Comrade's Wargames

Saga: Age of Magic – The Plague Caravan

Posted by Comrade on July 27, 2020

Posted in: Posts. Tagged: 28mm, battle report, fantasy, narrative, saga, skaven, skirmish, uthdyn, warhammer. 4 Comments

Earlier this month, John and I dared to play a game of Saga: Age of Magic on his back porch. We had physical distancing and a nice breeze, as well as face masks for both of us, so we felt that we had taken all reasonable precautions. After a long drought, we were excited to get some newly painted miniatures onto the battlefield, both for John’s Great Kingdoms army and my Masters of the Underearth (Skaven) warband.

The game was a follow-on to the outcome of our previous game, which saw a rout by a ratmen raiding party harrying the defenders of a fortified village. For this game, the ratmen had secured a slightly more … pungent … booty, in the form of three rotting coffins, each containing the noisome remains of a plague victim. The ratmen were scurrying off with the caskets so that their crazed alchemists could use the bodies to brew up some dastardly poisons. Only the stout defenders of House Begovic stood between the ratmen and their goal!

You can see the caskets, being borne by a swarm of rats, in the photo above. The goal was to escort them across the battlefield and exit through John’s table edge. I’d have to keep moving at a pretty good clip to ensure a reasonable chance of winning. No dithering and no time wasted on fruitless combat!

After deployment, I committed most of my forces to the right flank, as seen in the photo above. I was trying to stay as far away as possible from John’s unit of mounted hearthguard. At eight strong, they were an incredibly powerful and hard-hitting force on the battlefield. Unfortunately, the best I could do was delay their arrival.

So I started maneuvering away from them, angling up the right flank and positioning some of my ratmen as blocking units to slow down the attackers. It worked! For a couple of turns, anyway. My newly painted levies with bows occupied this encampment, staying in cover and delivering fairly effective missile fire throughout the game.

Likewise, this unit of levies shadowed the hearthguard on the opposing flank, always threatening to burst from cover and poke the cavalry with their spears. They actually jumped into combat toward the end of the game and, I think, inflicted some casualties!

The caskets moved slowly, and I had to keep the rest of my force arrayed around them to provide a support. It was only a matter of time before John’s hearthguard caught up to them and surged in for a massive assault.

Oh look! There it is. CHARGE!

The charge wiped out an entire unit of warriors that had been protecting the caskets, leaving the poor little rat swarms dangerously exposed to the thundering hooves of the hearthguard. On my turn, I got incredibly lucky with a pair of quadrupedal creatures, which managed to annihilate about half of the horsemen in a single savage round of attacks.

That combat tilted the game in my favor, at least temporarily.

The quadrupedal creatures are Chaos Centigors from Warhammer Fantasy. I love the miniatures and figured I’d get them onto the battlefield alongside my Skaven. After all, why do we play Saga if not for opportunities to mix and match miniatures from our collections?

After that, the game became a rat race — no pun intended. I had pushed through the initial battle line (at great cost) and now had a slim chance to make a break for John’s table edge.

Unfortunately, my rat swarms were mauled and nearing exhaustion. John still had several highly mobile units that were ultimately able to chase them down and skewer the poor rats one by one. Oh well! I take heart in the knowledge that John’s surviving warriors caught the plague and died horribly after the battle was won.

This game represented a personal best for me in terms of rules comprehension and overall grasp of strategy and tactics. Saga is a really complex game, with a lot of decisions to be made at various points throughout the turn. Playing against a worthy opponent like John requires the utmost attention to detail! I am getting better with the Masters of the Underearth army. I intend to use the same army list for my dwarf army, which will be helpful for digging deeper into the tactics of this particular army. We’re playing again soon — stay tuned for more!

Dwarves! Who Would Stoop So Low?

Posted by Comrade on June 11, 2020

Posted in: Posts. Tagged: 28mm, army, dragon rampant, dwarves, fantasy, painting, project, saga. 6 Comments

I pivoted away from working on my Skaven army last month and returned (after an extended absence) to my beloved dwarf army. I originally built this army for Kings of War, and I haven’t touched it in 5 or 6 years.

