Blood Bowl Back in the House!

So,

A few weeks ago now, I succumbed to pressure and purchased a GW product. You see, for the past few years I have pretty much given up on GW games as most of my favorites went away. I sold off most armies or collections I had. But as the world now knows, GW updated and brought back a classic game that I always loved, Blood Bowl!

a moment of weakness overtook me!

I knew it was coming out and I had mixed feelings about it, as well as having kept two versions safely in the closet (and from the great GW purge) I told myself I did not really need the same game I already had. I also kept telling myself that I would not have anyone to play against, because the two versions I had (and many teams by the way) went in-played for years, so why should I buy this yet again?

Well before I knew what I was doing, I was walking out of my local store with a copy of the game and the Death Zone Season one book in my arms! As I drove home, I kept asking myself what had I done? How was I so weak? And would anyone play the game with me? I am weak, I know it!

Once I got home, I carefully unwrapped the shrink wrapping and took off the lid, it was like Christmas of days gone by when I opened up the 2nd box all those years ago! There were cool new models, a cool new board, a cool set of templates, everything was so cool looking, GW had done a great job with this update and there was a WOW factor of opening the box like old GW games used to have.

Well a few nights ago I started working on assembling the new Orc models, you get two identical frames of 6 orcs, so I quickly assembled the 6 just as they were. But I knew that the next 6 would be converted into different poses and have a few head swaps. The first conversion was the Throwers.

Stock model on the Left, Converted on the Right.

It was a pretty easy conversion, just had to do a few cuts to alter the look of the model. All the models in the new game are two or three piece kits that really only go together one way. You have to do so thinking about what you want to do to them. Next up was the Blitzer, he had his arms removed and had to Black Orc arms added to him, I pictured him smashing through a line slugging and swinging as he went.

Stock on Right, Converted on Left.

But then, I remembered I had some after market Orc heads and I went crazy with head swaps and re positioning of the rest of the models. I even went and took off the heads on the two above models, I just loved how they look.

New Heads!

Group Shot

 My plan is to paint these guys up like my favorite NFL team, the Arizona Cardinals, but in typical Orc fashion, the will be called the AZog Orcinals! So they will be getting painted Red and White uniforms, I am just hoping that with the green skin, they will not look like the Christmas Orcs! We will see!

So there you go, I am weak and yes world, I am a GW addict, God help me if Necromunda comes back, I will be totally lost!

TK

Point 213 - Progress

Well,

I am making progress on my contribution to the Point 213 game for next year. As of my last post on the game, I had just gotten all of my British tanks and had assembled the Firefly. Well I got the three Cromwell's assembled, so now I have one British troop for the game.

One British Troop assembled, all Warlord Models.

 I have to say, these Cromwell's went together pretty fast and were a joy to build. I remember how long it took me to build the Tamyia kit, and these were much faster and easier to assemble.

So with that done, I based painted them in Testors spray enamel (the same can I used on the Tamyia kits from ten years ago!) which is Dark Green.

Base colors on!

 So sometime this week I will start cutting in the other colors and doing my washes on them. Besides the British armor, I said I would supply two German Tigers. I had one Warlord Tiger as well as a Rubicon Tiger, but I had apprehensions about using one none Warlord model out of all the armor kits. So this weekend I picked up a second Warlord Tiger so that all models would be Warlord and that the Tigers would look similar.

Three big Kitties, only two will be used together.

So with the purchase of that last Tiger, I now have all the models for the Point 213 game that I committed to. Now I need to get painting, but I think I will be picking up the Rubicon German Stowage set to plus up my Tigers before I start painting.

So there you have it...

TK

More Troops join the Conflict

So,

While this week has been a rather tough one, I did manage to get a few more models done for our ACW game in February. So here are the two new units. Most of the figures are all Perry Miniature plastics, although there are a few Old Glory Second Edition models in there, mostly command models. These two units are considered Large units for Black Powder, being 7 stands large, which is 28 models in each unit. I usually do 5 stand units, but wanted something a little larger, this way I can take units away to make them smaller.

