All Quiet on the Martian Front: First painting

My All Quiet on the Martian Front Kickstarter box arrived today.

My three-year old saw the awesome plastic tanks and tripods, and insisted we go paint some right away.  So, here is the result, possibly inspired by Hello Kitty.

SAGA Tournament at Great Hall Games

 

On Saturday, Great Hall Games hosted a SAGA tournament.  We had six players, and went through three rounds.  Terrain was preset, with four different tables, each using a different scenario from the SAGA rule book.  Aaron of Great Hall did a great job arranging the tables and scenarios, as well officiating with skill and impartiality.  Thanks Aaron!
 

I have still not managed to finish my own SAGA Warband.  Luckily, Charles was kind enough to loan me his Anglo-Danes, which happily is the same nationality I am working on.

My first game was against Matt's Vikings, on the Tarn of Omens table.  The scenario was the basic Clash of Warlords, with the goal being to eliminate your opponent's warlord.

Matt was using the Viking hero Harald Hardrada.  This lets him field a single unit of veterans of the elite Varangian Guard.  A formidable force, with armor of 6, and Dane-axes.

This is my single pic from this game, about 3 turns in.  My Warband is to the right.  I sheltered my Levy archers behind the tarn (pond), from where they ineffectually pelted Matt's warriors with arrows.  At this stage in the game, I was feeling good about my chances, thinking my Warlord was well protected behind the line, and that I would turn Matt's left flank with the unit of warriors at the top of the picture. 

Alas, within a couple turns I had lost about half my Warriors and Hearthguard in a rolling melee in the center.  While attempting to counter-attack the Varangians, I made the mistake of leaving my Warlord in the open, unsupported.  Matt quickly seized on this error, ending the game.

My second game was against Joseph's newly (and well) painted Vikings, on the "Village of Pillage" board.  The scenario was "Homeland," which requires the players to blind bid to be the defender.  I figured Joseph, like any good Viking, would want to be the attacker, and so I guessed he would simply bid six points ( the maximum), in order to ensure I would be defender.  I therefore bid five points, so that my force would be as large as possible.  To my surprise, Joseph bid three, meaning he got to defend the village with three points of troops, while I attacked with the full compliment of six.  To win, I would have to completely clear all three buildings of defenders by the end of a set number of turns.  The Viking defenders could win by either having at least one man in a building at the end, or by killing my Warlord.

 

As to why the Vikings would be defending a village against Anglo-Danes, we figured this was an English village, taken by the Vikings earlier, and my guys were the vengeful local garrison, come to turf the Vikings out.

Here is the game at deployment.  My Warband is massed outside the village.  Joseph's Warlord, accompanied by four Hearthguard and four Berserkers, lurk around the corner.  Finally, a unit of eight Viking Warriors was skulking in the building on the right.

My troops closing in.  In his next turn, Joseph probably would have won the game, as he arranged his SAGA dice to allow the Berserkers to charge my Warlord via a series of multiple activations, with a bunch of nefarious Viking SAGA bonuses added in.  Luckily, I had left a SAGA die on the "Intimidation" special ability, which allowed me to cancel the second of three activations Joseph needed to get his Berserkers into contact with my Warlord. 

Thwarted, and knowing the unarmored Berserkers would be easy prey for my waiting Levy archers, Joseph hurled them into my mob of twelve Warriors.  I think the four Berserkers managed to down seven Englishmen before being sent to Valhalla.

What the Berserkers could not finish, Joseph's Warlord did, single-handedly slaying the five Warriors.  Unfortunately, I forgot to take any more pictures of this epic battle.  In subsequent turns, my Warlord charged in with the Hearthguard on the right, and gave the Viking Warlord and Hearthguard honorable deaths, out in the open where the Valkyries could find them.

 

My Warlord then led his surviving Hearthguard to storm the building, rooting out the eight Viking Warriors who cowered there, and slaying the final Viking on the last turn of the game.  Whew!  Meadhall reclaimed (and probably in need of a cleaning)!