Here’s a look at where it stood back in 2015. The core of the army used a bunch of old school Ral Partha metal models sculpted by Bob Olley, plus assorted figures from various other manufacturers, including Warhammer, Reaper, Heartbreaker Hobbies, Alternative Armies, plus some Kickstarter offerings. In its present form, it can easily work for Saga: Age of Magic or Dragon Rampant (our two go-to rulesets for mid-sized fantasy battles).

In any case, I was gripped by dwarf fever (is that a thing?) in May, and I started rummaging through the huge box of unpainted dwarf stuff that I had earmarked for this army back when I first started building it.

Up first was a simple palette cleanser — some plastic Warhammer dwarves, as a no frills, low pressure way to ease back into painting stout bearded warriors. Was I up to the task, after years of focusing on Skaven and undead? You be the judge.

With those fellows out of the way, it was time to start addressing some needs. I have a number of artillery pieces in this army, but not a lot of crew-type figures to man the cannons. So I found a couple crewmen and added them to the painting queue.

After that, I dug out a Rune Lord that I had acquired in a job lot rather recently. He is resin finecast, which I wasn’t excited about, and I was also frankly bewildered by the sculpt — it’s covered by these little circular runic medallions, and I had a really hard time figuring out how to paint this guy. Circles everywhere! Just when you think you’ve painted them all, you find another one tucked away behind a swathe of beard. But I persevered, and here is the result.

He’s missing a small piece — there’s a pipe that supposed to be sticking out of his mouth. No idea where it ended up.

I’m thinking that staff in his hands is some sort of magic wand, and he’s in the middle of casting a runic enchantment of some sort, maybe targeting a chaos barbarian’s mid-thigh area. He’s got a big ol’ hammer on his back in case magic just doesn’t cut it.

Lastly, I decided to have a little fun. Years ago I snagged a few Reaper blisters (metal, not Bones) including this zany dwarf berserker on a wild boar.

Wow! Check out that sculpt. He’s missing a shoe, barely holding on to a length of chain, holding an axe that’s as big as he is. What more could you want?

Normally, mounted models exhaust me, because you’re basically painting two figures disguised as one. I feel betrayed by the time I’m done with the model. For this figure, I tackled the boar primarily with contrast paint, and it worked swimmingly. Consequently, I was able to focus most of my effort on the berserker.

After that, I pulled out a few figures from the Song of Hammer & Forge Kickstarter, which I backed in 2014. I received 40+ figures for my pledge and basically haven’t touched them since they arrived in the mail. They’re nifty figures, a mix of familiar poses along with some new and exciting stuff. Everything looks like it will fit just fine in my rather traditional dwarf army. Here are the first two basic warriors and a female rogue-type that I painted up as a test.

There’s more to come. In particular, I plan to paint up 12 metal Warhammer Thunderers to fill in as levies for my Saga: Age of Magic army. That’s one of several distinct needs I identified whilst rummaging through my box of unpainted dwarf stuff. I’m also looking to paint up some heavily armored dwarves to serve as hearthguard. Stay tuned for more!

Starting an All-Metal Skaven Army, Part IV

Posted by Comrade on May 7, 2020

Posted in: Posts. Tagged: army, dragon rampant, fantasy, painting, project, saga, skaven, vintage, warhammer. 4 Comments

I’m nearing the conclusion of this journey, and it feels good to have an end in sight. I set out back in 2018 with an idea to build a Skaven army using the vintage metal figures that so captured my imagination as a youngster. Catch up with Part I, Part II, and Part III if you’ve not yet explored this series.

In this installment, I’m sharing a few character figures and a nifty terrain piece that will be used whenever this army hits the battlefield in Saga: Age of Magic.

First up is a classic character: Grey Seer Thanquol!

I realized somewhat belatedly that my Skaven army didn’t have any grey seers — those cunning, spite-filled Skaven spellcasters who do the bidding of the Horned Rat. Luckily, I had acquired the metal Thanquol figure in one of the many, many lots of Skaven figures I’d scooped up over the last few years as part of this project.

I gave him a fairly quick paintjob, starting with a few contrast paints — Gore-grunta Fur for the fur areas, and Mechanicus Standard Grey for the robe, plus Wyldwood for the staff. I’m still learning my way around contrast paints, but I definitely see the appeal. They save time and give a decent effect, which are two things I’m definitely into.