Perry Miniatures black pants

 The above unit I decided to paint them with Black English Uniform pants, I wanted something a tad different and while looking at the Perry drawings, they had this as an option. Plus it is something different than all grey.

Perry Miniature with Federal Blue Pants.

The second unit is painted from another piece of art that is supplied in the Perry box set. This one has the unit wearing Federal blue pants. I envisioned a unit having looted or stole a military bag train and equipped themselves with the new pants. May not be historical, but hey, I like it.

Perry Miniature Metal commanders

A few weeks ago, DrunkenSamurai gave me two old Perry Metal command figures since I was lacking some commanders on horseback. Both were the same so I did a simple head swap using one of the Perry Plastic command heads. A quick snip and pin job and I had a different looking commander. Oh and one thing that does bother me is that they are based on plastic beveled bases instead of my laser cut MDF bases which I ran out of while getting these two painted!

I still have three cannons to paint as well as two more units and I will be ready for the game in February.

TK

Point 213 in 28MM

So,

About ten years ago Drunkensamurai and I had this grand idea to play a historical scenario for the battle of Point 213 during the Normandy campaign. The Battle was the German 101. Schwere SS-Panzerabteilung of four Tiger 1's against the British 4th County of London Yeomanry with at least 17 tanks. The battle in a nutshell had the four Tigers ambushing the British that had stopped along a road in column to conference since they did not see any German activity all day. This however changed as the Tigers unleashed hell on them and surprised the British column virtually wiping them all out.

It didn't help that Battlefront put up a PDF of the battle for Flames of War with a nice map and detailing of the armored units that fought in the battle. So Drunken and I both agreed that this would be a cool game to do in 28mm on a 8'x8' table. At the time though, there were not many good WW2 vehicles on the market in 1/56th scale. So we decided on using Tamiya 1/48th scale tanks, they fit in better with the mostly Black Tree Design forces we had, so off we went buying tanks.

Tamiya 1/48th Firefly

Tamiya 1/48th Cromwell

I got as far as collecting the two tanks above, Drunken had a couple of more tanks then me, but right about the time we were buying these vehicles is when Japan had the serious earthquake and tsunami. This caused problems for distributors and it became tough to get Tamiya models at a good price. So we shelved the project for a later date and knew we would come back to this project. Well as these things happen, we never did anything with it and just kept the project shelved until earlier this year.

You see, earlier this year I decided that it was time to liquidate my 1/48th scale armor for more of the 1/56th scale plastic armor kits that companies like Rubicon and Warlord have out. It made it tough to mix 1/48th tanks with 1/56th tanks of the same type, so I sold off all my 1/48th scale stuff to a local friend. With the funds I decided to replace all my existing models I sold in the new scale along with a few other kits. That's when Drunken and I started talking about reviving the Point 213 game again. He committed to replacing his tanks to the new scale and we started talking about doing this project once more. But we were looking at least 23 vehicles and that was a bit steep in pricing for us when your talking $30.00 a tank. So we happened to be talking to another friend and he said he would help out with the game by purchasing some of the tanks for the game.

Drunkens British armor

  So now with another sucker lucky gamer joining us, we set out to acquire all the models needed for the game. Each one of us would build one build at least one British troop of tanks being one Sherman VC Firefly and three Cromwell tanks. Drunken and I purchased the Tigers and Drunken picked up a couple of other vehicles and tanks. All of the vehicles are Warlord kits, I had picked up a Rubicon and Warlord Tiger, but will be picking up one more Warlord Tiger to keep it all Warlord models.

Rubicon Tiger and Warlord Tiger

So with that goal in mind, my wife got me a belated birthday gift of one Warlord Firefly and three Warlord Cromwell's. They arrived last night and I jumped straight in to assembling the Firefly, which I have to say was a great little kit to put together.

Warlord Firefly!

So with that, we are only missing three tanks (Cromwell CS tanks) that Drunken will be picking up in the very near future. So last weekend we got out what tanks we had at the time and play tested the game in our local shop. The response we got to the play test game was amazing, people were blown away by the number of tanks (which was only half!) we had on the table. One Flames of War player thought we were playing Flames in 28mm and absolutely loved the look of the table and the idea.

