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

Ragnarok 2015

So,

Today was the big (or small) event for Saga her in the Valley of the Sunstroke. We had eight folks that committed to the event. But life got in the way for one person so we had seven total folks. The breakdown of players and armies were as follows:

Tom O - Vikings
Robert B - Vikings
Jerry A - Vikings
Mike W - Vikings
Matt W - Scots
Al R - Brentons
Tim K - Anglo Saxons

We played three scenarios that were set on each table and we rotated to each table with a different opponent. Table one had Clash of Warlord on it, table two was Battle at the Ford and the last table was Home land.

We kept it simple just tracking wins and victory points. Since we had an odd number of players, we had one player take a bye and get a win, I took the first bye since I was running the event. It all worked out well with only one issue with paint judging.

So here are a few pictures from the event: .

Clash of Warlords Board

Battle at the Ford board

Homeland Board

Jerry with Vikings vs Tom and his Vikings

Al with Brentons vs Matt and his Scots

Robert and Vikings vs Mike and his Vikings

Mikes Viking Raiders

Jerrys Vikings run to defend their village!

Toms Vikings looking for trouble.

Roberts Viking Jarl viewing the battlefield in the shade.

Mats Scots proudly displaying their banner.

Al's Breton force, looks like a WAB army on the table.

My Saxons forming up a shield wall.

Jerry's Vikings advance through the rough ground.

Mat's Scots defending their homes!

Tom's Viking warriors.

Tom's small Hearth guard unit.

My Saxons charge across the ford to engage the Vikings.

Another view of the epic ford battle.

Saxon Hearth guard and warriors cross the ford.

Vikings cross the ford

So after all the dust settled, I added up the win/loss of all the players.

Tom O took overall winner, Robert took the best painted and then everyone else got to take turns claiming their prize.

All in all it was it was a great time and everyone enjoyed themselves. We had a bunch of folks come by and watch the games.so their you go, Ragnarok is in the books, we will be doing this event again in the near future.

TK

Saga 6 Point Anglo Saxon Army Done!

Saga Anglo Saxon 6 Points Done!

So,

I finally finished up my 6 point Saga army about two weeks ago. I wanted to get pictures up sooner but had a few things come up (wife had to go to hospital for kidney stones and a quick trip out to CA for work). So here is what I got done:

So the force is as follows, the Warlord, 2 Hearthguard units, 2 Warrior units and 2 levy units. All the models are Gripping Beast plastics except for the warlord which is a Gripping Beast metal figure. It took about two weeks to assemble and then another two weeks of painting off and on each night between writing and working on paint commissions. I took my time with painting and did a bit more highlighting on the figures which makes them pop on the tabletop.

Here are a few more shots:

This army is for our little "Non-Event" called Ragnarok, which is a small 3 game Saga event being held at Imperial Outpost games here in Phoenix AZ. We have two main reasons for doing this, one is to show folks Saga and that there are folks playing it here and the second reason is just about getting together with friends to play Saga.

The fine folks at Gripping Beast sent out a few items for prize support, which Is awesome. Gripping Beast has always been more than happy with us gamers here in Phoenix going back to the days of WAB and the tournaments we ran here.

We also have a Viking Drinking horn from my good friend Jay Ryan and his company Feestzaal Horns, which if you were at Adepticon this year you saw their cool horns and they gave one away at the Saga Grand Melee event. Now ours is a smaller one, but it's just as cool as the larger ones.

Mike and I also had some cool Saga movement sticks done for us from Hollow tree studios.

So there you go just a quick update for the blog.

TK

Anglo Saxons for Saga

Okay,

To get ready for our little Ragnarok Game day here in Phoenix on May 23rd, I decided to bust out and build a new army for Saga. I have been picking up a few Gripping Beast Plastic Saxon Thegans and Dark Age warriors box sets over the last month and decided that I needed to get started on this project. So about two weeks ago I started assembling the warriors.

First off I have to say the Gripping Beast plastic kits are awesome, and with two boxes of Thegns and one dark age warrior box I was able to assemble this whole army with only one metal model. I first started working on a two Hearthguard units of Ealdormen. I gave them all swords and did some extra highlights and brighter colors since these guys are the Warlords personal bodyguards.

Hearthguard Ealdormen

I also tried a more stark high lighting with a two tone look on the shields. I wanted them to pop a little more than the rest of the army and I think they do. At first I did not like the high def colors, but it works on these models. 

New extreme high lights on shields.

I like this pattern and color scheme

Red looks good as well!

Next up are the warriors or Ceorls, now these pictures are the work in progress shot. The shields and extra highlights have not been done, but wanted to show the more subtle color compared to the hearthguard.

Warrior unit one.

Warrior unit two

All together.

Since Saxons have a special rule about levies getting better armor, I decided to do two units of Geburs armed with spear and shields. These guys are still waiting to get painted, but as of the time I am writing this they all have been primed black.

 

A unit of Levie of Geburs

Two units of Geburs

 Last but not least is the Warlord, which is the Alfred the Great Model (and only metal figure in the whole army). As of the time of the picture, I was going to mount the standard bearer with him, but it doesn't look quite right. So I may just mount him by himself.

So there you have it, a quick little Saga update, will post more as the army progress'. I am really looking forward to the event next month.

TK