 

For the final round, I moved over to the "River of Blood" board ("Battle at the Ford" scenario), against Pete's Anglo-Saxons.  This scenario is played for a set number of turns, the winner being the one who has more troops on the opponent's side of the river (i.e, you want to keep the bad guys on their side of the river, while crossing as many of your guys as possible).  The Anglo-Saxons are similar to the Anglo-Danes in many respects, both have some defensive abilities, but the Saxons favor large numbers Levies and Warriors, because their SAGA board predicates several special abilities on having units of ten figures or more.  I was interested to see them in action, because I'm planning on adding extra figures to my Anglo-Danish warband  to allow it to morph into an Anglo-Saxon force.

Turn One.  I tasked a unit of six Hearthguard and massive unit of twelve Warriors with defending the bridge on the left, while my Warlord led my remaining forces in an effort to secure a bridgehead on the right.  As luck would have it, the Anglo-Saxons had basically the same plan, so the game proceeded very symmetrically, with each of us attacking on our respective right flanks, and defending on the left.

I placed my Hearthguard at the end of the left-hand bridge, where they could all fight against a two-man wide column of attackers.  Ten Anglo-Saxon Warriors were the first to make the attempt.  They acquitted themselves well against my Huscarls, each side losing three men in the first clash.  On the next turn, I moved the surviving Hearthguard back to the right, and sent the twelve fresh Warriors in to relieve them.

Meanwhile, on the right, Pete move up a unit of twelve Levies armed with spears and shields to defend the other bridge.  I softened them up with a few volleys from my bow-armed Levies, before sending a unit of six Hearthguard across the bridge.  Although Pete ably boosted his Levies' abilities by using the "Saxon Kingdom" SAGA ability (temporarily making the Levies fight like Warriors), my Huscarls contemptuously forced their inferiors back, killing all but three in the initial struggle.

 

In later turns, my Warlord came over the bridge too, and the Levies were routed.  Pete moved up a block of ten Warriors to halt the Danish advance, but (following some more good shooting from my Levies) they too fell before the Dane-axes (though not before the last Saxon Warrior heroically dueled with my Warlord.  There is a place in Valhalla for that Saxon, should he care to take it!).

 

I neglected to take further photographs of the action on the left, which is too bad, because it was very interesting.  The now-reduced unit of Anglo-Saxon Warriors charged the newly arrived Danish Warriors, but had the worse of it, losing six men for only three Danes.  The sole surviving Saxon fell back, but could not leave the bridge, because the Anglo-Saxon elite, some eight Hearthguard, were already crossing the bridge from the other side.  In good SAGA fashion, the last Saxon Warrior, perhaps ashamed, charged alone, only to fall harmlessly against the Danish shieldwall.  Pete's Huscarls came over the bridge next, and they were fearsome, managing to wipe out the remaining Danish warriors in two turns, for a loss of four of their own.  This left them on my side of the bridge--four Hearthguard against my three.

The last turn.  On the right, four of my Warriors and the twelve Levy archers poured across the bridge, giving me a total of ten victory points (3 points for the Warlord, 1 for a single Hearthguard, 2 for four Warriors, and 4 for twelve Levies).

 

On my left, my three Hearthguard, the only Anglo-Danes left on that side of the river, charged the four victorious-but-tired Saxon Huscarls in the flank, which meant only three of the four fought back.  SAGA and attack dice flew, and at the end the last man standing was an Anglo-Dane.  Accordingly, I won the game 10-0, but had the game continued, Pete's Warlord would no doubt have crossed the river and exacted vengeance.

Conclusion

As this is a SAGA of warriors, we didn't bother to rank everyone--you either won the tournament, or you didn't!  Matt won with a perfect record of 3 wins, triumphing in his last battle against Adam's vicious Irish, over on the Village of Pillage board (I suspect the Irish were out of their element in an urban environment--they are by all accounts almost invincible otherwise).  I believe a good time was had by all, and thanks are owed to Great Hall Games for hosting, and to Aaron for organizing the tournament, acting as umpire, and setting up a great selection of boards and scenarios.  Thank you!

Trench2114 Painting Contest

Cactus Games, manufacturers of the relatively new line of 15mm sci fi figures, known as Trench2114, is having a painting contest. 

