The "Greenfish" returns.

 Scratting about in the cupboard I found a box containing some old Warhammer figures from the first boxed set I bought nearly thirty years ago. It was the fifth edition starter set with the Bretonnians and their deadly enemies the Lizardmen. The Bretonnians see daylight quite regularly but the lizards have been buried for donkey's years mainly because I never had enough of them for much of a game. I only had the plastic lizardmen and skinks and couldn't afford the metal figures needed to make a decent force for Warhammer.

But SAGA is a different beast, looking in the box I reckoned that I could make a canny little warband with my wee collection. All those years ago when I painted the figures I put most effort into the Bretonnians and took a big short cut when I painted the lizards putting a black wash over the bare grey plastic, painting in some detail and putting a high gloss varnish over all.

Getting them ready for a game of SAGA was easy, I just painted out the Goblin Green base edges and tickled in a few highlights.

Here are some posed shots of the toys, note the Stegosaurus near the back.

The Stegosaurus is a whole 'nother story, a shameful confession has to be made.

Back in the late 1990's my mam had been round the charity shops and brought our little lad a few cheap toys, one of the toys was a bright green rubbery Stegosaurus. Wor little lad called it "Greenfish" and played with it and the other toys for a while, then I did did a bad thing.

After looking at the "Greenfish" with my wargamers eye and appreciating it's dimensions I wheedled it from my beloved son.

There!, I said it, I shamefully pursuaded the bairn to give me the "Greenfish". What a tw*t!.

Well, the "Greenfish" got painted and had a run out on the wargames table and then went in the box with the rest of the gang for years and years.

I am using the Lords of the Wild list and Battleboard for the lizardmen.

Lizard warriors.

Scaly little Skinks.

Charge.

"Don't you stick your tongue out at me!".

Warlords fight it out.

The Battleboard with some of my home made dice.

Well I had a cracking game with the Lizardmen winning bigly, the "Greenfish" did very well enduring a veritable storm of arrows and keeping the Bretonnians under pressure.

SAGA in the Old World

 I had a try out of SAGA Age of Magic tonight using some of my old Warhammer soldiers.

I didn't manage many photos as I had to concentrate on the new units and the magic side of the game.

I used Orcs and Goblins as a Horde force, and Empire as a Great Kingdoms force...

I had a good game, missed a couple of things but nothing too drastic.

Champion!.

SAGA- Age of Hannibal with my old 15mm soldiers.

 Well, after a short delay I got hold of the bases to start my next SAGA project. I've started off  with Romans and Carthaginians, and because I have more figures than I need I have based the close order infantry two to a base. SAGA is a headcount game but I'll just count the bases rather than the figures. 

Most of these figures were bought and painted in the late 1980's/early '90's and I recently tried to give them away, no-one wanted them and I considered binning them. But now with a bit of a tickle with a paintbrush and rebasing these old veterans are back in action...

Romans, Museum Miniatures (MM) and Irregular Miniatures

Roman Velites MM.

Roman Equites MM.

Carthaginians, MM and Tabletop Miniatures.

Iberians, Essex Miniatures.

Numidians, Tabletop Miniatures.

Nellie the Elephant, Tabletop Miniatures.

I got my SAGA dice made too.

It is all set up ready to play but it is too hot in the room tonight, I don't know how we'll get to sleep. 

More SAGA - Crusading on the cheap.

  Last week I was fortunate enough to get a second hand copy of SAGA Crescent and Cross for a very good price. Luckily I have a collection of shonky old figures ready to go, all I needed to do was make some appropriate dice...

I really like this game, the game mechanisms are easy and good fun but the Battleboard malarkey takes it to another level. 

The battle came down to a fight between the warlords, both fell but the Crusaders were victorious.

I wish I had got into SAGA years ago, I considered it more than once but something always put me off. Not this time though, I have a heap of 15mm Punic Wars stuff which will be tidied up and rebased, bases and basing material are ordered and SAGA, Age of Hannibal has just come through the letterbox.

Very happy days!. 

SAGA on the cheap.

 About this time last year when I wasn't blogging I picked up a SAGA rulebook for about six quid. I tried the game out with some free fan-made battleboards and really enjoyed it. 

Since I own a bunch of Vikings I pushed the boat out and bought the Age of Vikings book which was NOT cheap. Never mind there are twelve battleboards in there for different warbands ( I don't care for the term "factions") so there is a lot a value in the book.

I wasn't prepared to pay fourteen quid or so for eight dice so I went about making my own. I downloaded the free dice symbols and found some cheap blank dice on ebay. I matched some printer paper as close as I could to the colour of the dice and spent some time cutting and clagging.

I had enough to make six sets of eight dice for the price of one official set, they aren't as good but they are good enough for me.

Next up I got myself a nice little Anglo-Saxon warband to fight those naughty Scandinavians, I got a canny deal on them too!.

After some cracking games it dawned on me that just one box of Wargames Atlantic Irish could give me a six point warband, so after a little bit of shopping around I got my hands on a box.

The last few days I have been re-discovering SAGA so tonight I will play an Irish raid on Wessex. It should be fun...

Saxon Hearthguard.

Irish Bonnacht.

Saxon Ceorls.

And lots of doggies, nice doggies, FETCH!!.