Where's all the size 6 Shieldmaidens when you want them.

I had my second introduction to SAGA last night in preparation for the club campaign, first of all I normally would not play the game and if I really wanted to do a Dark Age skirmish type game I would jump for Dux Britanniarum (the only good thing I have ever seen from Too Fat Lardie's). Nonetheless I find myself co-Emperor of Byzantium and at the same time a Saxon warlord in Northern Germany, last night I was being taught the basics in order to prepare me for my conquest of the West.

We started off with only four units, one being the Leader, I had cavalry hearthguard, some warriors and some archers, I fought Ian (Vikings) with Dan umpiring and keeping me straight on the rules and tactics. In the first move my archers took a pounding and became exhausted having not loosed one flight of arrows. The were then charged but managed to survive and fell back. My warriors in turn managed to kill off the men who had thumped the archers, things seemed to be going my way, the Vikings were now down to three Saga dice and I still had my original four. The barbarians now got the drop on me and charged my cavalry, this was a fight between two hearthguards and I expected to either win or inflict heavy casualties. Once the pluses and minus' from the battle boards had been brought in to the melee I watched in horror as I was reduced to one cavalryman while the Vikings were almost untouched.

No, not Byzantines, they were being used elsewhere, but pretending.

 Never fear this effort had left the Viking hearthguard in a vulnerable position so I charged them with my Leader and his two henchmen, they managed to escape the slaughter with one man, I had narrowly failed to knock Ian down to two Saga dice. The battle now came down to a fight between the leaders, a titanic struggle now ensued in which both nearly killed each other, but it was my man who fell while Ian's was battered but still standing. Working out the result of this combat was fairly Byzantine and I am still not sure I understand it.

Things looking good.

Things looking bad.

 I don't know a lot about the game but the Viking battleboard did seem to have more going for it than the Byzantine one, the choices on mine had quite a lot to do with archery and only one was specific to cavalry, which you can only use of course if all your cavalry are not dead. The Byzantine armies were mainly known for their cavalry and use of mercenaries, not so much for their archery albeit much of their cavalry did carry bows, but mine did not. Perhaps I am being a tad ambitious about conquering the West. Elsewhere we had another Saga game, Bloodbowl and Age of Sigmar, the latter although not my cup of tea must be admired for the figures and the painting abilities of both Ryan and Julian, I shall take some pics in the future.

I am now, after years of prudence beginning to gather a small lead hillock, I am halfway through my Grenadiers de France so ordered up my next batch of SYW figures, two cavalry regiments and a couple of mounted officers. While idly googling I came across Offensive Miniatures and was very impressed by their Fallschirmjager and Waffen SS figures. As you know I bought Fortress Budapest, have just finished a series of maps for tank battles in East Prussia and am now working on a large project to reissue Bloody Streets which is the definitive day by day battle for Berlin. All this has me thinking of last ditch defences against hordes of Soviets; a broken Heer, SS, Volksgrenadiers and Volksturm on the edge of Gotterdamerung. So, I have ordered up two squads of Waffen SS the excuse being that they were in Normandy and I can use them on the Eastern Front and the defence of the Reich, if I ever go there of course or should I just give in and say it is only a matter of time.

The upshot of this renewed interest in WWII is that the SYW project will have to share my time with the expansion, I also have a lot of map work on the plate for the time being as well, the large American War of Independence Atlas is back on and the Berlin maps are a challenge.

Attack on Seelow Heights.

 Lastly here are a couple of battlefield pieces for Normandy, the figures are from Warlord and were disappointing, the legs of the cows were a bad fit and the 'horse' is more like my little pony.

Just noticed, I have not painted the harness, grrrrrrrr.