8'x4' table!

Cromwells running away from the Tigers!

But one thing that we both realized after the play test game, we need terrain, lots and lots of terrain, specifically Bocage! We are estimating we will need at least 48 linear feet of bocage sections, each section will be 6" long, which means about 96 pieces of terrain! Luckily another friend of ours just did up a few bocage pieces for our local shop and we will be using his technique of using insulation foam, Woodland Scenic course ground foam and lots and lots of glue!

So there you have it, another big project lined up for 2017, so stay tuned...

TK
 

Field Works Complete and other stuff

So,

Here are the completed field works that we will be using for the ACW Black Powder game in February. Drunkensamurai got all of them painted up and flocked, do have to say these look awesome on the tabletop.

Side view of filed works

Defenders side of Field Works

 

Close Up shots of the defenders side.

Attacking sides view, along with last group that charged!

Also to go along with this game, I am working on adding 6 regiments to my current Confederate force. Here below is the first new completed regiment.

1st new regiment raised!

This is an all Perry Miniature unit and is basically the left overs of two other boxes I had lying around. I really love the rag tag look of these figures, feels very Confederate to me.

Besides the unit, I finished up half of my dying or wounded models for the game. We use causality figures to represent wounds caused to the unit as opposed to using beads or similar markers. When not being used for the game, we usually have a make shift aid station with them all sitting around. DrunkenSamurai has these and will hopefully get them all finished up by game time.

Old Glory wounded ACW figures.

 SO there you have it, another quick update for our ACW game for February.

Oh one last thing...

BB in the House!

I caved and picked up the new Blood Bowl set, I had been trying to not pick it up, but I am weak! So you will be seeing more of this and the new Ork Team I am planning called Azog's Ardinals, based off of the AZ Cardinals!

TK

Band of Painters December Installment (Early)

So,

This is the last installment for the Band of Painters Challenge that a few of us set out on back in August. To recap, we were suppose to build 250 points each month to build up a 1000 point armies for either Konflikt 47 or for Bolt Action. So here is my last batch of models for the challenge.

German Veteran Infantry with Assault Rifles and MG's

My last batch of plastic Late War Germans, most armed with Assault Rifles and a few with MG42's. I also added in a few Panzerfaust as well.

German Heavy Infantry

Here are ten German Heavy Infantry, eight armed with Assault Rifles, two armed with MG-42's. These are really nice models and will work perfectly for many Pulp games when I need some Pulpy Nazi's!

So with that, I would like to point out a few things that I learned on the way during this challenge. First up, not all the armies are out yet for Konflikt 47, the Russians and the British is just now starting to be released, so two of the people in the challenge have suffered when it comes to having much K47 stuff in there armies.

Secondly, the K47 rules are just the Bolt Action 1st edition rules with a few K47 rules added. This made it tough in the beginning when we played games because the FAQ and errata were not out. Clockwork Goblin just recently got out a FAQ, which was the Bolt Action 1st edition errata, why they did not include those updates for the game is beyond me. But it did cause some issues during game play for new players that were not versed in Bolt Action.

Thirdly, the rules are going to pretty much stay like the 1st edition Bolt Action rules, which is going to make playing K47 hard with the 2nd edition Bolt Action rules. I see many people, myself included, mixing up the two sets of rules or trying to use previous/new rules in the games. This had lead a few folks to not wanting to play K47, because the rules are different enough but the same, know what I mean? I foresee myself playing less K47 and more Bolt Action 2 and as I get more familiar with BA2, probably dropping K47 from the main rotation of games I play. Its not a slam against the game, but having two sets of rules that are so close is going to be a pain to try to keep separate.

So is K47 a bad game, No it is not, in fact I like all the pulpy elements to the game. If you ever wanted a game that has Wolfmen, Robots, Tesla cannons and just a cool look of alternate WW2, this is the game for you! And some of the new releases coming out are awesome looking and I will pick up a few every once in a while. As I stated about the German Heavy Infantry, these models will be perfect for any sort of Pulp game!

