Miniature Musings - Vikings on the Brain

I have a confession to make.

I tend to... obsess a bit over new things.

It was a couple days ago that I realized I was doing it again. The facts add up, when you think about it. Purchasing the first season of Vikings in HD from iTunes, and then getting Wardruna's Yggdrasil album the next day (fantastic music, by the way. Perfect ambient tunes to hike around Ireland with).

That culminated today when I went 'round to Gamers World on my walk by from the center where I'm taking classes in Dublin. I had forgotten my charger cord for my netbook, and the weather was nice enough (i.e., not raining too much) that I decided the 40-minute walk back to the apartment wasn't out of the question.

I took a look at what they had for Saga, and in a moment of clarity/weakness, I picked up a Vikings 4 point warband and Anglo-Danish dice.

Now, for those of you who already play Saga, or at least are familiar with the rules, yes, I know I got the wrong dice for the Vikings battleboard. Which is why I also took the liberty of asking to have the Anglo-Danish warband and a set of Viking dice be special ordered (provided they can arrive within the two weeks before I return to the States).

So, when I get back, I'll have two relatively equal warbands to put together and paint, and them play some games!

Demo Games - SAGA AAR

As I mentioned last week, I'm here in Dublin for a study abroad program. I met up with Greg (quozl on several forums) after conversing with him over several emails, and he brought a pair of warbands for Saga to demo the game for me.

Both games were fought with the same scenario, which places a river down the center of the table separating the two players' warbands. There are only two places where the river can be crossed (which you'll see in the pictures).

My plan was to basically rush forward. Greg's Irish were a 'shoot-and-scoot' faction, as he explained it to me, with everything except the wolfhounds carrying javelins. While this makes relatively fragile in combat, Greg quickly demonstrated that getting into axe and sword distance of the Irish would be a gaunlet of flying pointy sticks.

With a 3-action combination on the Battleboard, the Irish javelins went from flying pointy sticks to being flying pointy sticks with heatseeking capabilities and exploding armor piercing tips.

The above is just such an example. The group of warriors crossing the river started at 8 strong, and and was reduced by have in a single turn. Of course, terrible dice rolling on my part didn't help at all.

The left flank was the first to fall, with my warriors and Hearthguard falling to sustained javelin attacks and with the jaws of wolfhounds clenched around their throats.

The right side didn't fair much better. The Irish Cuiradh (mini-warlords) and a unit of warriors did the same to my Warlord and his men as the Irish did to the vikings on the left. At the end it was a desperate charge by the Warlord that ended the game, with him falling victim to the Irish and looking like a giant pin-cushion. 

Greg asked if I was up for a second game, and I definitely was. So we reset the table and switched factions.

Wanting to try and copy Greg's tactics (the best sort of flattery) I placed a forest on his right which would allow me to throw javelins via my Battleboard (simulating the sneaky Irish fighting from rough terrain). Greg, on the other hand, found quite a powerful combination of actions that allowed his vikings to fly across the table - I'll be remembering that for sure!

I screwed up my deployment by placing my Irish within the Viking's movement range in the very first turn. Luckily I had screened my Hearthguard unit with my wolfhounds, which took the brunt of the initial Viking charge. Most of the action took place on my right, with the two Curaidhs and a unit of Warriors holding down the left (and being very important in the end!

The fighting on the right was fierce, with Greg slamming his vikings repeatedly into my own warriors. I wasn't as cunning as Greg was when he had the Irish, and so the Vikings tore apart my large Hearthguard unit and left only my warlord and a single dog. The dog didn't last long, and neither did my Warlord.

Incredibly, Greg had managed to save every single one of his units with just a single model in each, so he still had all 6 of his Saga dice in play. With only two Curaidhs and a unit of Warriors, I could only manage 3. Luckily, the Curaidhs could make a action for free on their own, so I could manage with two Saga dice for actions.

With the victory conditions for the game being the number of men you had gotten over the river, I realized with a quick count that if I could kill off the warriors awaiting on the opposite side of the river I could tie Greg's current score. I took a gamble and situated my Saga dice so I could effect some decent ranged combat.

With some lucky dice rolling, I managed to kill off the remaining vikings on the opposite side of the river. Greg and I decided to call the game at that point - I still had enough Dice and warriors left that if I holed up in the rough terrain of the woods Greg would have a tough time dislodging me, and I wasn't about to run up to the remaining Viking warlord and his surviving warriors to try and knock them out, lest they severely mess up my own few remaining troops.

And that was my first two games of Saga! I think I'm hooked - I'm already looking at picking up the Viking and Anglo-Danish starter warbands for myself...

