Indefinite Hiatus

For a variety of reasons, I've decided I can't really be bothered with the blog at the moment.  Or much in the way of Wargaming for that matter; it is not the welcoming bolt-hole from daily reality it once was; if anything it has in the last months only added to the stress of daily life, and there really is nothing I need less at the moment.  

I've been gaming for over thirty years and blogging for nearly seven, but the latter at least isn't fun any more.

If I kick this off again in the future, it will at least give me the opportunity to clearly reformat my content and editorial position.  It won't have to be compromised as it has become.  In the meantime I'll bid you 'Au Revoir'; until I feel like doing this, until we meet again.

Yeah, bye.

Headingley Bridge 1013ad

Due to recent disruption, this is going back some way, but myself and Paul have had several games of Saga recently, of which the first was a go at the river crossing scenario, with my Vikings facing his Anglo Danes:

Paul opted for mainly units of 6 men, but with a small reserve of four warriors to keep his options open.

On the other hand, I decided to field one huge unit of Hearthguard.  12 men in armour, to put the fear of god into the enemy.

The aim of the scenario, is to cross into the enemy territory across the river, with only two crossing points available.  The last time I played this scenario I won by dint of having long range shooting to clear the crossing points.  

This time neither of us had such an advantage and so both sides lined up for a slugging match, with the Anglo Danes choosing to attack first.

Paul sent his Axemen over the bridge, but  things did not go well when they met the mass of heavy Viking infantry.  Meanwhile my Beserkers came to the usual sticky end at the other crossing point.

There was an uneasy stand off at the bridge for a turn or two, but then the Vikings began a steady advance over it.

Whilst at the ford, the Anglo Danish leader was holding off the Viking bondsmen in what was becoming a desperate struggle.

Waves Danes tried to stop the Vikings crossing the Bridge, and paid for it in blood, but as the last of their leader's men crossed the ford, their sacrifice in holding  the Hearthguard on the bridge proved enough.

Paul clinched a narrow victory.  Had there been another turn, I'm sure my Vikings would have swarmed over the river in force, and taken the glory.

A fun and tight little game.

Another Unitended Project

Sometimes Karma keeps on giving, but does so with a wry sense of humour.  Having finally sold my Vampire Counts army for just shy of £300, I get handed a pile of freebies from Mantic Games - by the Chair of the Headingley Games Club - filled with guess what?  More blooming undead.

On top of that are a bunch of their Orcs and Goblins and a hardback rulebook accompanied by dozens of copies of their paperback edition.

So what to do with them?  Well, I don't really want them hanging around; but I can't ignore them, after all the club also gave me that nice pile of WW2 goodies a few weeks ago (which are of more appeal to me at present).  So my decision is to try and fashion introductory armies from the models, block based for maximum east of use, paint them fast and use them for introductory games.  Ultimately to be donated back to the club for future use.

After a bit of tinkering with lists, and rummaging in my bits boxes for a few spare figures, I was able to fashion two balanced looking 600 point lists, enough to get an idea of the rules.  Each will mean painting about 50 figures; not many but I have no intention of labouring on what will essentially be tokens to be used by anybody.  Not to say that I don't want them getting in the way of my own projects.

So each unit will be block painted in the bare minimum of colours, and then washed with Army Painter Quickshade mixed with Vallejo Varnish (50/50 mix - seems to work well!).  The first two are already finished and give some idea of the intention:

A troop of Wraiths, done with a sum total of 6 colours and the shade.  And a unit of Orclings done in a similar manner:

Both of these bases were less than an hours work combined, so hopefully I can knock out the rest of the armies in a similar quick fashion.  With my aim for the year being to clear more tat out my house and focus on less projects more thoroughly, it's best for these to get moved on ASAP!

A Return to Judea

So I've finally sat down and fabricated up another batch of Jewish rebels.  The building and painting for these takes probably as long as a unit of Napoleonic British.  Now I realise why I haven't got the armys' worth of figures off their sprues yet (some 18 months after buying them).

Still they look a fine bunch finished:

For this selection, I expanded the variety of shield designs to include some with a degree of Greek influence, but otherwise they were done in the same manner as the first batch.

I now have eight bases of close fighting troops and four of massed bowmen, a long way from an army perhaps, but closer to my goal.  I've decided that the heavy troops will be in units of three or four bases normally - three giving a 180mm frontage which is about right for Hail Caesar.  This also means that if I get one more batch of this size done I can assemble four reasonable units.

However, as my Spartans might say; 'if'.