The Black Order - All Things End

[Knight-Captain Tyr]

Thanks, guys!

They look great, both sets. What was the base cavalry box you used as I don’t recognise them? Persians?

Fireforge Mongols. An odd kit - I really like the surfeit of cool bits you get in the kit, but the Mongolian heads are so bad. Like, they look more like Mordor Orcs than humans. So I recommend swapping them out if you can.

I've been doing various hobby things behind the scenes but not really had time to take pics. However, last night I had the chance to show a friend Saga for the first time and he was impressed - think I might have gained a new player for our group!

(4pts, Ordenstaat vs Vikings. Mirror-match forces - 8 Hearthguard, 8 Warriors, 12 Levy. I gave my friend the choice of battle boards, and he took the Ordenstaat and won a clear victory over the pagans.  Definitely keeping things historical for future intros and running similar mirror-match lists, it makes things massively easier to parse for a newbie.)

[Knight-Captain Tyr]

In what will (probably rightfull) be jeered at, I've decided to rebase a fair proportion of my Black Order to round bases. Why? They look better, and my gaming group is increasingly leaning away from rank-and-flank games. Not that that'll stop me - you can still use round based models on trays with round slots.

More importantly, and less facetiously, it's a great chance to go back and touch up individual models and units which perhaps needed a bit more love.

Starting with the Black Order's knights - 8 Hearthguard for Saga who will go into battle alongside the Order's officers, taking full advantage of their Armour 5 to stay alive long enough to make use of the Bodyguards rule.

And in action against the Dark's thralls...

[Grumpy Gnome]

As a round base fan, I support your decision! We shall face derision together.

[has.been]

I too favour round bases, looks much better (IMHO) for
skirmish games. Having said that, Vodkafan is gently
nudging me towards '3,2,1,' basing i.e. three different
sized round bases. Smallest has 1 figure, medium 2 &
largest 3. It does look nice & speeds up large skirmish games.

[Knight-Captain Tyr]

Well, I've started, so I've got to finish...

Twelve half-brothers of the Black Order, under the banner of the Ostvangr garrison. I've used these guys in a lot of game systems, but right now they're mostly seeing use as Warriors in Saga - whether under the Black Order's reskinned Age of Magic battle board (the Horde) or as Ordenstaat Warriors.

[Gibby]

Excellent effort so far. Rebasing is such a tedious job, but worth it once done. I am on the verge of doing the same with my square-mounted miniatures. Like you, I am not really seeing as much rank 'n' flank action on the horizon, but as you say, it's easy enough to rank them up on rounds using sabot bases anyway. Sarissa Precision do some that still provide a close-order look as there is no gap between figure bases: HERE

Round bases do definitely look much better in skirmish games.

[Lau]

Your fantastic models are looking even better on round bases! Its the right decision, but man, i dont envy the work that needs doing!

[Elbows]

Great work, and yeah I definitely think rounds are the way to go for most games, and as you said you can always slap them in a tray, etc.

They look great.

[Knight-Captain Tyr]

Cheers lads. Gibby, thanks for the Sarissa link - I'll definitely keep them in mind if/when Warhammer Old World gets everyone hot and heavy for rank and flank again.

Another completion - the Archers of Yolwood:

[Knight-Captain Tyr]

Started work on a display board specially for SAGA and other fairly low-model-count games. I must say I really missed working on these, they're great fun!

[Barbarus]

I did the same thing roughly 10 years ago. Ripped many minis off their square bases and put them on round ones.

And about three years ago I ripped everything off the round bases and put them back on squares.

I regretted the round bases. You can play any skirmisher with the square bases, but there are so many games I like for which you need the square ones.

And weirdly, something I did not expect, I got tired of round bases. I no longer think they're prettier than the squares, quite the opposite.

Anyway, I hope you won't regret your decision and look forward seeing more minis!

[SotF]

I did the same thing roughly 10 years ago. Ripped many minis off their square bases and put them on round ones.

And about three years ago I ripped everything off the round bases and put them back on squares.

I regretted the round bases. You can play any skirmisher with the square bases, but there are so many games I like for which you need the square ones.