I hope you enjoyed these installments, I am planning on a new army that is on the way as I type, will be doing a Imperial Japanese Army and will be building this for the Second Edition Bolt Action Rules. This will also be the first army that I will build exclusively for the Bolt Action Rules, all my other armies were for other WW2 games. So stay tuned for some more Bolt Action, it is coming like the Rising Sun!

TK

ACW Black Powder Game - Preperations

So,

February 18, 2017, I will be hosting a Black Powder American Civil War game at our local shop, this game will be an invite only game (but feel free to stop by and watch) and we are planning on a huge table (8'x12'). The battle will be based on the Chancellorsville, May 3, 1863 at the Chancellorsville Inn. The Union troops pulled back from the day before and constructed hasty field works to try to slow down the Confederates that had won the day before.

So with that, we needed some field works for the game, so last weekend I cut up a dozen 1"3/4" x 12" long strips for bases of the field works. Robert then added pink foam and added the planks to the back of them to give then a hasty built look.

Roberts Photo of the cut foam on the bases.

The planks added to the back side

With troops behind (Roberts Photo)

Another shot of the planks with troops (Roberts Photo)

I came over this past weekend to help finish up the field works and we also added some angled sections to make the field works look a little irregular and not just in a straight line. Funny thing is when we cut the bases, we just eyeballed it and cut them up. Once they are together they look pretty slick.

A shot of the Cannon and angle sections.

We also wanted the field works to accommodate guns, so with a few scraps, I cut out half circles (Roberts Guns are on rounds) and add a few plastic gabions to them. Once these were cut out, we moved onto texturing the foam.

Texturing is getting added

  We used an Elmer's Glue sand able wood putty to give us the dirt look. Nice thing was that it was raining here in Phoenix and the temperature was cool, so the Elmer's wood putty stayed wet and was workable. If it had been hotter out, it would have dried before we got it on the material, such is the problems of working on terrain in the Valley of the Sunstroke!

So there you go, a few field fortifications for our Black Powder game. The good thing is that we could use this for other games as well, heck, I even mentioned these would be good for Bolt Action for World War One! (Are you seeing this Warlord???)

TK 





HEROIC moves closer to release

Well,

 

My new set of rules moves another step closer to seeing the light of day. I received a PDF copy of the main rules with pictures added in. HEROIC will be published by Winged Hussar Publishing and the pictures and internal layout are being done by Dave Taylor Miniatures. Here are a few pictures of what the book will look like, well on the inside anyway.

 

So, you may be asking yourself, what is HEROIC? Well this ruleset is my attempt to do a generic set of skirmish rules that will allow you to game most periods in history or in the fantasy/sci fi worlds. It was born from my local game buddies always trying to find the next set of rules that we could all game with. Right now it is just the core rules and in time I plan to release supplements for a variety of historical periods as well as for other worlds of fantasy.

The game was born while I attended Adepticon back in 2014 when I ran into Vincent Respond of Winged Hussar Publishing. In fact, Dave Taylor is a regular at Adepticon and a lot of ideas for this set of rules came from friends that also attend Adepticon.



So now I am just waiting to see what the cover will look like, I added my two cents, but its a wait and see now, but we are getting closer to HEROIC being unleashed on the gaming community!

TK

Band of Painters - November (early)

Well,

Here is my next installment of the Band of Painters Challenge for Konflikt 47 , it is the November installment. Why so early you may ask? Well it seems that I have a 100 figure Chinese Boxer Rebellion commission that needs to be completed before Thanksgiving, so I decided to kick out these two small units pretty quickly.

Nachtjager Unit

 First up are the Nachtjagers, the back story behind these things is that Germany started messing around with DNA splicing and these are a mix of snake, bat and alligator spliced with a volunteer human. These models are a pain to assemble, the spot where the wings attach don't give you a good glue spot to hold them on. I had to pin them which makes them more than enough sturdy. Unfortunately you only get two poses, the model on the left and center model. Since I did not want two of these guys holding torn off heads, I removed the hand (model on right) and replaced it with a GW plastic Ghoul hand I had in my bits box. A simple conversion if you have the parts.