I started reading the classic Warhammer novel Grey Seer right around the same time I was painting up Thanquol. Whilst reading, I stumbled across a lovely passage from the book that happens to be one of those extremely rare instances where a Warhammer book author directly describes the appearance of a particular miniature — in this case, Thanquol.

The description comes shortly after he visits an armory and “gears up” for a big adventure. Take a close look at the figure above, and then read this excerpt:

Thanquol had purchased an elaborate bronze helmet from a Clan Skab armourer, arranging with the artisan to alter the helm to accommodate the grey seer’s curling horns. From a Clan Sleekit trader, Thanquol had secured a warpsteel blade, its blackened edge engraved with deathly runes that glowed faintly with arcane energies. A collar of boiled leather reinforced with iron studs and a lining of chain nestled between layers of fur had been provided by a one-pawed Clan Skaul merchant.

To protect against more magical threats, Thanquol had secured a riotous array of charms and talismans. Little shards of warpstone engraved with protective sigils, rat skulls taken from the sacred vermin of the temple, little bronze icons of the Horned Rat, an elfskin mojo bag filled with sacred powders and bones — all of these dangled from Thanquol’s belt and the head of his staff.

A pair of scrolls, written upon the flayed skin of slaves and marked with the scratch-script of the Queekish language, marked the most expensive of Thanquol’s protective measures.

Very satisfying, no?

I based Thanquol on a savage-looking 30mm circular base with lots of jagged rocky outcroppings, a perfect perch from whence to cast his foul dark magicks.

Up next was a much newer figure, but nonetheless interesting and appealing and a heck of a lot of fun to paint. It’s the Skaven Warp-Grinder, a two-man weapon team that appears to be a couple of ratmen toting a giant warpstone drill thing.

I love Skaven weapon teams. They represent all that is zany and wacky about this army. The Warp-Grinder is a great example of that.

I used another contrast paint on this one, and I’ll bet you can guess which one. Yes, Warp Lightning gave that fantastic green color to the jagged warpstone drill point on the Warp-Grinder.

I can’t wait to get this weird, wild unit onto the battlefield. It’ll either devastate my foes or chew through a unit of clanrats, and I’m honestly not sure which option will be more delightful.

I had so much fun painting Thanquol, so I turned my attention to another metal character model that I’ve had on my workbench for quite some time: Veskit the Executioner. This model was produced for Mordheim, and it’s a zany example of a Clan Eshin master assassin augmented by weird cogwork cybernetics courtesy of Clan Skryre.

The story is that Veskit was on a mission and got sliced and diced to within an inch of his life, and he was saved by the efforts of Clan Skryre’s inventions. This effort turned him into some sort of bizarre Skaven version of The Terminator. Right down to the glowing red eye!

Those blade-gun gauntlet things are awesome! And he looks great on one of those chunky resin centerpiece bases, too. Veskit is a really unique figure who will work perfectly as a leader or solo assassin for my Skaven army.

I also took some time to paint up another rather useful figure that was noticeably absent in my collection: the Skaven Packmaster.

This dude is at home lashing his whip over mobs of frightened skaven slaves, or swatting at the hindquarters of gigantic rat ogres to motivate them on the battlefield. Once again, I made a lot of quick progress on this guy by using contrast paints for his fur, lower cloak, and resin base. Tabletop standard in no time flat!

I noticed that I didn’t have a packmaster figure in my collection a few months ago (pre-pandemic) when I was sketching out a list for Warcry. Packmasters are one of a handful of generic unit types available in that game. Now I’m ready to roll.

The last item is a terrain piece to represent the deadly Chasm ability in Saga: Age of Magic. This is an ability unique to the Masters of the Underearth faction (which is a great analog for both stout dwarves and cunning Skaven). The Chasm is placed on the battlefield near the enemy’s forces and generally wreaks havoc by causing them to scramble away from the yawning crack in the earth. If they don’t move fast, the Chasm can cause casualties, too!

Saga is a game of very precise rules and measurements, and the Chasm is no different. The rules require that it is represented by a piece of terrain that is exactly 6 inches long by 1 inch wide. That’s not a lot of space! I used my hot wire foam cutter to split a small piece of pink foam in half, then I textured the sides and base and sprinkled on a bit of flock.

