something that matches my project.  As I was assembling two boxes of Warlord Games Soviets this week, I listened to Von Lucks “Panzer Commander.”  Luck's stories fired my imagination and carried me through the tedious process of assembling 70 plastic soldiers! 

I'm looking forward to new projects in the new year.  Some of our new SAGA players also play Bolt Action so I'm going to give that a try.  I painted lots of WW II figures last year but they were all on contract. This year, I'll paint a Soviet force that can double under Bolt Action or Chain of Command. With Muskets & Tomahawks in rotation, I'd like to also paint up my first French & Indian War figures.

I have a couple of things I'd like to accomplish this year.  I'd like to slow down and work on improving my technique.  Failing that, I'll trot out Stalin's line that "painting in quantity has a quality of it's own." Or something like that.  I'd like to put the brush down and make quality terrain this year as well. These recent pics illustrate how great terrain lifts up a game.  

My OCD-fueled painting tally shows 434 28mms and 1,271 15mm painted in 2014.   28mm output is down a bit from last year but 15mm is up. The excruciating details of what I painted are below the break.  

Here's to the New Year.  May it bring you great gaming and painting!  

A Distant War Drum

Hugh brought his French and Indian War collection down to the club and I got in my first game of Muskets and Tomahawks. From the makers of SAGA, M&T is a skirmish game representing the small wars fought in North America during the late 18th Century.  There have been a number of excellent reviews of M&T so I won't revisit the game mechanics.  Anatoli's Game Room posted up a superb review here if you'd like to read about them in detail.

Hugh gave me a 20 minute rules review and we dived right in.  As the French & Indian player, I rolled up "Slaughter" in the scenario generator and Hugh got "Protect" as the British. He placed 2 units of civilians in cabins and his British light infantry in a firing line. The British had an Indian warband and Rangers off board.  At the beginning of each turn, he had to roll to activate them. Turn 1, he managed to activate his Rangers and it was a race to the cabins!

My plan was to use my French irregulars to tie up the British light infantry and send my 3 war parties through the tall corn and into the cabins.  My irregulars got excited when the British moved up to the split rail fencing.  They missed entirely with their first volley and the the British reply sent my irregulars reeling.  This was a blunder on my part as it allowed the British lights to pivot 180 degrees, reload and fire into my approaching warband.   

My first charge on the cabin was rebuffed by a volley from civilians manning the windows and doors. With two dead, my warband retreated into the cornfield. My other two warbands waited on Mogwai to sort out what to do next.  

Mogwai ordered a 2nd charge into the cabin that caught the civilians reloading.  Thrown tomahawks took out a civilian and the ensuing melee panicked them into a flight out the back window.  My warband raced into the cabin in pursuit, and not a minute too soon.  The British lights crossed the rail fence and prepared to loose another volley.

Things were trending very poorly for me.  The British Rangers opened up and sent one of my warbands fleeing.  I charged a depleted warband into the British lights and failed to budge them.  The only bright spot on the board was the fleeing civilians I was about to run down from behind.

Before my warband could dispatch the civilians, the Rangers charged my warband. The short and sharp melee sent the Rangers back in flight. If they'd beaten me, the British would have won on the spot as this was my last healthy warband.  As it was, my warband caught the fleeing civilians from behind and dispatched them.  A back to back activation allowed me to turn and charge the second unit of civilians from behind and dispatch them as well.  Out of the teeth of defeat, a surprising victory!  

I was really taken with M&T. Our tense game had many interesting decision points and was resolved in two hours.  In particular, I loved:

• The card driven activation with random events built in.  
• The Fog of War opening movement with dummy counters.  
• Morale and special unit characteristics. 

I ordered up a copy of the rules as soon as I got home. Hugh and I agreed M&T is on the menu for 2015.  What a nice surprise and I have to ask myself, why did it take me so long to try these rules?

Under a Raven banner

To finish my Norse-Gael warband, I decided to paint up a raven banner.  Accounts of the Battle of Clontarf (fought between the Norse Gaels and the Irish) include Jarl Sigurd and his magical raven banner.  Here's hoping that one of these bring me some magic in my games of SAGA.

How did it turn out? Well, I didn't like my first banner so I ended up with versions 1, 2 and 3. That gives me 4 choices for a banner.  I'd love to hear which you like the best.  And I promise I won't be offended if you choose the LBMS transfer.

I painted the white linen down to a dark base color.  It seems to me that you need a dark base and at least two highlights to make a banner pop. Below, you'll see an odd figure that comes from a 10th century Norse-Gael coin.  I love the figure but I haven't figured out how to make it look good on a banner.  So he ended up being a bit of a dead end.

This shot includes the green version. Since the background color was quite dark, I had to use a light color for the raven. I used bright red dots to try to make him pop.  

For my 3rd and final attempt, I painted the linen black.  Then I worked up to a sky blue background and highlights, being careful to keep black intact for a rough look.  

Thanks goes out to Michael of the Dalauppror blog for his tips and suggestions.  I was getting a little frustrated with this and he helped see me through.  That is the great part of blogging, isn't it? You can always reach out to a fellow blogger when you get stuck or need encouragement.  

Both of my kids are home from college and that is the best part of Christmas.  Where-ever you are, I hope you get to eat well, drink well, and spend time with the people you love.  Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Chop, chop, choppin' on Odin's door...

Architects of War comes through again!  Reworking my Norse-Gael list, I decided I needed 8 more warriors with Dane axes to get me to 24 total. I put in an order last week and 2 days later, they're at my door. With weekly games of SAGA, how could I pass on painting them up right away?  The photos confirm I couldn't. These Gripping Beast figures come with undrilled hands so be prepared to do grunge work before you break out your brush.

A bunch of our local SAGA players are registered for the Grand Melee in Chicago and interest in the game has never been higher. I've been able to get out for weekly games and all the practice is helping me get a handle on running this warband. I'm finding that the more Danish axes I field, the better the Norse-Gael perform. Most importantly, they're fun to run. My favorite tactic is to point the warriors at something and charge into them with "Howling Axes" and "Slaughter."

I'm still working on my linen banners for the warband.  I was a bit disappointed with my first attempts so I reached out to the banner expert, Michael of the Dalauppror blog. His lovely banners are the reason I wanted to try this. I'm going to incorporate his suggestions and see if I can paint something worth keeping.  Fingers crossed and thanks Michael for your help!