WIP - Saga: Viking Warband

 Some Work In Progress pics of the Viking Warband.

An overall shot of the 4 point warband starting from the back row, left to right: Hearthguard unit, Warlord, Hearthguard unit (the berserkers), Warriors with swords, and warriors with spears. They are all missing shields which will be painted separately. I decided to arm them for easy identification on the table top. The Gripping Beast Hirdmen box went together pretty easy, took me an evening to put together. Only complaint would be the limited amount of poses available in the box.

Close up of the Berserkers, for these I used the Warlord Games Ancient Germans box. Nice action poses and they fit right in size wise with the Gripping Beast plastics. At this point I'm waiting on an order for bases and they'll be ready for paint.

Homemade Saga Dice

With the nice (and expensive) engraved Saga Dice being sold out everywhere, I figured I'd try and make my own dice. Using a sheet of clear decal paper, some blank d6's, and a bit of time, I have dice for my Viking army. We'll see how durable they are though, I'm hoping a spray of some gloss clear will help to prevent the decal from flaking off over time. They should be fine for at least the first couple games.

Saga - The Vikings are coming

After watching some friends playing a cool new game at our game club, my brother and I decided to try out the new Saga wargame by Gripping Beast. Set in the Dark Ages, the core game mechanic is the Saga Dice and Battleboard. Each faction (4 in the basic rules: Vikings, Normans, Anglo-Danes and Welsh) have a Battleboard which list different orders or abilities that you can issue to your warband during the game. But the challenge is you have to roll and assign the Saga Dice to the Battleboard (by matching symbols) at the start of your turn and discard dice from the board to issue an order or ability to your warband during your turn.

We agreed on 4 point warbands to start with which means we only have to paint 25 or so figures to start playing. I'll be doing the Vikings while my brother will be doing the Anglo-Danes. We picked up a box of Gripping Beast's Viking Hirdmen and a Box of Warlord Games Germanic Tribesmen. The German box set was purchased for the bare chested torsos and extra weapons to convert into duel wielding Berserkers. With just these two box sets and some mixing and matching you can create two warbands, and have enough parts left over to expand to 6 points or the start of a third warband.

Sherman Tank Company

::The Complete Sherman Company::

::The Complete Sherman Company::

::The Complete Sherman Company::

::HQ and 2ic::

::75mm Sherman Platoon A::

::75mm Sherman Platoon B::

::76mm Sherman Platoon::

All models by Plastic Soldier Company, Stowage by Peter Pig and Battlefront.

1500 Point US Tank Company - Finished

I finally managed to Finish off the Sherman Platoons, so that means my 1500 point Flames of War army is done. Well until the PSC M3 halftracks are released, need those to finish off the Armored Rifles, but for now they'll have to go to battle on foot. I'll add another post in a few days with more detailed pics of the complete army, here are some overall army pics.

::front to back: 1x Tank Co HQ, 2x 75mm Tank Platoons, 1x 76mm Tank Platoon::

::The Complete 1500 US Tank Company::

Whats the next project? My brother and I picked up the Field of Glory Ancients rule set and decided to do a classic match-up, I'll be doing the Alexandrian Macedonian's while my brother is doing the Persians in 15mm. I decided to go with Xyston for the figures, amazing sculpts, but a bit on the large size, they're more like 18mm. I figure as long as I stick with Xyston and not mix figures from other manufacturers it'll be fine. At the moment I'm still going through and organizing them into battle groups and prepping them for priming.

Forged in Battle - WIP

This is where I am currently at on my M8's and Jeeps.

After I finish these off I just need to finish 15 Shermans. I already assembled 10 of the cast hull versions so they are ready to go. I am waiting on Plastic Soldier Company to send me a box of the welded hull Shermans, I want mixed hull types in my force.

Forged in Battle

I just picked up my order for the Forged in Battle M8's and Jeeps for my US Tank Company. The M8's are packaged 3 to a clampack and the Jeeps are 4 to a clampack. Comprising Resin and White Metal parts the castings on these are excellent. I just had one jeep with a chip on the front hood. Only downside (for me) is the molded on bases, it doesn't affect them in terms of gameplay, I just prefer my vehicles unbased.

On the M8's I decided to model the 50. cal's as if they were on a ring mount on top of the turret. It's wrong, I know, but I just like the look of it. As modeled they are supposed to go on the rear of the turret as some M8's were fitted with them in this position for AA duty.

US Armored Rifle Platoon - Finished

Here is the finished US Armored Rifle Platoon.

To finish off the Company I still need 15 Shermans, 2 M8 Greyhounds, 4 Jeeps, and 5 M3 Halftracks. I have 10 of the shermans assembled so far. Just waiting for Plastic Soldier Company to ship another box of Shermans and I have an order out with Forged in Battle for the M8 Greyhounds and the Jeeps. As for the M3 Halftracks I'll just wait for PSC to release theirs and run the army without halftracks for now.

1500 point US Tank Company Army List

My 1500 point US Army Tank Company list from easyarmy.com, a great army builder utility for Flames of War.

My Armored Rifle company stands are finished just working on the bases, I picked up 3 different tufts, some Galeforce 9 ground flock and static grass to play around with, pics should be up soon of the finished unit.

Flames of War 15mm

What I have been working on recently. I got back into Flames of War with the big V3 release as its a good time to get back into the game and learn the rules along with everyone else. I haven't played since first edition, and I skipped second edition, so its been about 6 years since I last played. To start off, I picked up a box of the Plastic Soldier Company 15mm Shermans...

Here, I have assembled them out of the box. They build up very nicely and are easy to put together. I used some "Combo Weights" intended for Pinewood Derby cars and just glued 2 sections inside each tank to increase their weight. At this point they looked like they were missing something and looking through reference pictures and videos of Shermans in combat they all have one thing in common...

Lots and lots of junk strapped onto the rear deck and turret sides including, in some of the pics I saw, bicycles and pianos. So I picked up a pack of US stowage. For $12.50usd it includes a ton of sprues, only problem is there are only 2 types of sprues. But what it lacks in variety it makes up for in the number of sprues, and with careful arranging of the stowage tank to tank, you can get unique stowed tanks.

and here is a shot of 2 figs from the US Rifle Company pack I painted up to figure out color combos. I paint 15mm figures Assembly Line style, so painting one or two test figures helps to see what the end result will be and to work out any problem areas I may run into when going down the line of 50-100 figures.