I hinted at some boiling lava bubbling up to the surface, too, which was a nice touch.

The Chasm ability is rather hard to pull off in Saga: Age of Magic, but I now feel well equipped should I ever have the opportunity to open up a gaping, sulfur-spewing rift in front of an advancing enemy army.

The list of stuff on deck for my Skaven army is dwindling fast. I’m looking to paint up a unit of 12 clanrats (all unique metal sculpts, most from the C47 Jes Goodwin range from the 1980s). I’d also like to build a couple more weapon teams (who can have too many of those, really?). And lastly, I’m going to paint up a few more special characters that I’ve acquired over the years (Lord Skrolk, Queek Headtaker, etc). Stay tuned for more!

Monopose Metal Madness!

Posted by Comrade on April 10, 2020

Posted in: Posts. Tagged: 28mm, army, fantasy, painting, project, saga, skaven, warhammer. 3 Comments

Today’s post is basically the apotheosis of my efforts to paint up an all-metal Skaven army. Sometimes, when you’re making an omelette, you need to break a few eggs. In this case, the egg that got broken was my own fragile psyche. It was shattered, scrambled, and fried by the mind-numbing effort of painting 12 of the same boring metal model.

The model in question is, ironically, not an actual Warhammer Skaven figure. It’s from Heartbreaker Hobbies’ Wererats line, which was released in the mid-90s in a shameless attempt to cash in on the burgeoning appeal of fantasy ratmen. Games Workshop was not nearly as litigious then as it is now, and as a result Heartbreaker Hobbies was able to produce a full range of models, many of which served as serviceable alternatives for Skaven players.

Here’s a superb writeup on the history of Heartbreaker Hobbies’ Wererats line, if you’re curious. There were some gems, but there were also some real stinkers.

In any case, the model that so tested my mental fortitude was a Wererat With Crossbow. It is one of just a handful of metal ratmen holding a crossbow available across several manufacturers.

I needed 12 of them for a very specific purpose — to create a 12-man unit of levies with ranged weapons for Saga: Age of Magic.

This was a rare instance of me painting up models to fill a distinct battlefield role in a specific game. Most of the time, I paint what I want to paint, and then fit my collection into whatever game I’m playing at that moment. In the case of Saga: Age of Magic, I had to put considerable effort into acquiring and painting suitable models to fill out my unit of levies.

The models themselves are fine, if a bit simplistic. They’re aiming their crossbows, which is nice, since it gives them a uniform aggressive stance. I mixed up the palette a little bit but mostly went with drab greens and grays for their tattered robes — again, the goal was to churn out this unit in short order.

It’s not easy to see in these photos, but these models are quite large — far larger than a typical Warhammer Skaven figure. As you can see, I based them on 30mm lipped bases, and their feet still stuck over the edge.

I rationalized this in my headcanon by reasoning that overly large Skaven are a bit dull of wit and unsuited for sneaking and backstabbing (which is what all proper Skaven aspire to). So instead, they’re given heavy crossbows and grouped into thick knots of ratflesh on the battlefield to get the best results when firing en masse. Yeah, that sounds about right.

So that’s my output from March. This lot took longer than expected because of the arrival of COVID-19 in the U.S.A., and the slow-motion apocalypse that ensued. My job has not gotten easier — in fact, I am an essential employee with a role to play in the pandemic response in my small community. So I could not work remotely very easily, and if anything, tasks have piled up even higher on my plate. Painting 12 of the same metal model during this high-stress period would be enough to drive a lesser painter insane. Luckily I am built of hardier stuff! Stay tuned for more.

Saga: Age of Magic Game Day

Posted by Comrade on March 14, 2020

Posted in: Posts. Tagged: 28mm, army, club, fantasy, game night, saga, wargames. 5 Comments

The stars aligned last month, and our game group was able to come together for a Saga: Age of Magic game day. We had six players and managed to play five games over the course of about five hours. Not bad at all!

This game day provided a great opportunity to get some armies onto the battlefield, many of which haven’t yet seen action in their current incarnation. I wasn’t able to get play-by-play photos of the games themselves, so here’s a look at some of the matchups as they unfolded throughout the day.

