This week my submission finished off a long standing project with a unit of slingers for my Irish SAGA warband, which was quite satisfying.

My new Irish slingers defend their village (terrain not part of this submission)

Great figures by Footsore miniatures, with nice variations to make every figure of the 12 man unit different. However, I did find the plain jerkins with an appropriate lack of adornment hard to paint, given that I wanted to keep them poor and peasant like.  I have based as per the rest of the force I put together earlier this year.  This submission yielded 60 points for the Challenge and I am well over half way to my target now.

This is my completed SAGA Irish Warband in totality:

Yes Dux, the shields are indeed all hand painted...

In SAGA terms this is a 5 point warband:  2 hearth guard units, a unit of spear armed Warriors, a warhound pack, and a sling armed levy. The Warlord has both foot and mounted options, with accompanying Curaidh champions (which Dux kindly painted for me - thanks mate). Nice diversity which will be challenging to harness as a cohesive force - sounds fun!

https://thepaintingchallenge.blogspot.com/2019/01/from-paul-og-irish-slingers-60-points.html

And this is the 2000th post here at the Man Cave - Huzzah!

Its been awhile but I've finally returned to home shores. Another busy few months away at sea but the Man Cave is now open once again for business.  Along the way I did have a few hobby adventures to share...

First is a birthday present to myself - a small commission to start an early Saxon Army to oppose my Romano-British. I have not engaged a painting service before but with lots of time away I decided that a little help was required to get my armies together, so I can spend my limited home time playing.  Jacksarge Painting is an Aussie and I had seen his work on FB before - it is simply a delight to behold.  This is what he sent me:

Early Saxon Warlord- Footsore Miniatures and LBM banner

Jacksarge Painting really knocked it out of the park.

Early Saxon hearthguard - Footsore Miniatures

Jacksarge Painting made the process very easy and I was fortunate to be able to slip a small number of figures into his painting cue. I am thrilled with the outcome and strongly recommend his services. You can contact him here: http://jacksarge.blogspot.com or on FB here: https://www.facebook.com/JacksargePainting/

I also did a bit of arms length gaming while deployed - first up my participating in Palladian Guard's 1904 Cherbourg Superbattle - a bit of pre dreadnought naval alternative history in which the Brits and French team up against a Russo-German alliance at sea.  As the higher Russian commander I generated the tactical objectives for the Russian fleet, commanded ably by Ed.
Read the action here: https://palladian-guard.blogspot.com/2018/08/superbattle-cherbourg-1904.html

Secondly, my daughter and I had a lot of fun running a dungeon crawl adventures using FB messenger and the rules Four Against Darkness.  These are a simple but fun set of rules, which are usually utilised for solo adventures and were perfect for our purposes.  If you are looking for a bit of old style paper and pencil action, this could be up your alley.

Our party embraced racial diversity principles and consisted of a Barbarian, Elf, Dwarf and a Hobbit.  Sancho the Hobbit proved to be the Hero and MVP of our tale, proudly staggering back to town under the weight of a freshly hewn Minotaur Head to regale the tavern ladies of his fortune and courage in adversity.

And to start off my return to gaming in the best possible way, Alan hosted a bunch of our games clubbers at his place where Dave (of the Left Handed Panzerfaust fame) ran us, including my daughter, through a 4 player intro game of Frostgrave.  Now I must admit to having actively avoided this game thus far because I knew it would totally appeal to me and I didn't need yet another project. It did of course...

Dave's awesome Frotsgrave setup

A fun game ensued in which the other 3 quickly got into action against one another, allowing me to run around and steal most of the treasures. Highlight was one of Meaghan's archers putting an arrow into the eye of Aled's Sorcerer's Apprentice in turn one and dropping him before he even moved.  A lot of fun indeed and a real treat to play on Dave's fantastic setup and with his beautiful figures - visit his blog to see them in all their glory, and some wonderful tutorials of how he built his conversions. A very talented guy. Maybe I could build just a small warband for now...