Here's my entry, a squad of their Panzer Troopers Heavy Infantry.  Although Trench2114 has a World War I meets Sci Fi style, I've painted these guys in a more colorful look, because I envision them as the house retinue of some planetary feudal lord. 

The Class of 2012

Here is a quick shot of every miniature I painted this year (excluding the garden gnome).

I completed:
Fubarnii Militia Unit (28mm)
DBA Rhodian Greek Army (15mm)
Two Warmaster Skeleton Units (10mm)
DBA War of the Roses Army (10mm)
DBA Camp Follower Element (15mm)

This is modest compared to the output of many others. But it's more than I painted in the last three or four years combined. Apparently, having a permanent painting table for the first time really helps.

These figures also represent a departure in technique. I formerly used a mix of simple block painting, drybrushing, and washes, executed with an eclectic mix of Citadel, Coat d'Arms, and other paints.

I have now shifted to layering shadows and highlights, with between two and five shades of any given color, using Reaper paints. This is a slower technique (but not that much, because second and third layers go on quickly once the base color is blocked in). I think the results are worth it, and I find painting this way is more enjoyable too.

X-Wing Space Mat

Inspired by a post over on TMP , I ordered a custom star map from SmartPress, a company that prints vinyl banners. SmartPress

I got the heaviest, 18oz matte vinyl. It lays flat within a few minutes of being unrolled.

Turn around time was less than two weeks, and double-sided, 3' x 3' mat came in at under $35 shipped. I think it looks better than most mats purpose-made for space gaming, because it uses actual images of space. Both the Hubble and European Southern Observatory websites have excellent images free to download.

I used a colorful picture of the Orion Nebula for one side. I wanted the other side to be more muted, more of a generic starscape.

A 1:1 Scale Figure

About a year ago, we bought a garden gnome.  Not just any gnome, but a cast-iron beast of a gnome from Costco.  According to the box, his name is Brumbiddle.  Now, Brumbiddle is a really excellent gnome.  Unfortunately, his paint proved rather susceptible to fading.

So, I decided to repaint him, with craft-paints which are supposedly meant for outdoor use.  This took a bit longer than I expected, but here he is at last, restored to gnomish glory.


Brumbiddle in his natural habitat.





Warmaster: Tomb Kings

Warmaster is a 10mm-scale fantasy game GW came out with in 2000.  I have a large army of High Elves that I painted back then, which I plan to display in a series of posts fairly soon.  Although Warmaster is a really excellent game, it's been almost ten years since I last was able to play.  Recently, seized with nostalgia, I decided to paint some opponents for my Elves, at long last.

I decided on the Tomb Kings, which are GW's pseudo-Egyptian undead army, both because they are relatively easy to paint, and because I already had a bunch of them stored away.  I just finished the first two units for the army, two regiments of humble skeleton warriors.

Here is the first regiment.  Check out the new recruit popping up from the ground.

And the second.  The blue on their shields and banners is not quite so dark in real life.

Both regiments massed together.  The hieroglyphics on their banners and shields are two of the four characters to make the Nehekharan word for vengeance.  Next, I'll paint two units of skeleton archers to go with these guys, and give them banners with the other two glyphs.  I plan to paint this army in brigades of four units, organized and named in this manner.

Here, a scouting party of Elves makes an unpleasant discovery.

 Finally, a wider shot, with some of the scenery I've picked up to go with this army.  The pyramids and the crumbling head are all aquarium ornaments from a company called Zanusa.  Ebay seems to be the best place to get them; I was able pick the up for under $7 each.  I might repaint them at some point, but the look reasonably good as-sold.

Warmaster is still sold by Games Workshop, under the "Specialist Games" heading, albeit at prices almost double what was charged ten years ago.  The secondary market is much more affordable, particularly for the more common armies like Tomb Kings and High Elves.

Although Warmaster is no longer actively supported by GW, the unofficial Specialist Games forum has a quite active Warmaster section here.  It also hosts an excellent database of articles from the now sadly defunct Fanatic Magazine, which for a time supported Warmaster and the other Specialist Games.