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.

Dark Ages Welsh 5

Welcome to another update for my Dark Ages Welsh project, a little later than I said but here it is. I had hoped to have the Teulus well finished by this time and started on the Pagenes. Well due to unforseen circumstances I didn't get as much painting done last week as I had planned. Nevertheless, as you can see in the picture above pretty much all that remains on the Teulus is finishing off the flag (I managed to glue it on slightly askew and will have to trim the "fringes" a bit, as well as paint the ugly white edges of course) and their bases (together with the Combrogi). Flag and shield transfers are from the excellent LBMS.

With nine Teulus finished it will leave me a couple of extras to use as Nobles in Dux Brit, and saving me from having to paint up more miniatures for now!

The levies could do with a Noble
to make them rank up properly!

I have also started on the Pagenes. They took some time to prepare – cleaning was straightforward enough, but I decided to drill out their shieldhands to attach extra javelins (and subsequently removed the small pins on their hands for attaching the shields) which was a little fiddly. What wasn't a little fiddly, but rather a lot, was the heads! Maybe it's because I'm getting a little stressed for time but this Separate Head System thing caused me a fair amount of headache. After a lot of cutting, swearing, cutting, fitting, swearing, cutting, filing, cutting (and some more swearing) I had finally attched all the heads. The miniatures have now had their javelins attached, bases sanded and are all undercoated. Today, after this photo was taken, I started painting their skin.

But wait, what lurks behind the amassed Welsh levy? Is it ... Yes, some reinforcements for my Anglo-Saxon SAGA warband.

As I have been invited to join the SAGA league down at Dalauppror's club, I need to paint another unit to bring the total points of my Anglo-Saxons up from five to the required six. I had these two warrior command packs lurking in the leadpile and decided to add them to the force. They will be split amongst the two already finished units of warriors, making it possible to field either two units of twelve or three units of eight. Actually, I have already finished one of the miniatures – the charming little tubby Champion for my Dux Brit force. One less miniature to paint then ...

Looking ahead, I honestly don't think I will make the deadline of October 1st for the Dux Brit force even though I plan to speedpaint the Pagenes (possibly even using Army Painter Quickshade). This and the next weekend will be taken up by various obligations, leaving me with not enough time for painting. Thus I have decided to push the deadline back a week, to October 8th. Good thing I haven't booked any games with them yet!

The Anglo-Saxons will be a little less prioritized but I really hope to have them finished by October 8th too. Fingers crossed ...

Well that's all for now. Welcome back next week for another update on the project. Thanks for reading!