The Black Order - All Things End

[Ogrob]

It's "remove 1d6 casualties" from units within a certain distance of the Chasm itself. Which I would assume means no saving throws, fatigue/Resilience etc - so if the Underearth player is going second, it appears to be a great way to snipe enemy characters/monsters etc?

Dug up my battleboard and had a look. It's an orders/reaction ability, so it would be triggered in the Order phase of the opponent's turn always, not the Underearth player, and the opponent then has their activation phase to move away. The effect then triggers at the end of the activation phase.

[Knight-Captain Tyr]

SAGA is a really fun game. I find that, although there was an official campaign supplement, it works a lot better for one off games than it does for ongoing (particularly narrative focussed) campaigns, simply because of how bloody it is.
Very often in nearly every game I've played, even the winner has a Pyrrhic Victory on their hands, and most units that aren't wiped out have only a handful of soldiers left! Also, someone's Warlord usually always dies simply by virtue that there isn't much room to avoid getting in range of the enemy's Warlord (and trying to dodge the required duel is not very thematic for most forces ).

Interesting! Yeah, so far it seems really bloody...but we like that I'm looking forward to trying the more 'unusual' scenarios with cityfighting, baggage trains and the like.

Dug up my battleboard and had a look. It's an orders/reaction ability, so it would be triggered in the Order phase of the opponent's turn always, not the Underearth player, and the opponent then has their activation phase to move away. The effect then triggers at the end of the activation phase.

This makes infinitely more sense! I didn't clock this at all. Guess I need to go and re-read what Orders/Reactions means etc. Thanks mate, saved me a headache there.

[Knight-Captain Tyr]

Also, I accept that this is utterly over the top and probably meaningless to most, but I love doing this sort of thing - I worked up a customised Black Order battle board for SAGA: Age of Magic, using The Horde's board. I kept the wording for everything exactly the same, as well as dice values, it's just a cosmetic rework.

I know, ubernerd - but it adds a layer of flavour I enjoy, so there's that.

[Ogrob]

I think it's really sweet, looks great!

And yes, SAGA is super bloody. We played an Age of the Wolf campaign in first edition, and after the first game I couldn't even field a legal force because of permanent casulaties. Not the best campaign system I have played

[gibby64]

I REALLY like how you play games... it's ppl like you that keeps game developers going. Knowing that there are ppl out there that are super passionate and make the most of their games. I look forward to what you do next!

[Knight-Captain Tyr]

I think it's really sweet, looks great!

And yes, SAGA is super bloody. We played an Age of the Wolf campaign in first edition, and after the first game I couldn't even field a legal force because of permanent casulaties. Not the best campaign system I have played

I think the way to go with SAGA campaigns is probably to ignore casualties and only count Warlord XP/game results. At least, that's my intuition, otherwise it does sound like a meat grinder

I REALLY like how you play games... it's ppl like you that keeps game developers going. Knowing that there are ppl out there that are super passionate and make the most of their games. I look forward to what you do next!

Shucks...Making a man blush! Cheers fella. It's scratching an itch the tournament approach didn't for me, so it's all good.

[Knight-Captain Tyr]

Finished off the "fluff and flavour" text on the summary sheet on the back of the battle board...and laminated the damn thing. Now for some games!

...and ready for gaming!

[PineyPhantom]

I love that you make custom thematic cards and such for your games and I want to do so as well, so I have to ask, what program do you use to make things like this? I'd love to learn whatever editing I need to because these feel like they add so much to your game on a personal level.

[Knight-Captain Tyr]

I love that you make custom thematic cards and such for your games and I want to do so as well, so I have to ask, what program do you use to make things like this? I'd love to learn whatever editing I need to because these feel like they add so much to your game on a personal level.

Sure! I use Canva. Sometimes GIMP (a free Photoshop equivalent) when I need to make custom graphics. Canva is used to pull it all together and align nicely on the page.

[Knight-Captain Tyr]

Had a really good game last night vs Lords of the Wild. My first foray into 8pt gaming, and a bloody, brutal victory for the Black Order.





Deployment. The Lords of the Wild take the ruin on the eastern flank, while the Order sneaks a cavalry division around the western edge of the forest. The Order's force comprises 3 points of mounted Hearthguard, 2 points of foot Hearthguard with great weapons, 1 point of Levy archers, a great Horror of the Deepwood (the big Mierce monster), a Crone-Witch, a Champion and Knight-Marshal Selianin leading the force.





The Lords of the Wild force in all its splendour - 3 points of mounted Hearthguard with composite bows, 1.5 points of Warriors with bows, 1.5 points of quadrupeds (Bears), a Great Eagle, a mounted Sorceress and a mounted Warlord.





After a couple turns of shooting, the Order knights storm the ruins and butcher the Wildling warriors to the last. However, a turn later, the unit of bears charges into the ruins - and the knights and bears almost wipe each other out, with only one survivor from each unit left standing!





Desperation - Order levies bring down the Great Eagle, with a single lucky shot piercing the great beast's hide and bringing it crashing to the ground. (A really, really lucky dice roll)



Easily the biggest 'clench' moment of the game - the bloody forest came to life and started hounding the mounted Hearthguard!

In the end, it worked out to a 30-22 Black Order victory on massacre points. The mounted Hearthguard proved instrumental in running down the composite-bow-armed Lords of the Wild, and the Horde battle board worked out really well as a proxy for the Black Order. Fit their theme really well. My opponent was an absolute gentleman and talked me through some of the vagaries of the ruleset - we'll definitely play again soon.

Really loving Saga the more I play it - it's rekindled a lot of excitement for the hobby and I can't wait to try my hand at some bespoke Saga modelling creations.

[Knight-Captain Tyr]

Inspired by that last game, I've started work (on the rework, of the rework, sigh...) of Tyr. There's another version of Tyr in a more dynamic pose forthcoming, but I wanted one in a serene, commanding pose for Saga in the meantime. He needed a bigger base to distinguish him from the Hearthguard, so I made a slot-in 50mm base. Work in progress:

[BZ]

Stunning!

[Ogrob]

Nice looking build, and lovely base. Certainly get the urge to do commanders, my collection of unpainted medieval knights now is as many Kings as plain knights

[Knight-Captain Tyr]

Nice looking build, and lovely base. Certainly get the urge to do commanders, my collection of unpainted medieval knights now is as many Kings as plain knights

There's no end to it I'm afraid   

Managed to finish off the rework on Tyr and his display base this morning:

Knight-Captain Tyr
Master of the Black Order

[Knight-Captain Tyr]

I don't know if this works or not.

For those of you in the know, a lot of the inspiration for this log came from a 1990s game called Myth: The Fallen Lords, and its sequel, Myth II: Soulblighter. Both were heavy on the grimdark and horror of a low-tech medieval world under the oppression of a creeping, cyclical entity dedicated to wiping out life. One of the principal character types on the side of the Light in that game were the Journeymen - pastiches of Native American and Japanese priests, warriors-turned-healers who lived for many times the span of a normal man's life. These guys:

Each bore seven gold tiles around his neck in memory of their order's failure to protect the capital city, each tile said to weigh the same as a grown man.

From a modelling perspective, these guys are a little tricky. Below is my take on the Myth journeymen thus far. I've added some braids to reflect the Native American hairstyling popular among the Journeymen, and obviously a spade from the Living Dead kit to make the connection stronger. However, I'm not sure about the gold tiles, thus far it's bits of card. It'll look better once painted I guess? Any thoughts welcome.