Happy Birthday, Dad

I'd like to wish a happy birthday to the best father in the world.

Archers Return And An Update

The first batch of archers (the Perry figures) is done.  Thank the Lord.  I need a beer.

My figure painting has gotten far off track as my hobby time has been cut down and what I have spent time on has been scenery.

I'm nearly done with my river.  That was a proper time sink.  The only thing remaining is to apply the Woodland Scenics EZ water once it arrives from the states.  I'll cover my trials with the river in a later post.

These six archers don't represent a tremendous amount of time and effort, but they are my first figures to get completed in way too long.  The painting was done a while ago, but they were sitting for several months awaiting touch-ups and clearcoat.

Real life and a general figure burn out have kept me from coming back to the figures for several weeks.  Hopefully I'll get my mojo back to finish my war band by July, but I'm not holding my breath.

In other news, I've come to the conclusion that what I have for the game is going to have to be sufficient.  I've got three buildings of various sizes, four stands of trees, the cabbage patch, the river (almost), and a pig sty.

Yes, I spent time doing a pig sty, as if I was trying to top the cabbage patch and cement my place of honor among 4-H members into Medieval wargaming.  That Venn diagram must have the narrowest observable overlap imaginable.

I'll write up the pig pen later, once the pigs have arrived, been painted, and added to the sty. I'm sure folks will be waiting for that post eagerly.

But back to the lede I had buried and just unearthed in the above paragraph.  I'm done with acquisition for a while.  My replacement water is...er...on the water.  As are my pigs.  I have the buildings and trees I need.  Sure, I still want a church and some deciduous trees.  I'd love to order some baggage and extra gubbins to sprinkle around the scenery.  I still want some civilian types to populate the village.

I'm not ending this blog.  I'm just going to stop buying stuff for this project for a little bit.  I need to restock my modelling supplies.  The brushes are down to the last few bristles.  The scenery materials are running out.  The paints are starting to run out.

There are still plenty of figures to paint and work to be done on the scenery.  I'm just glad that I don't have to buy a whole lot of extra stuff to get there.

While there's plenty of work left to do, the scope has finally been limited.  There's now a light at the end of the tunnel.  This, the largest, most complete gaming project I've ever embarked upon now has an end point.  While I will certainly continue to add to it, I can do so knowing that the core is complete.

And now to that beer.

A Rubber River Runs Through It: Part I

For those unfamiliar with SAGA, the game is typically played through scenarios laid out in the rulebook.  The scenarios each require certain elements, like baggage trains, roads, or rivers.

These scenarios take the game beyond simply having two bands of thugs bash each other with axes.  They also require additional scenery or figures.  That's also extra investment of time, money, and effort, all of which I'm increasingly unable to give.

I did decide my last big scenery addition would be a river for the scenario, Battle At The Ford, which requires a river running across the board with two crossings.  I also just wanted a river.  I've never had any water terrain pieces and my small scenery collection seemed empty without it.

After spending a few days searching the Internet, I settled on Burgh Terrain.  I liked the look of the bridges more than any of the other offerings I'd seen and the price were certainly good.

 Within a few days, a package was at my door containing the seven sections I'd ordered.  The long sections are roughly 12" and the bridges are a bit under six.  They were all cast in a soft brown rubber.

The casting was nice, with only very small air bubbles.  There was some warping on a few pieces but I'm not too worried about it.  The only thing that's causing me some concern is that the rubber isn't very stiff; excessive flexing may cause paint and acrylic water to separate from the casting.  We shall see.

In the mean time, I've started work on the river sections.  Using PVA (white glue) diluted with water, I've added some ballast to the river bed.  The pieces were then primed black and sprayed with Krylon Ultra-Flat Khaki.  It's from their Camoflage line, which is readily available at PXes and Wal-Marts everywhere.  For wargamers or casual mercenaries, the stuff is phenomenal.  The superflat finish takes washes and drybrushing well and it's quite durable.  Conveniently, you can base-coat your figures on the hood of your MRAP and not even fuss about overspray.

In the mean time, I've got to go place an order as it turns out that I order the Woodland Scenics Water Effects when I meant to order the EZ water.  Whoops.

I've Got A Boat!