Our heroes delve deeply into the ruins...

And to make matters worse, I see this is coming out soon too.  I must have 2 full moving boxes of old Epic stuff...

I've been away with work a bit of late, so not much productivity from my own brush to report. However, All round good guy and top bloke Alan painted up a Sons of Death unit for me to complete my Irish SAGA Warband. And a lovely job he did with them too.  All shields hand painted, naturally.

In the meantime I was busy doing this, which was also fun but after 7 weeks of it I'm still not sure how many SAGA dice the Task Group generated per turn...

Been a busy few weeks with work travel but I have managed to complete the final touches on my Irish Warband for SAGA.  I am also about to be deployed for 3 months so not much looming on the hobby front unfortunately. I also moved house, just to up life's degree of difficulty a touch more.

My new mounted Hearthguard

I also had an impulse purchase the other day when a painted Romano-British warband popped up for sale. I've wanted a force for SAGA's Aetius & Arthur period for some time and this faction I quite like.  With no modelling time my focus is shifting to playing only so this was a good time to strike!  It was expressed posted to me, I picked it up at the Post Office on the way to the club, unpacked it onto the gaming table and put them directly into action! I was facing my SAGA Nemesis Alan, whom I have never beaten in the game in 5 years.  He pulled out a Saxon Army (beautifully painted like all his war bands) which he hadn't used for SAGA before either - the game was afoot!

2 Units of Warriors

My wily opponent with 3 other SAGA games in progress

What followed was probably one of the best night's gaming I've had in about a year, wth 4 games of SAGA in play at the same time.  Our game was very competitive in a really fun atmosphere as we both learned our armies, which were really well matched. I focused on a wide left sweep to isolate and kill Alan's Warlord.  He advanced on a broad front to catch and engage my supporting units.  I let him and after a massive all out effort I managed to dispatch his warlord...only to find out that the new SAGA v2 scenario isn't a Kill the Warlord for Victory game!  A tense last turn followed and in the end I mustered 21 slaughter points to Alan's 18: a pyrrhic victory by the slimmest of margins but a Victory nonetheless!

My mounted Hearthguard catch Alan's Levy Bowmen!

To inject a final bit of hobby happiness to the night, Slowpainter John brought us goodies from the latest shipments, including the new SAGA Age of Crusades book and Battlegroup Torch-  just in time to stock up my hobby reading materials before I ship off. Huzzah!

Now thats a good days' Hobby haul!

Its been some time since I opened my Dark Ages collection but the new edition of SAGA has piqued some interest at the club. Sufficiently so for me to get out my Irish Warband and finished them off.  They hit the table at Club night last week - I was frankly overwhelmed by trying to remember the game, understand the new game, and try to use a new warband.  I was also against my old Nemesis Alan who masterfully carved me into small parcels with his Scots without loosing a SAGA dice worth of casualties in return!

Alan's beautifully painted Scots

Alan's beautifully painted Scots repel yet another charge by the Irish!

Then on Good Friday, Slowpainter John treated us to a SAGA Bash at his place where 8 of us pushed lead around and got into the new rules with a "learn together" type approach.  There are lots of reviews on the net but suffice to say that the system is now more granular and I think has added tactical depth without significant complication.  Good stuff.

Pagan Russ arrayed for Battle

Mounted Hearthguard secure the left flank of Izzie's Welsh battle line

Marty's Anglo-Danes and Aled's Anglo-Saxons clash

Alan's Russ Warlord seeks out a worthy opponent on the field of battle

I played my Irish again, this time against Aled who was using Alan's gorgeous Pagan Russ for the first time and took the mercenary Steppe Horseman too.  With some coaching assistance from the Dux I managed to pull off a win with my Warhounds being best on ground after they mauled the Steppe Nomans and then dragged down the Russ Warlord (reminiscent of Thulsa Doom's village attack in the opening scene of the original Conan the Barbarian!)

The Puppies in action, harrying and mauling the Horse Archers from the Steppe

The dogs of war were indeed slipped - the enemy warlord was tasty!