Schreckwulfen Unit

Next up was a Schreckwulfen unit. Once again the German scientists spliced DNA of a wolf with a human, I still think of them as werewolves though! These were built pretty quickly with no issues and are all stock. I was going to go with a Grey scheme, but decided that I wanted them to be in browns, the next ones will be in grey.

So there you go, just a few completed models for Konfikt 47 off the bench.

TK

Historical Gamer vs Generic Gamer Discussion

So,

Yesterday I was involved in a rather interesting discussion at my local store about our little hobby. Some very interesting points were made and it got me thinking about this post I am writing now. The discussion started about how a certain UK based Historical company was not happy about how their sales were doing in the good old US of A. This seems to be a discussion that has happened with many companies that are based outside of the US.

It would seem that Historical sales compared to Sci Fi and Fantasy sales are always low in the US. So I asked the group of friends I was talking with what their take on it was. Here is what I found out, which is not eye opening in any means, but rather interesting none the less.

One comment was that Historical gamers are the blame for the low sales and no new blood coming into the hobby. The comment was stated that most if not all Historical hobbyists are rather button or rivet counters and this just turns off new players all together. I would tend to agree to some point of this, but not wholeheartedly. Yes some historical gamers can be rather sticklers to history and yes most of us have run into rivet or button counters. But to use a broad brush and say that all of us are like that is not fair.

I look at myself as mostly a historical player, but my gaming roots are clearly in the generic Sci fi/fantasy realm. I have played many games, but in the last twenty plus years I have gradually drifted towards more historical games. Why? Well for one thing, I got tired of all the updates to a certain game system that always had units coming and going out of date with a new release of the rules. I also got to one point when I was playing said games and started to try to create more historical units in the fantasy/Sci Fi settings. It was sort of a natural migration of sorts for this because I have heard other Historical gamers do the same migration in their games.

Now, I do not play a tabletop simulation of my historical games (like some folks do) but I do tend to do some research on a particular army or unit I am working on. I am not fanatical about it, but I do like reading about what the units have done and where they fought. Am I a stickler for having the right colors on a model, yes I am, but that's because I am trying to re-create said uniform or said units. Do I shudder when I see a model painted in the wrong colors, sure I do, because to me its not historical. Now will I approach a total stranger and correct them on their painting or way they are playing with said units or models, No. But if I am asked what I think, I will tell you what I think about it and will inform you of what I would have done. More on this later.

Another statement that was made yesterday was that most US consumers are a "Want it Now" culture. I totally agree with this statement, hell as one guy said yesterday, we invented the fast food chain and most US consumers don't want to wait for anything. This may be the reason why games like X-Wing are so popular here in the states. All you need to do is buy up whichever ship you want, pop it out of the box and your all set to play! There is no building, painting just playing. I remember when a buddy and I were playing Halo ship battles for the first time in our local store. We just happened to be playing when there was an X-Wing tournament going on. All of our ships were assembled and painted and we had many X-Wing players stopping buy to look at the game. All of them were very interested in the game and they all pretty much asked if the ships come like they were painted? When we informed them no, all of them walked away and I don't think even one copy of the game was sold that day. Bottom line was all of them that asked wanted the instant quick out of the box ready to play game, they didn't want to wait and do anything for the game but just play it.

Perhaps this is why video games are such a huge success, all you need to do is put it in and play! There is no time needed in researching about the armies, assembling the armies or painting said armies, there is the instant satisfaction to just playing said game right out the gate. All the time you have with getting an army ready to play is wasted time that you could be playing the game. Heck it sometimes takes me years before a new army shows up on the tabletop, in that same time I could have played dozens of video games multiple times!

Another comment from yesterday is that the US population has no sense of its own history. Hell, we have a tendency to tear down our own history to make way for the future to quickly! Its funny, I lived in Los Angeles for a good part of my life and I was surrounded by historic sites, many of which I never knew about. It was right there in my own backyard, but I never knew about it. I think its fair to say that most Americans are like this. As a country, we are not as old as some so we tend to think that we do not have much of our own history here in this country. I mean look at the UK, there is history going back to beyond the Roman era and Viking era still standing today. Here in the states we want to tear historic sites down for the next strip mall or high priced condos! Perhaps this is why there is such a low segment of historical gamers here in the US. I know many of my historical gamer friends that play many other periods of other countries history, but only see the US for a few conflicts.

