Lately, I’ve gotten into the mood of doing some scratchbuilding for our 15mm medieval games. I started to build a cog, which I will cover in detail in another blog entry as soon as it looks like something to share. I also made some small terrain features. As we play on a felt mat, our landscape can look a bit bland, especially if a scenario demands few other terrain features. So I decided to build some small bits and pieces to break up the green expanse:
This was easy and fast: The small spots of grass are mounted on round 25mm bases, the others on spare bits of plasticard. The trees are figs covered with thinned PVA glue, painted and drybrushed.
Recently when taking a walk, we came across a replica of a medieval herb garden. It tells a lot about how much of a wargamer I have become when my imagination immediately conjured up images of such a garden in 15mm! Returning home, I fell upon an old table mat and cut it into stripes to make wattle fencing. I glued those onto a rectangular piece of plasticard and arranged some matchsticks for the framing of the flower beds. After painting and strewing coloured flock into the beds, another bit of scenery was ready:
On ebay, I acquired a lot of resin dry stone walls to make pastures. When I put them on the table and placed some sheep inside, K. rightly pointed out that there were no gates, so how would the animals get in there in the first place? Well, she’s right were she’s right! After plundering a box of matchsticks and getting my fingers full of PVA glue, I had these:
My last order from Magister Militium included a pack of 15mm grave stones I used to make a typical english graveyard (or at least something a tourist like me would recognise as such). This was also very easy: Another piece of plasticard as a base, drybrushing the stones in different shades of grey and generous flocking led to a quiet place for contemplating the vanity of all earthly pursuits.
Last, I decided to make some archer’s stakes out of toothpicks. At the moment, we don’t have any cavalry in play, but I want to paint up some hobilars, so these might come in handy at some point:
It’s really fun to make scenery in 15mm. It’s quick work and the results do look nice, if I say so myself. I am looking forward to putting the new stuff on the table!
It’s been a long time since the last game in our SAGA campaign. We were occupied with the Wars of the Roses and were also travelling a lot, so time was short, but we realised that we really wanted to know how the campaign would go on. So we finally sat down to play another game. We knew that, as things stood, a decision would soon have to be reached. But we didn’t know that the next game would be the grand finale of our campaign!
We had left the game with the Norman 2nd army retreating towards the castle, having ambushed the Vikings and taken a beating. The Vikings now advanced once more towards Little Tipping while the retreating Normans rushed to unite two of their small armies at the bridge. Meanwhile, the Norman 1st army took position in the village, nervously awaiting the Viking host.
When battle was joined, the Normans were at a slight advantage, fielding 5 points versus 4 points of Vikings. Levy, Hearthguard and one unit of Warriors were set up in the middle, while another unit of Warriors and the crossbows were at the right flank, between a house and the church. The Vikings put Warriors, Berserkers and and one unit of Hearthguard in the middle and hid another unit of Hearthguard behind the church.
Vikings approaching from the North
This lone unit of Hearthguard looked rather isolated and proved to be too sweet a temptation for the Norman commander, who charged his Warriors around the church to attack them. A sage man who recognises temptation as the devil’s handiwork!
“Into the mouth of Hell / Rode the eight.”
“Then they rode back, but not / Not the eight.” In fact, none rode back at all – half of them were lost in the attack, the other half when the Vikings struck back. This was not a good start, but spirits were still high on the Norman side. They started to drop when the crossbowmen, who were advancing on the right flank, were rushed by the Warlord and the Berserkers and cut to pieces. The whole right flank was gone!
“Flash’d all their sabres bare”
However, the manoeuvering also meant that the Vikings had now split their forces in two and the Normans started to exploit the situation. On the left flank, the mounted Warriors charged the other Hearthguard, while the ranks of the Viking warriors were greatly diminished by Levy archery. The tide had been turned! The Viking Warlord, anticipating that defeat was imminent, put all his eggs into one basket and charged the Norman Warlord, who was accompanied by his trusty Hearthguard. An epic melee followed. In the end, not even the sacrifices of his noble knights could save the Norman leader, who succumbed to the ferocity of the Viking Warlord.