Painting Update - FIW

I finally managed to finish up the full units worth of militia-type infantry for TVG, which means that with a few Indians to sprinkle in on both sides I'll have a decent amount of painted minis to have a game with.

They certainly are more colorful than their British counterparts. 

Sorry about the lack of 'pose' pictures like in the other post. I'll try to get them when I'm back in the states.

Oh, hang on, did I mention that I was spending 6 weeks in Dublin? Huh. Yeah, well, that's happening, so I'm going to try and keep posting while I'm here. I've managed to find Gamers World, the only independent game store in the city (and oddly located no less than a black away from the only Games Workshop location as well), and I've managed to set up a demo game of Saga with one of the locals. Expect that next week.

Also, I've only just realized that 4Ground came out with a set of North American settler cabins in 15mm. Pretty convenient, and they're nice looking to boot! Looks like I won't need their Russian cabins as substitutes, then.

Anachronism - Rules Review

I'm back!

Sorry about the lateness of this. The past few weeks have been particularly hectic for me. With the end of the school semester and planning for my trip to Dublin, I didn't have much time to do anything gaming related, and so the blog suffered. Now that I've adjusted myself to Dublin and have settled in a little bit, I can hopefully get a few posts in. Expect them to be a bit erratic, however, since I'm not entirely confident of my ability to produce content while trying to keep up with classes while touring as much of Ireland as possible.

As such, here's a mini-review of a little gem of a game I happen to enjoy.

Anachronism is one of those games I stumbled upon a couple of years ago, picked up a few items, and then promptly tucked it away in the closet. I found it again recently, and so have decided to pick it up again, especially since the cards are so cheap nowadays. Produced by TriKing Games from 2005 to 2007, Anachronism is a game in which players place the greatest of history's warriors against each other in quick, brutal arena combat.

The game's main component is cards - lots of them. There are five kinds of cards, and each player uses a 'deck' of five cards in a game. The most important of these are the Warrior cards, which act as the physical representation of your combatant in the arena. These also show your warrior's four stats: Life (hit points), Speed (how many actions they can take in their turn), Experience (mostly used as a tiebreaker, but can determine other effects), and Damage (how much damage they can do with a basic attack, i.e. one without an equipped weapon). Most Warrior cards also have some sort of special effect or ability that they may be able to do once a game, or may change how some cards or actions affect them.

The other card types are the various types of equipment that can be given to your warrior to fight with, and can be any combinations of Inspiration, Weapon, Armor, and Special cards.

The game takes place over fire rounds. The two warriors are placed in a 4x4 square arena on opposite sides, and both players take their other four cards and place them face down in a row. This is where the game gets interesting. In rounds one through four, a card is flipped from left to right. These cards determine a warriors initiative (who goes first in the round) and can have a number of effects, from adding combat damage, to repositioning warriors, to negating damage or other effects. Cards of the same type cancel each other, so you can't equip your warrior with four rounds worth of armor, for example. In the fifth round, experience determines initiative, and the warriors get one more chance to either kill his opponent, or finish with the most Life - the winner is the warrior left alive (obviously) or the one with the highest Life left.

Where the game really gets interesting is when you start switching cards up. Julius Caesar seems interesting enough with a Gladius and leather Lorica and worshiping Jupitor, but what if you gave him a Katana, Hoplite armor, and made him worship Loki? Even though its OOP, there are still enough cards floating around that a small collection isn't all that hard to collect. And they're cheap, too - 16 packs for $20 is the norm online. That actually gets you some 60+ cards to mix and match.

And these aren't cheap cards - in fact, they're so thick that they tend to warp a little from their own thickness, which isn't all that noticeable. A really cheap set of card protectors can keep them pristine and ready for play at any time.

So, that's Anachronism! If you can, grab a starter box and one of the later sets (which is when the cards starting getting better with more flavor). It's a cheap and fun little game to pull out for a quick match.

Painting Update - FIW, WWII, ACW

Ok, so I've been pretty terrible at updating on time for the past two weeks. I'm going to try and fix that.

Anyway, just another small update on what I'm working on at the moment.

It's combination of the last few tanks for my British force in 15mm (for Flames of War and, hopefully soon, Battlegroup Overlord), French, British and Indians for French Indian War in 15mm, and the last of the Union miniatures that came with the Battle Cry boardgame.

They're about 20mm in scale, and the detail isn't really all that great. But if the Generals and Cavalry are anything to go off of, then the Infantry and Artillery should at least paint up nicely. I'll have to get a game or two of this up on the blog - I have a small campaign going using the scenarios that come in the book.