28mm Norman-era spearmen & knights

I picked up some great value Saga Norman/Crusader figures at a Bring and Buy a while ago, and have been working out ways of using them also for L'Art de la Guerre.

For the Knights the answer has been to buy a few more mounted figures, based them up on 60x60's to create some extra bases, each with a single figure and two metal-shod strips either side of them. The Saga-based knights can then magnetize onto theses bases, meaning that I get a 3-knight base for the "cost" of just one extra figure.

I'm not planning on using a full Norman army in ADLG (just yet...) but these guys will be a nice Christian Spanish allied contingent for the 28mm Arabs I'm planning on painting sometime next year.

That allied contingent will probably need a couple of bases of Crusader / Spanish spearmen units, so I did pick up 2 packs of Crusader Miniatures Normans who painted up very easily and quickly.

The men are all undercoated in black then quickly painted in a simple uniform colour, which barely shows as there is chainmail covering most of them anyway. The shields are intended to look "Spanish".

These are the Saga spearmen I picked up in the Bring & Buy - their basing is just too big to work using sabots to turn them into close-formation ADLG spears, hence the need for extra figures, but the shield patterns gave me a good key for the rest of the men I painted up to match them.

Some nice and simple figures, and a quick paint job making a ready made allied contingent. 

28mm Assyrian Generals for ADLG

Whilst an Assyrian ADLG army still sits in it's original shipping box almost a year after buying it in the Museum Miniatures January sale, I have been occasionally browsing eBay and other sites for some 28mm Assyrian Generals to use as commanders with the 15mm army.

And now I've found some - and even better, they are Foundry figures!

ASS005 - "Heavy Infantry Command 1" on their website, picked up off eBay for a snip and now all set to lead the Assyrians to victory (I hope...).

My painting doesn't sadly match that of Foundry's professionals, but I did attempt to use the same sort of colour scheme, which will no doubt become a reference for the rest of the army once it's done.

I also normally only put one figure on a base for these commanders, but with a blister pack with musicians and standard bearers who otherwise won't get used, and also realising that 15mm Chariots will never fit on a 40mm round base I just went for it and added all the figures to 3 Commander bases.

This link will take you to a listing of 28mm Assyrians on your local eBay

In places their eyes are a little "fried egg" - egg-specially when viewed close up - and I might go back and touch them up if I have the inclination, even though at gaming distances they are perfectly OK

This link will take you to a listing of 28mm Assyrians on your local eBay

Rounding out (literally) the Myceneans

After a quiet few weeks on the website here's a couple of bits and pieces to round out the Mycenean army that appeared a few months ago

First up is the near-obligatory 25/8mm Genius Commander on a 40mm round ADLG commander base.

He is from Redoubt Enterprises Trojan Wars range, selected as much for his big cowhide double-bass shield as any other reason.

The figure is code TX4, representing Achilles, hero and leader of the Myrmidons on foot in bronze armour with bronze helmet, figure of eight shield

He comes accompanied by shield bearer (who didn't make it onto the base).

Next up are some "Barker Marker" 40x40 bases, featuring 'shrunken' photos of my own chariots taken from directly overhead together with a push-pin handle.  Very simple do to - an overhead photo of a chariot, cropped and resized to fit on a 40x40 MDF base.
 

They function primarily as a ZOC marker, but also as you can see here my Chariots are deeper than the regulation 40x40 and so there may be times when it could be useful to have a 40x40 substitute base to drop in, perhaps when they are turning or in a congested part of the table where the extra 10mm on their bases would get in the way. These markers fulfil that role - and also act as Ambush Markers too for 3 uses from one base.

Finally, some Mycenean-specific hit markers using - again - the textbook cowhide shields.

There are from Magister Militum - £2 for 8.  They also have other shields, and my upcoming Assyrian army will probably feature a similar idea. 

Mounted on 18mm round bases, with the edges colour-coded for the number of hits they are small enough to fit in behind each unit without being too distracting.   Since doing these it's been suggested to me that possibly doing a similar thing with single archer figures could be a neat way of identifying the units with integral archer support.

Border Reivers - 28mm

A couple of years ago I bought some 28mm Border Reivers from Alan at Hoka Hey - partly because they were nice figures, and partly because he's simply such a nice guy as well that I felt it only right to give him some of my hard-earned!

The figures have sat languishing in the "to be painted" pile for far too long, so I recently managed to give them a fairly quick and dirty paint job to get them table-ready - nothing special, but much better than bare metal.

I'm actually not sure what they will be or what I got them to be - probably the closest thing they can be used for is to appear as some sort of "Brigands and Coutiliers" or "Hobilars" or something from a late Medieval English army in ADLG, as even though some of them have pistols, with just 6 mounted and 6 (matching) infantry they are still a very long way short of being a 28mm FoG unit.

 

The figures are the "Broken Men" pack from Timeline / Hoka Hey - Alan sells several similar sets of "families" of men.

Perhaps one day Saga will end up reaching into this era and they will make the heart of a great warband !

They are a-gaggin' and a-drippin'....the Welsh get lush for some 25mm ADLG action

Almost 2 years after the majority of the figures were bought in a bring and buy, finally a full fat 25mm mostly Old Glory Dark Ages army from the Celtic fringes of Britain makes its way onto the table in the guise of the Welsh.

Inspired by tales of derring do and the discovery of some daffodil-simulating grass tufts on eBay, this mountain-dwelling army takes on all comers from the far ends of the earth to the naughty neighbours across Offa's Dyke and the Irish Sea in 5 spectacular full colour match reports with big, big, big soldiers on display throughout.

The man, the legend, the Knight of the Realm Sir Tom Jones gives the judgement for the home team and of course, Medieval Hannibal is there for the insight and analysis at the end as well.

It's massive. It's Lush. Its Welsh through to the bone. And there are plenty of "double-L's" in there too for good measure.

Pour yourself a pint of Brains, settle in for the evening (because as Sir Tom would say, "it's cold outside") and enjoy the spectacle in these 5 widescreen brand new reports.

Saga V2 - a short and hairy summary of the changes from V1

The new version of Saga (V2) is getting great early reviews at CLWC, with a cleaner and simpler set of mechanics that appear at first glance to be less susceptible to being "gamed" than V1.

The club have cobbled together a summary of the key changes we have found so far which you can download from the CLWC club page

Hopefully it's of use and encourages you to have a punt on this new (and we already think, "better") edition of a great and very popular ruleset.

This is a totally unofficial summary of the changes between versions, so let me know if you spot any errors! 

Saga - the return...

Having not played Saga in just over 2 years I wheeled out the Vikings (in a no Cross & Crescent allowed) event in Reading today - and demonstrated how important it is to practice, finishing with nul points out of 3 games.

Admittedly there were times when I didn't have the rub of the green - facing Jomsvikings and their movement-denying Wrath tricks in a scenario where you had to move your troops around to occupy table quarters, and then a previously unseen internet-only Anglo-Danish monstrosity which had three units of un-killable fully armoured Warriors who I had to try and cut through to Kill the Leader...  although forgetting I had the option to re-roll 29 dice in one attack also played a part!

Anyway, the mostly-Foundry figures got out of the foam padding and onto the table, so that bit was a success.

Here are some photos of the boys in action (click on any image to see the full size version)