Koyote's Age of Magic -SAGA

[Koyote]

So as not to anger the Moderator gods, I'm going to split off my Age of Magic projects from my SAGA Britons thread in the Medieval Adventures thread.

First, for those who haven't seen my Briton's thread, here's a quick recap.

One of the brilliant aspects of SAGA Age of Magic is the ease in which you can bring your historical SAGA warbands into AoM.  Prior to the release of AoM I had already planned to add a unit of 12 levy archers to my Britons to take advantage of levy rules in SAGA v2, but now that AoM has landed, I've decided to expand the warband even further so that my Britons can be played as a Great Kingdoms warband.  I want to keep my original Arthurian "villains" theme, so I am going to restrict my model and weapon selection (e.g. no firearms) and try to stick to monsters from the early Welsh Arthurian stories.

In addition to expanding my Britons warband, I will need a piece of Sacred Ground terrain.  In both my “historical” and AoM warbands, most of my Britons are early-Christians, but Mordred, Morgan Le Fay, and many of their men keep the old gods and the old ways.  These ties to my Britons’ pagan past gives me the excuse to incorporate some terrific standing stone models (made by Scotia Grendel Miniatures) into my Briton’s AoM Sacred Ground terrain.

I purchased the the rocky hill from Terrainify, a 3D printer that sells on Etsy. They sell this hill in 3 different sizes. For this project, I’m using is the middle size. It measures roughly 7.5” x 6”.

Below are some WIPs.

[Koyote]

Giants play a prominent role in the early myths of Britain's founding, so it's not surprising that they pop up, time and again, in many of the Arthur myths.  In a Welsh myth, Arthur uses treachery to kill 3 giantess sisters and when their brother, Cribwr Gawr, reproaches Arthur, Arthur threatens Cribwr Gawr with death. 

In my warband's AOM backstory the giants are no friends to the Britons, but when Mordred offers Cribwr Gawr the opportunity to kill Arthur, an uneasy alliance is formed

Below is the model that I will use for Cribwr Gawr.  It's one of two giants that I ordered from ArchaniaWorkshiop (a 3D printer who sells on Etsy). With shipping and tax, the two models cost me $26, a bargain indeed. 

The model is made from a hard, brittle resin.  By brittle I don't mean that the model is fragile, only that that material can't be bent or deformed because it will break.  The detail is quite good and clean-up was minimal. 

I removed the model's long hafted axe from its left hand, as it's kind of ridiculous and doesn't fit my theme.  In its place I put a struggling victim that comes from GW's giant kit.  I cut the bit in half and carved away the orignal hand that was grasping the victim.  I glued the two halves to Cribwr Gawr's hand and used greenstuff to fill in the gaps and sculpt the bottom of the victim's long tunic.

[Ogrob]

That looks like a very good quality print. Well done on the squished fella as well.

[Koyote]

I did a bit more work on my AoM models. 

I did some more GS work on  victim's tunic and I added a slain monk (made by Wargames Foundry) to the giant's base. 

Here's the backstory. 

On the eve of battle, Mordred's warband was joined by Cribwr Gawr, Morgan Le Fey, and the sorceress' Pictish bodyguard.  Upon spotting the newcomers, warband's priest, accompanied by his lay assistant, confronted the giant and the "witch", loudly declaring them to be a servants of the devil and imploring his Christian god to strike them down.  The giant stared at the two men for a moment, and then reached down and picked up one man in each hand.  Convinced that his faith would shield him, the struggling priest's protestations and threats grew in volume and venom.  Annoyed and bored by his shrieking captives, Cribwr Gawr crushed the life out of both men, discarded their corpses, and then calmly continued his progress into the warband's camp.  Convinced that discretion is the better part of valor, the onlooking Britons opened their ranks and let the giant stride into the camp.