One point that was made yesterday is that our culture is more about scientific achievements and technology than history. That could be the reason why more futuristic games are more popular over historical games. If we as a US populace are always looking ahead, why would history be important? Maybe that's why there are more generic gamers in the States than Historical gamers. I am not sure of this but it does make sense to some part of my brain.

I mentioned that another reason Scifi/Fantasy games may be more popular over historical is because of our love of movies and the movie industry in general. I grew up with Star Wars and all of the other movies that followed, heck my own entry into SciFi gaming was thanks to the movie Aliens and my buddy handing me a copy of Space Hulk! The movie industry does tend to make it easier to get excited about a certain genera of games, but there are also a multitude of great historical movies out there. But I think most current movie goers are all about the big explosions and special effects over any sort of substance to a movie.

So with all of these possibilities it got me thinking about what sort of gamer am I? Am I truly a Historical gamer? Or am I a more Generic gamer? I do play many games but as of lately I do tend to lean more towards historical games. In fact out of the last 10 games I played, all but three were historical games. Am I a button counter historical gamer? I don't see myself as one, although one friend tends to think so. Would I ever play a non historical game, sure I will be playing a non historical game this coming weekend. Is one type of gamer better or worse than the other? I don't think so, I guess it only really matters on what you enjoy in the hobby, because after all, it is your hobby.

That's what I took from the conversation yesterday, its really your hobby, there is no right or wrong way to doing your hobby. Its totally your own and it really doesn't matter what everyone else thinks. Its about what makes you happy and what you gather your enjoyment from. So do what you like and who cares what others think. I am happy to say I am a Historic Gamer at times as well as a Generic Gamer other times.

TK

Black Powder American Civil War

So,

My local game buddies and I usually get together once a year or so and do really big games of Black Powder American Civil War. This year thought we did not find the time to put together anything, our last game was Flank Attack at Chancellorsville, you can read about the game here on Drunken Samurais blog.

With no games coming up, I decided to organize a large game in February 18, 2017 up at Imperial Outpost Games. There are a couple of main reasons for this, first up, a good friend and fellow Adepticon attendee, Merle D will be coming out to play. Secondly, I usually run Gathering in the Desert in February and I am burned out on organizing this event, so I decided that it would be a great time to do this big game.

The other night Robert and I were talking and he mentioned that we are mid way through October and that we need to get going on this ACW game in February. It dawned on me that I still had figure to paint and some terrain I needed to build for the game. So I thought I might as well get started on this project now.

So I drug out all my painted ACW stuff (which is only three small 5 stand regiments) as well as my in assembled Perry Miniatures. here is the first regiment assembled last night.

This is a larger unit making up seven stands all out of the Perry Confederate box. They assembled rather quickly and so I figured I would add another regiment as well.

This regiment is from the first ACW Perry box which allows you to paint them up as either Union or Confederates. I did add a Sash and Saber banner bearer as well as a Old Glory Second Edition commander to the group.

Tonight I hope to get at least two more regiments assembled as well as prepping the Old Glory ACW set of Wounded and Dying figures. I will use these for casualty markers besides my units when they suffer hits.

So stay tuned for more ACW Black Powder updates.

TK

Band of Painters October Submission

Well,

Another month down on our little Band of Painters Challenge and I decided to take the easy route this time and work on the Panzer IV X tank that came in the starter set. This tank comes in at 230 points as a Regular crew and I paid +10 for armored side skirts, so total is 240 points.

Panzer IV X for Konfilkt 47

 The Panzer IV X kit is just a plain old plastic Warlord Panzer IV kit (it is a complete tank kit) as well as a resin turret-mounted Scherefeld Projektor which is cast up rather nicely with minor flash or issues.

Construction of the Warlord kit is pretty straight forward with an exploded diagram on the starter box. As a side note, there are no instructions on how to assemble the turret, but having put together many tank models in various scales, it was pretty easy to assemble it without instructions. Also this kit went together faster than a standard Rubicon Panzer IV, that's just an FYI.

