The final stand ! Final battle of our 1088 Campaign

 And so It came down to the final confrontation.  The North had risen up and was now marching south to expel the Normans from the land -  The Vikings had been given a deal - side with us and be paid gold for securing the Saxon crown so they had tuned mercenary and now march with the Anglo Saxons, and finally a Norman lord and his men had seen an opportunity to gain more land.

Confronting this was the strongest contingent of Normans yet and surprisingly also two southern  Saxon lords who had benefited from Norman rule (basically really bad blokes who where in on the gang of crooks running the country!)

5 commands a side this was the largest battle of the campaign and would settle who was victors!.... well till the War of the Roses where all the dodgy stuff would be bound to come up again :P

Slight Absence and the final battle report is on the way !

Ive been a little quiet on the blog of late - two things where looming, a  due date for an assignment and my Birthday that just past. Yep another year older ! not any wiser though :P

A Saga Worth Telling ! The final stand of the Danes

So it came down to this - The Danes had fallen back to their ships and on a cold morning on the coast of England either way a great tale would be told and great deeds would be achieved.

The Vikings having lost men on the retreat formed up on the hill - depleted but not at this stage undefeated - Greg the Mad, Peter Ironside and Jon The Devil stood together watching as the Saxons and Normans moved onto the field.

This battle would be hard to win but there was still honor to be had and legends to be made.

Across from the assembled Danes , Wal the Silent, Jon the Avenger ( Son of Ian the Bold) and Niel Righteous, had formed up and where deep in council as Jon the Avenger laid out the plan of attack.

Spears and Shield would be shattered this day and blood spilled and the ravens will have allot to feast on this day!

The Viking Camp - Having wintered it has been set up as an established point.

The Armies deploy the Vikings taking the hill and preparing for a hard fight.

Some times you are the Insect and then other times you are the Magnifying Glass...... A Hail Ceaser AAR

This Saturday past was the rematch on last weekends dark ages game and what now looks like expanding out to a few more linked games depending on the groups views.

In the time between the last game and this one I had also begun the work to improve the movement trays my lads are on and I will look to have a post about that up in the coming days.  I've slowed down the work a bit as I start to really dive into the study and keep the balance between that and work and a happy wife and hobby.

That being said I continue to move closer to completion to the viking project with two commands of 6 units each done, and planning for the final command in place (ie sourcing of figures and styles etc)

So Saturdays game saw me again face Wal with his Norman cavalry but this time I was on the left of our line and Peter was C-in-C again holding the right and Niel was in the center.  As it would have it we faced off against our usual suspects, Wal vs me, Greg vs Niel, and Ian vs Peter.

And lets just say Wal had another bad day of it with the cavalry facing the vikings with thier heat seeking axe's.

Anyway here are the pictures and comments from this last battle.

The Raid - A Dux Brittaniarum AAR

On Saturday Darren invited me over to his new home for a game of Dux and as we are about to embark on a campaign down at Berwick over the coming Wednesdays we thought we should get another practice game in before the kick off.

We played a raid on a settlement and used played saxon's v saxons as a test for some of the potential battles that may come up - in this case one side was activiating on the british cards (of course) and then bonuses where only applied when Boar Sutied cards where played etc.

I have designs to build a Late Roman -Romano British Army for Dux and Beyond but for now ill use my vikings as stand in raiders - because I can.

I really really like the Musketeer Miniatures range so watch this space when it comes to late romans! 

The quiet Village that has recently been taken over by a Saxon lord and his men.

1088 and all that

 

So after much work and waiting and work and waiting I finally got to deploy my Vikings and boy was it fun!  

Peter had set up a simple scenario of the basis of the rebellion in 1088 and a battle actually happening with some Anglo-saxons rising up and some danish forces coming along to help.

So it came down to Greg, Ian, Peter, Wal, Niel and Myself to duke it out,  Niel, Peter and Myself took to role of the rebels with me proudly deploying my vikings and Greg, Wal and Ian taking on the role of the Normans and the loyal Saxons.

The Forces Muster for the field of Slaughter - Anlgo-Saxon and Danish Allies on the left and the Normans and Anglo Saxon on the right

Vikings Part 7 - WIP units, Tree's and Dux Britannium thoughts

This update we have some more Vikings painted as starter. 

Bondi which means I continue to move closer to completing the viking army - which in a way is good as I begin my masters degree next week and thus painting will slow down as it begins to compete with work family and study.  It also means that the Saxon army is looming in the distance and I have begun to think about the approach I will take but I now envisage that by the end of the year I will have something tangible to fight the vikings.

Vikings Part 6

Bit of a short collection update here -  added some skirmishers and I do have another 12 on the painting table to complete as well.

Vikings Part 4

So its been a while in the updates and I say that allot ! but there it is-  I usually go into a bit of focus and work at getting units painted and i stop posting.

Vikings Part 3

Shield-frame will be smashed,

the maid’s eyes flash across this district at the thanes’ maimer, sword-lord. 
There’ll be for all soldiers,

for each man here many a spear, before the great storm

of steel appears.

  

"The Saga of

Half & his Heroes" 

Photo's Photo's and more photo's

 Today is just a massive host of photo's - all of it is previous work but this time my brother in law Micheal a budding photographer brought his heavy duty camera equipment over and took what I can honestly say is some awesome shots of some of my favorite models.

Vikings and Saxons Project Episode 1

So we begin, while I have been working and have painted nearly 48 viking models already, one thing that makes this part of my Dark Ages project different is firstly im allot happier with the models and whats more I have spent some time on the planning and thinking about this project.

I have had an image in my minds eye now for nearly 3 months thinking about how the armies should look, how they are based and more certain solutions to issues I have identified.

Saga - Review

This weekend I got my 1st two games of Saga and as I expected I'm hooked!

Now im not big on reviews but I have to say this game is engaging fun and while the combat system is simple the complexity is the battle boards.

The game is pretty straight forward - roll your saga dice - allocated dice to the board to complete actions - these can range from simple actions such as being able to activate different types of units to completing complex attacks or forcing your opponent into making challenging tactical choices.

Dark Ages WIP: 4ground Building

Recently I bought a laser cut model kit by the company 4Ground -  I have to get some buildings Tree's and what not eventually and Ive seen these models kicking around and figured Id give them a try.