I'll post up some pics of my Irish separately.

The happy Viking about to unleash hell upon his foes!

Last night the Man Cave boys threw down to play some Father and Son 2v2 SAGA action at the games club!

In my first game for 2 or so years, I played Anglo-Danes while my ally Reilly Paulsson commanded a Viking horde in his second game ever.  Together we took on two massed Welsh warbands in the Clash of the Warlords scenario.

One of my lone surviving Hearthguard taunts the enemy levy after his unit wiped out a unit of those pesky Welsh ponies

Welsh can be really hard to get to grips with - so I took 3 Hearthguard (1 with Dane Axes) and 2 Units of Warriors (thanks for the loan Aled).  Reilly Paulsson took 2 Hearthguard (1 as Berzerkers), 2 Warriors and a unit of Levy to give him some long range missile fire, all kindly loaned by the Dux.

2 v 2 Action on the cigar battlefield mat

We advanced directly against our foes.  I started grinding the welsh in front of me, making maximum advantage of the Ango-Danes' ability to inflict fatigue on the enemy and then take advantage of it.  Reilly sagely kept his distance from the trees in which his Welsh opponent was hiding, preventing them from ambushing him with their javelin attacks.

Reilly's boar snout formation

Taking advantage of the church which divided the field, Reilly slid his army laterally so we could focus on the Welsh in front of me.   He took some casualties as his opponent pressed his left flank but I managed to clear a path into which he unleashed his intact Berzerker unit onto the enemy Warlord in front on me.

The tension mounting...

...as the Welsh begin to crumble as the numbers against them start to tell

Focusing his SAGA dice into a range of death dealing melee effects, Reilly Paulsson unleashed a massive 21 attack dice (re-rolling misses) to annihilate the enemy .  And with that the Man Cave boys claimed Victory on the field of battle - Odin be praised!

My hearth guard clear the way for Reilly to fight the decisive engagement

Reilly's Bezerkers swarm onto the enemy Warlord and dispatch him to Valhalla!

A fun and enjoyable game - I had forgotten how much I enjoy SAGA.  And the lad was most interested when he heard of the impending Arthurian expansion - I think I'll be painting up at least two armies for that now - Sub Roman Brits for the lad, perhaps Picts for me

And so to the spoils of Victory - my Freyja delivered this Beer Advent calendar to celebrate the impending Christian festival. Excellent!

Hello all, Comrade James here after a long absence due to moving Caves, states and jobs.....the good news is though my entire house is now a ManCave, at least for the next 12 months....more on that another time.

As long time readers will know, Paul and I try and get to Australia's premier gaming event, CanCon, every January, but being in the US has made that rather difficult for Paul this year. So I stepped up to the plate to represent the Cave's interest's...

As January was a crazy month for me I hadn't committed to a tourney other than the one day SAGA event held on the third day of CanCon. I was lucky enough however to go along on the Saturday, Day 1 of CanCon, and filled in as the 'Gumby' player for the Bolt Action tournament.
The TO gave me his Fallschirmjaeger to use, a fun list complete with a Quad 20mm AA gun and a captured Sherman tank (used as a PzIII)




 After two civil wars, my Danes decided to have a holiday in Northern Africa, where they were to encounter the Moors....this was my first game against a Crescent and Cross army, and it showed...not owning the book definitely had me at a disadvantage, and my Warlord showed his true colours by remaining bribed by Moors Gold almost the entire battle, effectively fatigued out right from the start.
We played the C and C scenario involving blinds moving around the table until revealed by their owner, so I tried to be tricky and split my Levy into 3 groups of 4 to confuse his perception of where my more hurty units were...sadly, that just made them easier to kill and totally ineffective in shooting, allowing my opponent complete control of the battlefield to ride in, javelin my best units, and scamper away whilst my Warlord counted his gold....other than getting to see a beautifully painted mounted army in action, it wasn't a good game for me...oh well live and learn....