And weirdly, something I did not expect, I got tired of round bases. I no longer think they're prettier than the squares, quite the opposite.

Anyway, I hope you won't regret your decision and look forward seeing more minis!

With some games, the square bases can create a rotate for advantage situation due to the width...even more so if you have cavalry on rectangles (even the ovals can create it). My first experience with that was with Ronin, but I've seen it happen in a lot of other games as well where you aren't moving groups around and where facing tends to not matter in the rules.

I'd stopped basing my forces on squares unless it was something tied into a game when dealing with people pulling that kind of thing

[Knight-Captain Tyr]

Early days still on the display board, but it's really starting to come together I think. I wanted it to be primarily for a SAGA force, but with some modular additions - specifically a camp and campfire - I think this would make a great "party screen" type vignette for Rangers of Shadow Deep. Imagine your Rangers returning home to their camp in the wilds to rest, recover and rearm before sallying out again. Something like a 'camp screen' from a videogame. Still heavily WIP. Thoughts?

[Knight-Captain Tyr]

Just a couple pics from an evening of gaming last night with the London crowd. We seem to be approaching critical mass with SAGA now, which is great, as it's fast becoming my favourite system. Between four of us, we had:

Game 1: Ordenstaat vs Vikings / Masters of the Underearth vs Last Romans (Magic vs historicals - the heresy!)

Game 2: Masters of the Underearth vs Late Romans

All in all a really good evening, with some crazy dice rolls. The Romans held their own all evening against Dwarven cunning, whilst the Ordenstaat were very lucky to squeeze out a 2pt win against a ferocious Viking force. Some amazing paintjobs on display too, both the Romans and Vikings had freehanded all their shields... 🥴

If you're in the London area give a shout - we're talking about doing a one-day weekend meetup soon.

Kickoff! Ordenstaat vs Vikings in the foreground and Underearth vs Last Romans in the background.



The Viking horde gathers. Some brilliant paintjobs, especially on the shields, and great use of an LBMS banner on the Shieldmaidens.



The Late Romans (from game 2) assemble in formation, as the mounted Warlord surveys the ranks. Again, all the shields were freehand!



Game 1: The Vikings crash into the Teutonic Order's line, bellowing guttural war cries. The Order's serjeants drive back the Shieldmaidens on the right flank as the knights themselves are swarmed by pagans.



Underearth hearthguard meet Roman hearthguard on an open field! Not sure how this melee resolved itself but looks like the advantage was to the Romans...



An unbelievably bloody melee in the centre of the field leaves just one Teutonic Order serjeant standing, against three Viking warriors. The Order warrior survived for another 2 melees on his own!



Dwarven warriors surge toward the Roman line. That manuballista in the distance really did a number on the Dwarves...

[Knight-Captain Tyr]

Making the most of a day off to add some manpower to the Black Order. I don't think I'll ever truly be finished with this force...!

Upon trying out a few Saga battle boards from Age of Crusades, I find myself drawn naturally toward the Teutonic Order as they are the Black Order's historical inspiration in many ways. Their battle board is slightly simplistic and doesn't offer a huge amount of tactical play, however, so I'm also running the Order under the Baltic Crusaders battle board. In both the Teutonic and Baltic boards, the role of crossbowmen is really significant - whether using the Nach Osten ability to 'reload' crossbows for free under the Teutonic battle board, or using Jericho and Find Chinks in their Armour on the Crusaders board.

So I'm building 12 arbalests who will, depending on the board, serve as 1 pt of Levy or 1.5pts of Warriors. I've used the Fireforge Northmen bits with Perry French Infantry and European Mercenaries crossbows, as well as heads from a variety of kits (Frostgrave, Fireforge, Oathmark, Victrix).

Finally, I've also started working on another 12 heavy infantry for the Black Order, who will serve as Warriors in Saga. I have yet to really figure out which battle board synergises best with the 'heavy infantry', Warrior-centric approach - any ideas welcome! These guys are based on Victrix's amazing Normans set with shields swapped out for Fireforge Templar shields and fur pelts added.