Another Distraction Arrives today

As I was painting my Moors this afternoon the doorbell rang and it was Canada Post delivering my Thaw of the Lich Lord "Nickstarter" order (on a Sunday)!

I had bought at the level where I got most of the unique charcters in metal plus the plastic Cultists and the book.

There is not an overwhelming amount of stuff here but I think it is going to be put aside until some time in the New Year.

I want to concentrate on finishing my Saga Arab armies and then Team Yankee will be coming (delayed until December 12th but that is not that far away). I wasn't sure how much Team Yankee stuff I would get but when I was in Fandom and Randy asked me if I was getting any and I ended up telling him I would get both sides!

The State of the Moors

This is the follow on to my post from earlier in the weekend about painting my Moors.

So it didn't turn out to be the non-stop painting marathon I imagined on Friday evening but I got a good few hours in and it is the longest stretch of painting I have done since the summer.

Priming the hoses in light grey and then painting the horse dark grey and bringing it back up to white seems a bit of a waste of time but I think it does give some depth. I am hoping it will look pretty good once the rider and all the tack get painted.

I picked at everything else so they move forward a little bit.

Most importantly, I enjoyed the painting and I am looking forward to getting more done on these guys through the week.

Yusuf ibn Tashin and his merry band of Moors (The Beginning)

I was sure there was another faction that could take the camels and looking through the Crusade and Crescent book I discovered this was the case!

If the Moors take Ben Yousef (Yusuf ibn Tashin) as their Warlord they can do all sorts of interesting things:  They can dismount up to 8 Hearthguard as the Black Guard, they can declare up to 8 Hearthguard as Senegalese on white horses and they can exchange up to 8 mounted warriors for 8 Tuareg on Camels.

As luck would have it, I have 8 camels from my Mutatawwi'a force (though I think the Tuaregs would have less ornate harnesses and would probably be less colourful). I also have some Black Guard that are partly painted from when Ed and I were planning to do an El Cid campaign (originally for WAB and then Hail Caesar) that kept getting pushed aside. From the same project I also have a figure for Yusuf himself partly painted (and currently sharing a base with an Imam who will also come in handy for Saga. I have 4 Hearthguard cavalry from the Mutatawwi'a box and 4 from the Moors box so it looks like I am ready to go.

In an effort to provide some accountability I will post the state of the Warband now and then see how much I can get done in a weekend!

There are 4 Black Guard that are pretty much done so I only need to finish up another 4. Yusuf and the Imam need to be rebased individually and have some details done. (The remaining Black Guard will have to wait a little longer)

The Cavalry has the furthest to go (the ones in front don't even have the riders glued on yet)

The camels need detail work and shading (and everybody needs basing work done).

The first step is to find some spears for the Black Guard...

Stay tuned for more postings (or a shameful silence...)

Saga Tournament at the OMG

This past weekend we had a Saga tournament at the club. Because my painting had been slower than planned (big surprise!) I had planned to take a Saracen warband rather than the Mutatawwi'a list but Mike convinced me to use my camels so I went with the Mutatawwi'a (but I had not really read over the battleboard, and I think it is a tricky one).

Before I get to the details of the games, here is a recap of the mistakes I made with the rules (or at least the ones I am aware of).

Melee vs Melee/Reaction -- Both "Suicidal Charge" and "Allah Provides" are Melee abilities which means I shouldn't have paid for them (by sacrificing units) until after the attack dice are calculated (contrasting with Melee/Reaction which are done before the attack dice are calculated). This would have meant I was more likely to kill the unit I was attacking. This also makes the "Fatal Blow" ability much more appealing

Naffata -- This I got completely wrong (my only excuse is that someone made a similar mistake in a battle report I read and I find the rule book hard to read without my reading glasses which I had left at home).  I was using them as a melee unit where they should only get a ranged attack every time their unit moves. This attack has range S and does the 1-3 dice with "1"s killing the Naffata (the part that I did get right). If the defender takes any hits they also take 2 fatigue (3 if mounted) and the unit the Naffata is with takes a fatigue.

I played 3 games, the first against Stan's Crusaders the second against George's Vikings and the last against Nick's Anglo-Saxons

Game 1

The first scenario was the one where you have to kill the opposing warlord. At this stage I had no real idea what to do with this force but moving forward always seems to be a good strategy.

I had used the "Move Like the Djinn" ability to move my foot troops up quickly but then realized that they should be fatigued if they don't end up in contact with the enemy so I ended up resting them on the second turn so it ended up not being as useful just for moving up.

This was my first try at the "Suicidal Charge" ability -- it was quite devastating to the enemy but it is probably not really cost effective to trade 7 of my Hearthguard for 4 enemy Hearthguard!

With the left flank looking bare, I moved up on the right.

At the end my Warlord facing off against Stan's Warlord and his Warrior Priest.

This was the only game I won (and I think I was quite lucky at the end to win it).

Game 2
The second game against George's Vikings, I don't remember the mission but the victory was based solely on slaughter points,

For this game, I used the camel hearthguard as 2 units of 4 rather than one of 8 but kept everything else the same.

Again, I moved forward as quickly as I could.

The most exciting part was our warlords in a fight to the death which I won after many rounds. My warlord fell to George's hearthguard the following turn and I lost on slaughter points but it was still an exciting game. I had a slightly better grasp on my battleboard this time but George knew how to use his Vikings.
Game 3
 In game 3 against Nick's Anglo-Saxons we had to bid to defend the village. Neither of us wanted to defend so we diced off and I ended up defending.

The defender has to end the game with one building so I put one foot unit in each of 2 buildings and left the third one empty. I probably should have concentrated my mounted troops but I had visions of them galloping (if camels gallop) around the fence and striking the Anglo-Saxons as they reached the buildings.

Nick moved up to attack the first building and drove back my cavalry (it would have been smart to put them more than M away from the Anglo Saxon start line)

My camels moved up to the fence as the first building fell under the Anglo-Saxon attack.

After the Anglo-Saxons attacked one of my camel units and then the other did the "Suicidal Charge" (this time with "Allah Provides") there wasn't much left of the forces that weren't involved in the fighting for the second house.

The house managed to hold out (with one figure) until the last turn but couldn't last that turn. I think this would be a very hard battle to win against a foot force.

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I really enjoy Saga and should play it more (at least enough  so that I can use at least one faction well -- I don't think I have played any faction more than 3 times). This tourney has kickstarted my painting as well, finishing of my camels and working on the rest of the Mutatawwi'a.