Anglo-Saxon Reinforcements

Last night I attended the second round of the SAGA league at Dalauppror's club. As my decision to participate came rather late last week, I found myself once again having to reprioritize the painting: From the last two Welsh miniatures in my Dux Britanniarum force to the final seven Anglo-Saxons that would bring my warband up to six points.

A few days of frantic painting saw me finishing the miniatures a couple of hours before the games would start. All in all I'm quite happy with these, but as I was in a hurry they are a bit sloppy as there were some misstakes I didn't go back and correct. Not that you could tell because of the bad photo ... The miniatures are all Gripping Beast and the excellent flags are from Little Big Men Studios.

My first game in the league (and my second game of SAGA ever) was against Ulf and his Vikings. Some crappy tactics, further worsened by abysmal dice-rolls, saw me thoroughly thrashed. In the end, after six rounds, all that remained of my force was four levies – the rest, including the Warlord, had been wiped out. The final score was something like 26-12. Ouch.

I'm still learning the game, and also find the Anglo-Saxons a bit tricky to use. But then maybe my force composition is not the best. Last night i used 2x4 hearthguards, 2x12 warriors and 1x12 levies with spears. Next time I think I will field the hearthguards as one unit of eight instead, to make them less brittle, and later on maybe swap them both for warriors and/or (missile) levies. Or maybe not! The league allows you to change faction for each game if you wish (and have the miniatures of course), and I'm close to having six points of Welsh which is rather tempting to use. Also, I have four points of Vikings, and it should be an easy thing to paint up another two units.

In next week's round I will probably face Björn and his dreaded Jomsvikings. I watched one of his games last night, and it looks like I'm in for another thrashing. Well, better to have it over with I guess!

Oh, and about the Welsh: As I said there are only two miniatures left in the Dux Britanniarum starter force, the Lord and his Champion, and they are nearly finished. All that remains are varnishing and finishing off their bases with tufts etc. I didn't make my deadline of October 8th, but they should be done by tomorrow evening which is OK by me.