Painting Update - SAGA (and a Warning)

I managed to finish the 4 point Anglo-Danish Warband today. I'm also starting to get a little tired of hand painting shields. Those LBMS transfers are starting to look like a good purchase...

The Warlord.

Hearthguard with Dane-Axes.

Regular Hearthguard.

Warriors. 

The second unit of Warriors. 

I also managed to get my hands on a few Norman knights, and I finished the Warlord last night:

And for the Warning. When transporting certain miniatures (as a hypothetical example, let's say they're spaceship miniatures on flight stands) from one area to another, be aware that these certain miniatures may or may not be relatively unstable, which may lead to them falling from whatever you're using to carry them. Which would lead to them smashing on the ground and possibly breaking into multiple pieces that may or may not have snapped off within one another. 

Painting Update - Full Thrust

Last December I ordered a couple of intro fleets for Full Thrust from Ground Zero Games. I haven't gotten around to playing the game very often - a definite shame - but I've finally gotten around to painting the miniatures.

They aren't works of art, but my thinking behind them was more RTS focused then miniature wargaming. In most spaceship-based wargames, distances are going to be so large that anything in scale would be smaller than a grain of rice. So the miniatures are more representative of where the ships would be instead of the actual ships themselves. With that in mind I painted them to be visually recognizable - you'd know whose ships are whose with a glance, no matter how mixed in they are.

By the way, the descriptions for the Full Thrust factions come from Wikipedia, which cites the first Full Thrust: Fleet Book as a source.

 

"The "Federal Stats Europa" (aka "Federated States of Europe") was formed in 2101 after the split of the European Space Force. Their colonies fall under a democratic council core government. Their official language is French and their space navy is known as L'Astromarine des FSE. "

The intro fleet consists of:
Lemnos class Frigate x2
Thetis class Destroyer x2
Ardennes class Light Cruiser x2
Tourville class Heavy Cruiser x1

Duquesne class Battlecruiser x1

  

"The "Neu Swabian League" was formed in 2101 after the split of the European Space Force. Their official language is German and their navy is known as the Kriegsraumflotte. Their capital is located on the planet Neu Salzburg."

The intro fleet consists of:

Pola class Frigate x2

Lützow class Destroyer x2

Emden class Light Cruiser x2

Helgoland class Heavy Cruiser

Von Der Tann class Battlecruiser

I should mention that Jon Tuffey, the owner of GZG, included a Battleship and 2 additional Destroyers for each fleet in my order. Really excellent service all around from Jon. 

The stands are GZG's bog standard bases spruced up with magnetic adapters from Ninja Magic. I've really got to get some more - they're awesome!

I'm hoping to get some games in with Full Thrust in the future. 

Anglo-Danes vs. Vikings - SAGA AAR, Part 2

For our second game, Curt and I modified the scenario 'The Challenge' into a knockdown, slobber-knocker slugfest between our two warbands.

(When I say 'modified', I mean that we didn't realize that the Warlords could break off from their duel in the center of the field, and that some of the Warlord's rules, like Resilience, still applied. So when Curt realized that his Warlord killing mine would end the game, we decided to keep going until one side was completely wiped out.)

Curt once again had the Vikings, and I the Anglo-Danes.

I placed the terrain myself, as I wanted the scenery to be a little nicer than our last game.

The terrain I placed was some fields on the left surrounded by small stone walls, a couple rocky ground formations in the middle, a small marsh to the right, and a road running down the middle.

  

The two sides lined up (Curt's Vikings have their backs to the camera). The Rocky formation broke my line, forcing my Dane-axe Hearthguard to advance separately. 

 

While our two warlords clobbered each other in the center of the table, we found ourselves spending most of our SAGA dice getting our warbands across the field. The position of the rocky terrain forced me to hold a unit of Warriors back from the melee (which turned out to be a blessing in disguise).

 

My old Warlord wasn't so lucky, and his younger, faster Viking counterpart eventually cut him down. However, he was left with only two wounds left (down from a beginning total of 12!) and the rest of my Warband performed spectacularly, ripping into Curt's shieldwall like a sharp sword through wet paper. 

 

After a few more rounds of fighting, I was definitely in the lead when it came to troops - Curt had lost his Berserkers, and both his Warlord and a unit of Warriors had taken a lot of hits. I had lost a unit of Hearthguard, and a unit of Warriors on the right had been bloodied, but I still had two units fresh and ready to fight. 

To my left my Dane-axe Hearthguard faced off against Curt's last untouched unit. 

A couple turns later, tit had been given for tat and both units were down to half-strength, but my Hearthguard had consistently been able to push Curt's warriors back. 

Back on the right, my two Warrior units faced of against Curt's bloodied Warlord and the last of his Hearthguard. 

 

A lone Danish Hearthguard stands, with the rest of his comrades killed. At least they took out Curt's Warriors!

And finally, Curt's Warlord falls. It was a bloody fight, with Curt's warband staying until the last man - I only had 5 men left myself! 

This was a fun game, and although we strayed from the rules a bit, it was definitely a better learning experience as we practiced the various Movement, Combat, and Fatigue mechanics that make SAGA an enjoyable, tight ruleset.