Their daring had earned the Vikings a victory. What would happen now? Eagerly, we turned to the campaign map. Normally, we would end the gaming session at this point, but we both knew that this battle could have been the decisive one. So, what would happen?
The situation after the Second Battle of Little Tipping.
First, the beaten Normans had to retreat. This took them away from the village, which was now in Viking hands. Those thieving magpies immediately started to grab everything that was not nailed down. No Norman force was in range to stop them in time. As we had determined that the Viking aim was to plunder at least four villages, they had achieved a victory.
Winner of the SAGA campaign was the Viking force played by K.!
The Vikings have won!
This was a worthy finale to a great campaign. When discussing it, we both liked that a decision had been reached in a reasonable time. K. suggested that next time the villages should be distributed differently, as it was pretty clear from the beginning that Little Tipping would be the decisive place. I have to admit that I didn’t put much thinking into the map as I had just played around with the software and was so happy when I had produced a map that I immediately used it! We also agreed that next time we would try to play more diverse scenarios – all but one of our games were straight on battles (the exception being a river crossing scenario).
Some more data on the campaign: We played for 14 turns. As I had losely determined that one turn=one day, the Vikings were rampaging for two weeks in the Norman fiefdom before they retreated to their ship. In real time this took us about four months. However, we had some very long breaks in between. We played five SAGA battles, of which two were won by the Normans and three by the Vikings. But those dry statistics can’t capture the great fun we had with the campaign! The tabletop battles were even more engrossing than normal as they had consequences and we rooted for our troops as the story enfolded on the map.
Thanks to everyone who read and commented on the reports, I hope I could convey some of the fun! And do not despair if you like SAGA: There will be more reports coming as we plan to play more scenarios.
Some time ago, I moaned about the burden of painting 28mm buildings for our pirate gaming. Imagine my pleasant surprise when Kirk Stephens from The Miniature Building Authority offered to send me one of their prepainted buildings for review! I decided I would compare it to another 28mm building a acquired some time ago on ebay, a prepainted ruin by ESLO Terrain. Other than that, my experience with prepainted stuff is pretty limited. Playing X-Wing, I of course know the excellent spaceships that come with the game. And at CRISIS, I had a good look at the much talked about stuff by 4Ground. But that’s about it! So I was curious what I would get.
The Miniature Building Authority offers a broad range of 28mm as well as 15mm terrain. The range I am most interested in is the Spanish Main series, which comes with some really nice pieces. The huge customs house is especially shiny! Kirk sent me the Spanish Tiled Medium Building.
Cpt. Sparrow, home owner!
It arrived in a nifty cardboard box whith a styrofoam inlay that fits to the contours of the buildings – a very safe way of packing. The building itself is a weighty bit of solid resin with two seperate roofs that fit on very well. The interior is not modelled but painted in the same colour as the walls. However, we normally don’t play inside buildings so this was of no concern for me and anyway you can easily fit in some figures.
Now where do I put the TV?
The building is rather on the large side for 28mm – at least compared to most other manufacturers, who tend to reduce ground scale for buildings. If you prefer ‘true scale’, this is the scenery you are looking for! The texture of the walls is crisp and gives a good weathered look. The painting is nice and clear, although the walls are grey and not the sandy beige as shown on the website. I guess you could state the colour you like when you order something.
The ESLO ruin is also huge, but this is mainly because of the landscaped base it sits on. The building itself, a derelict tower, is in the reduced ground scale that is common with 28mm. Weight-wise, the whole construction is pretty light – it’s certainly not resin. Nevertheless, it looks reasonably sturdy and survived the games we have played on it without any problems. Painting and landscaping is nice and the whole thing provides some variety on the table.
Enjoying the view.
I am happy with both of them. Prepainted terrain certainly saves a lot of trouble, especially for someone like me who doesn’t enjoy working with resin (being an ‘interesting material to work with’, as Neil Shuck put it in the latest issue of Miniature Wargames). If your time is limited and you are already having trouble painting up figures, prepainted scenery can help to get actual gaming done!
!["Flash'd all their sabres bare"]](https://wargamingraft.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/pic31.jpg)
The Raft 