Saturday, August 22, 2015

SAGA The Crescent and the Cross - second game

Friday afternoon my friend Frank stopped by for a game of SAGA The Crescent and the Cross. Frank has never played a unit based historical game before and swears by character skirmish games like Malifaux, so this would be something different for him.

I had set everything up the evening before, so that we would be able to start the introduction to the rules straight away. I do like how the game looks with everything lined up.

I chose both our warbands which were the same as when Michael and I had played Tuesday. So two units of Hearthguards and two units of Warriors each.

This time we had five pieces of scenery on the table, which I must admit that I prefer. As this was my second game in three days I found the rules even easier to remember. This is how we lined up.








This was again an enjoyable game and I do like how simple it is. We played the Champions of God scenario again, to keep it simple and allow Frank to get familiar with the basics of the game.

The game ended with another loss for me as I was unlucky with my camel mounted Hearthguards and my other hearthguard unit. I made a mistake with my Warlord and lost him as well.

The next time we play I would like to play a different scenario and with more points, so that there will be a bit of difference. My SAGA experience is still early days, but I feel that the game is missing something compared to my 1812 - Retreat from Moscow game. I do however believe that playing different scenarios and playing with more points will change this.












Wednesday, August 19, 2015

SAGA The Crescent and the Cross - first game

Yesterday my friend Michael and I had our first game of SAGA The Crescent and the Cross. The game pitted the Mutatawwi'a against the Milities Christi. Since I was the only one who had read the rules I concentrated too much on the rules to take any pictures of the action, so all the pictures in this post were taken after the game when I had a chance to take some of the minis and the scenery.

My daughter helped me set up the board, minis, dice before Michael arrived.




As this was our first game we decided that we would play a 4pt game. Michael played the Templar Knights (Milities Christi) while I played the Ismaili Assassins (Mutatawwi'a).

Templar Knights

Warlord

4 x Mounted Hearthguards
4 x Mounted Hearthguards

8 x Foot Warriors
8 x Foot Warriors w/crossbows


Ismaili Assassins

Warlord

4 x Camel Mounted Hearthguards
4 x Hearthguards

8 x Foot Warriors
8 x Foot Warriors w/bow

We also decided that we would play the straight forward Champions of God scenario. The scenery bidding ended with only two woods and a rocky ground scenery item on the table - very open terrain compared to what I am used to. For our first game it was fine however.

Our game lasted for about 1½ hours and went rather smoothly. We forgot about a few rules but I must admit that I thought the rules were pretty easy to follow. The battle boards add a wonderful tactical element to the game, and more than once both of us were pondering which option we should take.

I lost my Warlord early on and that severely hampered my chances, so in the end I narrowly lost the game.

I am looking forward to the next time we will play SAGA.










Tuesday, August 18, 2015

Across the Dead Earth - Gangs

After finishing my SAGA terrain and the gaming board itself, I had promised my friends that I would paint up the three gangs for Across the Dead Earth that we bought together.

Coming from painting Gripping Beast, Perry and Fireforge miniatures I must admit that these miniatures are less detailed. They are easy to paint up and this being a post-apocalyptic setting the ink effect from The Army Painter gives them the dirty look that I want them to have.

The colours are fairly dull which is intentional. For The State minis I decided to paint most of their outfit in a deep sea blue colour, which gives them a bit more colour than the all black that I first had in mind.

Next up for Across the Dead Earth is making terrain pieces of the many cars that I have been picking up in the past month. Before that I will be painting up the Empire of the Dead minis that I bought from Simon (Brummie) - 221B Alliance and some Requiem characters incl. some Kickstarter exclusives.





Monday, August 10, 2015

SAGA scenery

Ever since I finished my two SAGA C&C warbands I have been working on making scenery.



I had never done any desert terrain before so I was unsure how the different items would turn out. Using my Google-fu I found two excellent source for inspiration, and both deserve special mention as they really are excellent:

- Wargaming with silver whistle
- Shed Wars

If your looking at scrapbuilding terrain, not just for desert terrain, you'll be hard pressed to find a better place than either of these sites.

I decided that I would need woods, buildings, a rocky ground and some elevations for the game. So I started planning and getting to work. Eric over at Shed Wars had made an excellent post on getting the Moppe storage thing from IKEA, and I got one of those.

So what started out as this:



Ended up as this:





Another post from Eric pointed me in the direction of a seller on ebay where one could get cheap palm trees with free shipping from China. I got 30 trees, 10 of them larger than the other 20, for around £7 - an amazing deal!



The rocky ground and the elevations where made from items I had lying around, which I had not been using anyway.



Tomorrow I will hopefully have the board itself ready - I have a debut game planned with my friend Michael, so it better be ready.

Tuesday, August 4, 2015

EotD: Supernatural Branch vs. Gentlemen's Club

Had a game yesterday with my friend Chris. It was very interesting as we changed how we did melee combat. As readers of this blog know Chris and I have been looking a this before. The Combat system in Empire of the Dead is without doubt it's weakest point as it almost makes the Cbt stat obsolete. In fact the stat only comes into play in case of a tie, which is not that often. This means that a Beastlord with Cbt 7 has no better chance of hitting a model with Cbt 3 - which is crazy. In the system your Att stat is a lot more important than your Cbt.

Chris therefore proposed that we added the Cbt to our roll instead (we have done this before). The TN is 10 and successes cancel each other out. This can bring a scenario about, where neither opponent is wounded.

Another reason why this was an interesting game was because I for the first time over a year, decided that I would have a Black Moria coach in my faction. Previous attempts have not been successful, but I figured I would give it a try again. Chris had brought his Malifaux Freikorps figures, which he used as a Russian Mercenary team.

We rolled up the Blissful Ignorance scenario and got 6 civilians on the table.

It turned out to be a blast of a game, and I managed to get a lot of pictures between the turns. I have added a small text below each instead of a lengthy writeup. We both had the upper hand several times in the game. At some point I had 4 men closing in on Chris' president - but in the following combat rounds, I lost and ultimately my DI fled.

My Black Moria proved worth the price - it killed the Russian sniper, provided cover for the peelers and almost managed to block the way of another Russian with a captured civilian. Certainly not the last time I will bring one.

The change to the combat worked okay, but after the game we came up with a another way to tackle combat. We will give it a try the next time we game.

 Intial deployment - diagonal corners

 Intial deployment - Peelers taking cover on the pier

 Intial deployment - Gentlemen's Club looking towards the civilians

  Intial deployment - Civilians blissfully ignorant of the upcoming battle

  Intial deployment - Black Moria ready to make the streets safe

Peelers move onto the streets

 The Russians move

 Russian sniper and leader take up positions

 Peelers move cautiously along the pier

First civilian is captured by the Russians - Peelers unable to prevent it

Black Moria speeds towards Russian intent on blocking their retreat

Russian leader stalking civilian - while Peelers ponder their next move

Russians capture more civilians close to their deployment zones

Sniper fires in vain at onrushing Black Moria

Russian leader captures civilian - Peeler plots surprise attack from pier


View from the other side

 Peelers finally manages to get to a civilian

The Black Moria driver successfully shoots the Russian sniper with his light pistol, but will be able to block the other Russian's way?

Two civilians escorted away by the authorities

Peelers closing in Russian leader

 Overview of board at the end of a turn (5 I think)

Peeler is killed by man portable gatling gun from across the board

Russian VP is killed by out of picture DI. Russian leader holding his own against peelers.

Another peeler dies

Peeler bringing civilians out of the combat zone

The Black Moria has to take the long way round

 Another peeler shot, while the DI is getting ready to charge

 Final scene before the DI flees, third peeler is killed.