The Saga Returns

In a bid to continue my resolution to complete my outstanding projects this year I returned to my abandoned Scottish Saga army. From the tournament I had played a year ago I had left myself two unpainted Thanes (Hearthguard) and had acquired one of those rather sexy banner bearer miniatures.

I used the nicer shield transfers for the Thanes

This kilt is meant to match the Warlords

I set about trying to remember how I had painted the warriors and attempting to follow suite.  After painting one of the units I did my usual trick of changing how I paint, so the second unit is a bit different.

Editors note - I love this guys mad eyes! 

The banner bearer, is a superb model, he seems to have been sculpted in quite a different fashion to the other models. Far less cartoony and the cloak have much deeper folds. I really like him and wish the entirety of my warband were like this.

I managed to get a game in as I had a day of work and hadn't hung out with my mate and owner of the local gaming store, Pete. This was my first 6pt solo game, I was facing Normans, which Pete is very experienced with. I boffed up on my Scots' abilities the night before, but knew I wouldn't have my plan finely tuned.

First thing that hit me, was how expensive Scots are to run, in terms of dice.  Take the Soer-Chele (Levy) for example, one die to activate (move and throw Javelins) but you also want a die on Runnung Away. I badly needed to have a die on Keeping the Distance, in order to grant a unit heavy cover from the tonne of archer abuse I was suffering at the hands of Pete's crossbows and double range peasant archers. By the time you load up on your basic abilities like Hold the Ground, which you want covered every turn, preferably in conjunction with Give Ground or Of Wood and Steel, you've barely got enough dice left to actually activate the units.

In our game I took a lot of casualties crossing the battlefield, in one turn I rolled 5 ducks (common) and 1 snake (uncommon).  Following turn all 6 dice were ducks, there really wasn't much I could do with that, so suicidal charges at Pete's Warlord were the order of the day. First charge saw my Warlord miraculously still alive and Pete's warriors whittled down from taking their Warlord's hits. Somehow even though he had some amazing ability on his Warlord, which requires double rare dice but makes his Warlord like a God of War, I manged to keep mine alive. Once again I charged in, with very little support but the dice were friendly and I managed to kill Pete's fatigued Warlord. A good fun game, although playing with the store owner means inevitable interruptions.

I learned a lot in this game. I need to alter the configuration of the army, by splitting one 8 man warrior unit into two 4 man.  One will join an 8 man unit to form a man unit, whilst the remaining 4 man unit hang back and provides a die. This is pretty gamey, which I don't like, but it needs to be done for order efficiency and a 12 man warrior unit sounds like a beast to try and stop.  It's a shame I painted their kilts the same per 8 men, but I'm sure I'll cope.

The new configuration - with added doggie

Not sure when I'll play next, but it would be good to put the above theory to the test.  There's a chance the gaming store will be moving to near where I work in the future, so some lunchtime gaming could be on the cards, fingers crossed.

I hope you like the paint jobs, thanks for reading.

Dave