Panzer IV X in Ambush scheme

I decided to paint up this vehicle up in the Ambush camo scheme like I did for the walker I did last month. I figured the Germans would use this on all of their vehicles in 1947 and hey, its a Sci Fi thing and alternate WW2 thing now!

Panzer IV X searching for a target!

So there you go, another installment of Band of Painters completed, next up will be a few German Heavy Infantry in Heavy armor.

TK

Love/Hate Saga Relationship

So,

Been doing a lot of thinking about Gripping Beasts Saga game of late and I have been trying to figure out why I feel the way I do about it. Now I will have to give credit to Robert over at Drunken Samurai Painting Blog he is having the same thoughts but for Bolt Action.

I have been playing Saga for a few years now, but have not been to serious about it. Yeah I do have three armies now, but I have sort of been flirting with the game for years. I don't hate the game, but don't seem to love the game either, it is just there in the middle. That's why I have been thinking about it a lot, why have I not moved it into the Love this game category.

As most readers of this blog know, I love skirmish games of all types, heck you don't have to look to hard to figure that out. Also readers will know that I absolutely love GW's Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game, which to me was the best skirmish game out there. I also love anything that deals with the Dark Age period, my first Warhammer Ancient Battle army was an Orkney Isle Viking army. So when Saga came out, I saw it as a mix of my two loves, Skirmish and Dark Age period. But for some reason I kept Saga at arms distance. I remember seeing an article in Wargames Illustrated showcasing Saga and I remember being turned off by the this new dice mechanic for activating units and abilities.

I eventually caved in and started playing Saga using my Vikings from WAB. A few of the other guys I game with picked up the game and we started playing, but once again the game was just there in the background for me. Perhaps it was the fact that I was using models that I painted for another system or it was the fact that I was struggling to understand just how to use the battle board and the rules. Not sure why I was having issues with it, was pretty simple.

Another thing that most readers will pick up on is that I like to organize events and with that I build a ton of terrain for said events. Just look back at all the tables of terrain I built for Lord of the Rings, most which I still have. When it came to terrain for Saga, it was easy to re use LotR terrain. I did pick up a few buildings from 4Ground for Saga, but nothing much. So once again, I had terrain for Saga but still was not feeling it.

Maybe it was the fact that there were no events for Saga going on locally. When I last attended Adepticon a few years ago, they had gotten the Gripping Beast Grand Melee for the US. I happened to be in the same room as this event and was blown away by what my friend Eric Hagen had done for terrain. Also the format looked awesome for the event, but unfortunately I had other commitments for Adepticon and could not play in it. Then I found out that Eric and his crew run an event called Saga Storm, basically a small Saga event held outside somewhere up in the Frozen North!

So here were two awesome looking Saga events that were run very well and it spoke to me inside that I should do something for Saga locally, because as people know, I like to organize stuff! So with the help of Mike, we organized a "Non" event for Saga called Ragnarok back in 2015. We had support from Gripping Beast and had about 8 players. Everyone had a great time playing in this "Non" event. But I was feeling burned out on running events, so I did not really push doing something with Saga. I still had that non committal feeling about the game.

So, after thinking about all of the above items mentioned, I think I finely figured out what is wrong with Saga, it is me! It would seem that I have been the biggest reason why I was wanting to think there was something wrong with the game. I was letting past experiences cloud my judgement of this very cool and popular game. I even know the point when I finally figured out it was me, last Sunday when Robert and I got in a game. It was a very close, challenging game and after Robert packed up and left, I had this lightning bolt of a realization that I do love this game! I have been thinking about this all week and my mind has been trying to tell me differently, but I think I fully have embraced Saga.

So what does this epiphany mean for me? Well it means that I will be working on a few new armies, building a few new terrain pieces and it may, that's a big may, mean I will run another Ragnarok event in the near future, we shall see. But it has been eye opening to me to fully come to terms with this game and realize that I was the one in the way of it. Self realization is an important thing in life, I think it makes you a better person and why not have the self realization in our hobby as well?

So now who wants to play some Saga???

TK