The war machine is Warlord Games' Roman Scorpion.  A representative of Warlord Games saw my post (on a different message board) about my preference for the Warlord Games' scorpion and sent me the model.  I chose the resin version, which I regret. The detail is quite good, but clean up was a chore. The mold lines and misaligned cast lines weren't too bad, but because the material is a rubbery resin, the lines couldn't be scrapped off with my hobby knife.  The lines had to be sliced away with careful cuts parallel to the model's surface.  The cuts left little stringy bits of resin hanging off at the end of the cut, which required more tedious trimming.

The scorpion's bow arms were these thin, bendy-rubbery bits, pointing in different directions, so I snipped them off and replaced them with bow arms from a GW Bretonnian archer's bow.

[fred]

The giant looks good.

The scorpion model sounds a right pain.

[syrinx0]

Shaping up to be a nice looking war band.  Great work on the giant and the squishee.

[Elbows]

Looking good, and that's a noice giant!

[blacksoilbill]

Great work here. I do like the sacred ground, and that is a superb looking giant. I love the guy in his hand.

[von Lucky]

Lovely eye candy as always (even though it's not completed!).

[Bloggard]

gosh, that 3-d printed giant is messing with my mind ... it looks like a 3D screen image ... I keep on thinking you've photoshopped in !     

... looks great.

[FreakyFenton]

Great work! I will follow this with interest! 

[Koyote]

I made some progress over the weekend.

I spent most of my hobby time finishing four more levy archers and getting started on the last four. 

One of the Great Kingdom builds that I'm considering for my Britons uses the Sapphire Elves rules.  This will let me use the archer levy that I'm painting for my "historical" Britons as Warriors armed with bows in my AoM Britons warband. 

Warlord -mounted
8 Hearthguard -mounted
12 Warriors -bows
10 Warriors
10 Warriors
1 Behemoth
1 Static War Machine
1 Paladin -mounted

I'm not convinced that it's worth 1 point to gain access the the domains of light and energy (my least favorite domains), so I doubt that I will be availing myself of the Sapphire Elves' Masters of the Magical Arts rules. 

I added texture to my Sacred Ground terrain piece and a few critters.  I'm certain that I'll keep the raven/crow, but I'm still up in the air on whether or not the rabbit and badger will be included in the final painted piece.

[Psychopomp]

So, I haven't played SAGA since 1e, and I've been looking at AoM lately, so I have a random question and nowhere better to ask it:

Is SAGA 2e / AoM still played on a 2' x 3' board?

[Koyote]

So, I haven't played SAGA since 1e, and I've been looking at AoM lately, so I have a random question and nowhere better to ask it:

Is SAGA 2e / AoM still played on a 2' x 3' board?

Like in SAGA 1.0, SAGA 2.0 games are generally played on 4’ x 3’ boards.

In SAGA 1.0, the scenarios were found in the main rulebook and the expansion sourcebooks. In SAGA 2.0, the main rulebook includes a single scenario that can be played using a half dozen specials rules. The sourcebooks (Aov, AoC, and AoM) do not include any scenarios.

Last Autumn, SAGA released the Book of Battles. This expansion contains 55 pages of scenarios and rules designed to be used by all of the sourcebooks.  In the Mass Battles section of the BoB are scenarios for multi-player. These scenarios are played on boards measuring 6’ x 4’.

There are five sections within the book, the first covers Skirmish level games, the second deals with the more usual two player Battles associated SAGA, the third deals with Legends – a more narrative approach to games, the fourth with multi-player Mass Battles with three or four players, and the last offers a set of campaign rules to create your own ongoing Sagas.

https://www.wargamesillustrated.net/saga-book-of-battles/

So if you are interested in playing AoM, I recommend that get the main rulebook, the Book of Battles, and the AoM sourcebook.

With that said, SAGA 2.0 can, with only a few minor tweaks, be played using scenarios from SAGA 1.0, so the BoB is optional.

[Psychopomp]

That was a succinct but very informative reply to my question!  Thank you!