Saga: Irish V Normans

Got to play a 6 point Saga game with Mick the other day.

This was a first time clash between my Irish and Mick's Normans.

Here are a few shots of Mick's Normans.

After the first turn this is how the Irish were positioned, heading for the large wood in the centre of the field. Picking up some fatigue on the way.

In the picture below you may have seen a unit of Knights seems to be missing, well one's left. The Irish used Sons of Dana to remove 5 of the 6 that were there. I was very lucky.

Mick checked to see if the Irish on horse could charge the last one, it was very close. 

I was hoping to bait the other unit of knights using my mounted Fianna and the dogs.

The Irish warriors from the front in the woods.

The dogs being wrongly used against Norman Knights, there were plenty of archers to have a go at but no cover to use.

The second Norman Knight unit shimmied about the wood after what had happened to the last Knights who loitered there.

The Irish held the line and rested.

Mick's Knights charged the Dogs between these two pictures and killed half of them for 1 loss.  

Thought I was in a promising position at this point and that I had a chance with the Knights.

The rest of the army hunkered down round the wood.

This is where I got to understand just how nasty Norman Knights were. First the dogs were defeated then 3 of the 4 Irish Fianna were slaughtered. 

That was my left flank wide open.

In the centre though my warriors with Javelins took the opportunity to attach the Norman foot Knights who had ventured too far forward.

Four were skewered the first turn and then another four in the next combat, again I was very lucky to only lose 5 models.

At this point my Irish huddled together in the woods and waited to see what Mick's Normans would do.

They decided it was late in the day and that they didn't want to take any more losses so the game was called a draw. 

I was more than happy with that, being the first time I had played with the Irish, hopefully we will get another game in soon.

It was a fun game and completely different for both of us getting to grips with new boards and tactics. Not like the Vikings at all.

Cheers Mick :-)

D&D: Challenge Update 3

Another set of figures for my son to play D&D with. The Dark Elves are from GW and are 80's miniatures, probably collectors pieces now, LOL.

The young dragon is from Reaper.

All great fun to paint and he has seen them now and is happy with them.

Will be posting more soon.

D&D: Targos Village scene

Last week during our game of D&D there was a scene set on the edge of Targos a town in the Icewind Dale area, North of Luskan. At the time I was very busy organising the PC's, where they came onto the board, what they could and could not see, weather the Goblins were surprised, all manner of stuff. I was pleased with how the encounter went off but forgot to take any pictures so here a few without any of the players unfortunately, but everything else.

Yes, I used tissue paper to suggest the burning flames, I yes I do apologise.

 The players came to the town and entered the board from close to the barrels in the bottom corner.

The goblins had already looted the buildings on the villages edge and were close to leaving when the PC's arrived.

Screaming from a second floor building alerted Thorn the druid to the where about's of a citizen of Targos, Don't worry despite having a whole convoluted method of testing the PC's if they decided to climb up, Thorn circumvented all that by turning into a giant spider.

However he hadn't thought how she might react... which was to scream even more and faint.

Unperturbed he silked her up and lowered her down to Treebore the wood elf ranger.

The goblins take up defensive positions.

The locals flee.

One or two locals were shot by the goblins as they fled.

Realising the players were carving through his men the goblin boss took to his heals and ran off.

The players followed and are currently deep beneath the ground searching a series of tunnels that appear to be a goblin stronghold.

D&D: Initiative Markers

To start of with a couple of shots from my first game DMing this bunch of noodles in our West Marches Campaign, these are 5 of the 24 strong Outsider group working out of Luskan.

Here they were playing in the Icewind Dale, my area of responsibility. It was great fun, laughed all night long.

Anyway this post is mainly about the new Initiative cards I made for everyone to play with.

One for each of the basic classes in the original book.

The characters you saw above. On front just their name and pretty picture, laminated.

On the back their Ac and HP to help me see how they were doing at a glance- I also have a record sheet as well.

The dry wipe pen comes off dead easy. 

I also have one marker for NPC's in combat but I try very hard to avoid NPC's fighting.

More importantly are markers for the enemy the PC's may face.

So far they have worked really well with both my grps and I think it shows the players visually exactly when they are up next. 

D&D: Developing Specific Locations

With a load of D&D games coming up in next few months I have been trying to see how I can combine my playing board, the wall sections I made and the boards I made years ago for Warhammer Quest to create special locations for encounters.

The intention is to have a picture of those specific encounter terrain set ups so I can reproduce them quickly during a game. Nothing worse than trying to work what I might need, spoils the flow of the game.

Little bit of a niggle is that the original tiles are not 1" squares unfortunately, I'm gonna play on them and see if anyone mentions it :-)

Slight variation, no Quest board.

I have some one foot square boards that I may use to create the scene on and just have to hand, perhaps some Blu Tac to hold in place the smaller pieces. I won't be using more than a couple of specific locations in an evenings play. Others I can improvise easily enough from the box of bits I have.