To recap, SAGA is a game of skirmishing factions from across Europe and the Middle East during the Dark Age/Early Medieval period.  There's quite a bit of variety to the factions, especially in the later expansions.  The game goes beyond Anglo-Danes bashing Anglo-Saxons.  There are also Skraelings (Native Americans), Pagan Rus, Byzantines, and Merovingian Franks.  It's a real United Colors of Benetton ad.

While those other factions add depth to the game, the one faction that is above all others as an icon for warfare in the period is the Vikings.  When we think of Europe in the 800s, we think of raiders rowing longships across stormy seas to plunder and pillage.

Outside of gaming, I love of all things maritime.  It therefore stands to reason (that word probably doesn't fit in this post or even in this blog) that I should endeavor to build a Viking ship model to decorate my SAGA games and give my wife something else to shake her head over.

There are only  a few options for 28mm Viking ships.  Old Glory will sell you one for only $36 without crew, but in order to get the rudder, you have to buy the crew.  Getting it with the crew adds another $30 dollars.  The Tapestry did a write-up of it a while ago. Sixty-six dollars puts this one at the high end of the offerings.  Then again, that Old Glory Army card saves you 40%, which is great if you plan to spend enough in a year to justify the $50 cost of the card.  I'm not totally sold, given that I don't know if I'd use that membership to full effect.  I do know that if North Star offered such a card, I would have abused the snot out of it this year alone.

Plastic model maker Revell produces a very nice kit that comes in right around $28US.  The only downsides are that it doesn't have a crew and it has a full hull, so it will need to be cut to the waterline.  Still, for someone who just plans to park it on the beach as scenery (as I do) and is willing to break out the razor saw and miter box, it's an easy choice.

Option three is Gripping Beast.  They do a series of Dark Age vessels.  There's a large trading ship, a small trading boat, a "Pictish/Scots/Irish boat", and the "Oseberg Style Long Ship".  The last one is the largest by a wide margin.  I find it impressive that Gripping Beast has a bothered to create a full line of vessels to populate the beaches near your little resin abbey.  What's frustrating is that the images on the website, with one exception, look like they could be spy satellite imagery imagery taken during the Cuban Missile Crisis.  Tiny, fuzzy little pictures and little sense of scale do not sell these models.  Also, no masts or sails.  Old Glory at least provides dowels for the masts.  Even if you were willing to take the leap on such an unknown quantity, you've got to deal with the fact that they're frequently out of stock.

That last hindrance is the most baffling to me.  Try Googling these things.  There aren't a lot of bloggers writing up their experiences with them.  In fact, there are only two that I can find.  One fellow built up the knorr trading vessel to use as a raiding ship (it's a bit small) and another bought the Oseberg ship for a fantasy game.  Beyond those folks, no one seems to own one.  I've asked in several SAGA groups and just get crickets.  My suspicion is that they're made in small batches and then immediately scooped up by one those large English wargaming groups that love to stage those massive convention demonstration games showing the entirety of the fall of Incan empire or a 1:1 model of Wagram.

I really wanted a Viking ship, but wasn't quite willing to lay out that much cash on such an unknown quantity.  As luck would have it, a gentleman on Facebook happened to be selling off some SAGA things and put an Oseberg long ship up for sale.  As he was only in the Netherlands, that would make it a quick ship to me and not terribly expensive to do so.

Turns out, shipping was a bit pricier than initially thought.  Sorry, Arvid.  It was fast, though.  Only a few days after shipping, it was at my doorstep.

The ship is surprisingly large.  I measured it at 18" from stem to stern.  The picture below is with a 28mm Empress T-26 for scale.  It's certainly impressive.  Given that SAGA games are supposed to be played on 3x3 or 4x3 boards, it's almost a bit too much.  It's the size of a small village.  Anyone who has seen the real things in Oslo or Roskilde will know who much this conveys the very real mass of the subject.


The ship comes with the rowing crew shown in the pictures, a mast cap, a fitting for a crossarm. With masts and sails installed it will definitely draw the eye to a gaming table.  A Dark Age board on it's own may not make a clear impression in a convention or shop game, but adding a full-sized ship like this let's people know at a glance what the game is about.

It's about Vikings!