Lawrence’s Otherworld Daemons vs. Vincent’s Great Kingdoms

Lawrence loves big centerpiece models and it shows in this Nurgle daemon army! He played against Vince’s Great Kingdoms army in the first pairing. Here’s a look at their clash.

See below: There’s nothing like a wedge of knights charging into a knot of foul daemons. Did they win the day or did they get wiped out in a flurry of hooves and lances? I honestly can’t remember. Maybe Vince or Lawrence will chime in with a comment and fill in the blanks.

Lawrence’s Daemons vs. Pat’s Undead

This second game was more like half a game, against my undead. We were pressed for time so we played a few turns and called it a draw. It was a beautiful game featuring several newly completed pieces of terrain — that autumn forest piece from me and the big Ophidian Archway from Lawrence! Here are a few photos.

Hmmm…12 foot tall dragon ogres appearing behind your archers is not where you want them to be. Lawrence was playing the Otherworld army list, and he made great use of the teleport ability to move his units around the battlefield.

The photo below shows the proper arrangement, with the targets in front of the archers.

This was yet another game session where I misused my Black Knight (the special lieutenant character for the Undead army list). He just looks so badass! Who wouldn’t want to send that grim reaper charging into a unit of warriors? Turns out, that’s not a very good tactic. Oh well, live and learn (or not, if you’re undead).

Paul’s Beastmen

I confess I only got one photo of Paul’s nascent Beastmen army. He had been working diligently on it over the last couple of months and brought a batch of nifty beastmen and minotaurs to the table. I think Paul has finally discovered the pure, unadulterated joy that comes with painting BROWN. I say this as a Skaven player who has literally dozens of shades of browns in my paint collection.

Anyway, we added some units of basic fighter-types from various collections to bulk out the army to fit the games. I’m really excited to watch this army develop!

John’s Great Kingdoms vs. Mark’s Lords of the Wild

John’s GHA (Generic Human Army) has come into focus over the last few months. The army was developed specifically for use with Saga and Dragon Rampant, using miniatures from a variety of manufacturers. He’s tied it closely to the homebrew fantasy setting we developed a couple years ago using Microsope.

These photos show John’s Great Kingdoms battling Mark’s Lords of the Wild. I’ll have more photos from Mark’s army in a moment; he and I got in a game vs. my undead as well.

John also debuted a few new units, including this batch of crossbowmen and a cool new trebuchet catapult thingy. His army is really loaded for bear! It will give me no pleasure to swarm his defensive positions with tides of foul ratmen and monstrous abominations from the pits. No pleasure at all.

Mark’s Lords of the Wild vs. Pat’s Undead

I ended up with several photos from this game because, well, it featured my army, and I was standing nearby for most of the game.

Alas, it was not my best showing. The Lords of the Wild list is a real tough nut to crack, particularly for my slow-moving undead. Mark made great use of his creatures to outflank and destroy my key units that generated Saga dice, leaving me with few resources as the game reached its later turns.

His army was led by this brutal giant gorilla who, as you can clearly see, is wearing a T. Rex as a headdress. That should have been my first tip-off that Mark would be pulling no punches this game.

Actually, I had a decent opportunity to take out his warlord, during a turn when I was able to pile on enough to fatigue to exhaust him for a turn. Alas, my dice rolls betrayed me in spectacular fashion, allowing his leader to retreat to the rear and rest up to remove some fatigue. I can definitely chalk up this defeat to statistically poor dice results — c’est la vie!

Anyway, T. Rex showed up shortly thereafter and ate everyone. The end.

This session solidified the ascent of Saga: Age of Magic as our group’s default choice for “big skirmish” scale fantasy gaming. It is a fantastic and flexible system that provides a lot of strategic and tactical depth in both gameplay and list-building.

The “use whatever you want” philosophy for building armies also suits our group very well. We have some players like Lawrence and Paul, who have armies drawn from Age of Sigmar, and other players like me and Vincent and John, who have cobbled-together armies featuring a miniatures from many different sources, and players like Mark, who custom-printed quite a few miniatures for his army.

Saga: Age of Magic welcomes all!