Koyote's Age of Magic -SAGA

[Koyote]

The levy has been mustered to defend Britain from the Saxon invaders and the usurper, Arthur.

[syrinx0]

That is a really well balanced color scheme.  I really like the base design as well.

[Koyote]

Cribwr Gawr (Monster -Behemoth)

[fred]

Good work on the giant. Very natural looking

[Koyote]

Good work on the giant. Very natural looking

Thanks.

Eventually, I'm going to add blue Celtic tattoos to the giant's right shoulder and breast.  I don't enjoy painting large models, so for now, I'm going to put the tattoos on hold and move on to another project. 

[fred]

Tattoos should look good. But I can see why you would want to pause before doing them.

[Koyote]

Next up on my painting table is a Static War Machine (Gripping Beast's Hatra Ballista), a Sorceress (Hasslefree Miniatures' Azura Halfblood), and a unit of Levy armed with crossbows (Foootsore Miniatures' Pict Hunters).




Of all the Domains of Magic, I am the least impressed with Light and Energy, so if the Sorceress, Morgan Le Fay, doesn't find a home in my Great Kingdoms warband, she will serve as the Sorceress for the Horde warband that I am creating using models from my existing Dark Age Irish warband.

What convinced me to convert my Irish into a Horde warband was the opportunity to use Victrix's AMAZING new(ish) Celtic Chariot kit.  I'm not yet 100% sold on the Horde's War Chariots (a special unit type), but I do like the idea of a Warlord mounted on a beast, and the Horde's Warlord entry just so happens to read: "The Warlord of the Horde can be mounted on an animal or mounted on a beast, which can be represented perfectly by a war-chariot and its team."

[von Lucky]

Looking good.

I'm clearly a wargamer that uses metal spears and pikes - all I saw was the Warlord's hefty spear, thinking ooo that's a bit alright.

[Koyote]

I've finished my Static War Machine for my AoM Britons Great Kingdom warband.  It may also be used as a Manuballista for an Aetius & Arthur Roman warband.

It's a Gripping Beast's Hatra Ballista.  It is a late Roman ballista named after the ancient city in modern day Iraq where the archeological evidence for this weapon's design was uncovered.

[von Lucky]

Lovely.

[Koyote]

Now that my Britons are ready to be played as an AoM Great Kingdoms warband, it's time to start work on getting my Irish ready to be played as an AoM Horde warband.

I want to equip a max-size unit of Horde Warriors with Heavy Weapons.  I already have 10 painted Irish Fianna equipped with dane axes, so I finished off the unit by adding 2 more models from Footsore's Irish with Axes set.  For my Horde Sorceress, I am using Hasslefree Miniatures' Azura Halfblood.



I love Footsore Miniatures, and over the years I have bought a lot of minis from them, but I have to admit that I've been sorely disappointed by the quality of my last two orders.  My order before last, 12 Picts armed with xbows, included 4 crossbows with malformed xbows.  In each instance, one of the bow-arm's ends was melted down to little more than a nub.  My last order of Irish axemen, 3 of the 4 models arrived were significantly misaligned.  For two of the models I had to use GS to rebuild the left side of their faces.  The third is essentially missing its entire nose a part of its face, so I ever use it, I'll probably just replace the entire head rather than trying to rebuild the face.  Footsore Miniatures' management needs to have a talk with whoever is in charge of quality control. 

[Bloggard]

love your painting style.

[Koyote]

This model is Arthur from an Arthur & Mordred vignette made by Westwind Productions. It’s part of side-project, along with my Briton archers and Hatra ballista, to make my Britons playable as Romans (or AoM Great Kingdoms). It’ll make a great foot-Warlord (or AoM Captain or Paladin).

[von Lucky]

NIce painting (as always), particularly the shading on the cloak.

[Koyote]

The introduction to the Lords of the Wild faction in SAGA: Ago of Magic reads:

"In the most inaccessible parts of the world, there live peoples who have prospered while cut off from the more developed civilizations which surround them.  For cultural, spiritual or traditional reasons, these societies have never sought to exploit their environment, instead seeking harmony with the surroundings which provide them with what they need to develop.

These peoples, who we call the Lords of the Wild, can be human, but often have traits which differentiate them from their peers.  They might be animal hybrids, ancient elves, gnomes or hobgoblins.  Their existence gives life to the legends we tell to children, and embodies a mass of superstitions.  They are often feared and misunderstood.  Entering into their homeland unleashes their fury and has been he cause of numerous wars they have wreaked upon their neighbors.

These societies generally organize themselves on tribal or clan lines, beneath the authority of a king or chief.  They are rarely geographically spread out, since the difficulty of establishing lines of communications in these hostile environs constitutes a real brake on their development."


When I first read this introduction, my mind immediately jumped to the most common Fantasy forest dweller tropes (e.g. wood elves, treefolk, beastmen, etc), but then a couple of weeks ago, while I was working on my SAGA Moors and thinking about ways to fit them into Age of Magic, I got a great idea.  The Lords of the Wild description could apply to tribes of desert nomads, like the ancient, pre-Islamic Bedouin tribes of Arabian peninsula.  These tribes lived in a desolate wilderness that they could not shape, so instead they adapted.  To the people of neighboring civilizations who dwelt in cities or in small agricultural communities, the desert nomads were likely thought of as strange, insular, people whose ability to survive in the desert made them both mysterious and more than a little threatening.

Below is a WIP shot of my initial warband.  As I play-test the warband, I expect that its composition will change over time.

Warlord -flying beast
Sorcerer
Ranger
4 Shapeshifters
8 Warriors -mounted
10 Warriors -bows
9 Warriors
9 Warriors
12 Levy -javelins

The camel cavalry and plastic spearmen are all Gripping Beast minis.  The levy are from Perry Miniatures' Sudanese Tribesmen plastic kit.  The metal archers are Artizan Design's  Berber Bowmen.



My Warlord is a converted Wind Rider from Game Zone Miniatures' Sylvan Elf line.  The original model's rider is assembled from two pieces.  I kept the lower piece, the legs and saddle, and replaced the upper piece with some bits from Gripping Beast's plastic Arab Spearmen kit.  The legs were armored, so I covered them up with GS Arab leggings and belt sash.  I used GS to add a saddle horn and a harness to hold the saddle in place.







For my Sorcerer, I am using the Salah ad-Din model from Cipher Studios (now OOP) Hell Dorado Saracen model line.  I've cut down the size of the wave of sand he's perched on to fit the 25mm base.

For my Ranger, I am using the Mutatawwi’a Warlord from Stronghold Terrain's SAGA Collectibles model line.



The concept that I am most pleased with is how I am going to represent the warband's Shapeshifters. 

In a Lords of the Wild warband, 1 point will buy you 4 Shapeshifters (each has an aggression of 5). These models are "hidden" in units of Warrior foot units (up to 2 models per unit).  When that unit fights in its first melee, the Shapeshifters are revealed by replacing  normal models in the unit with Shapeshifter models. The basic idea behind this rule mechanic goes WAY back to 3rd Edition's Warhammer Armies Book, which was published in 1988. 



I'm not familiar enough with pre-Islamic Arab myths to know if it included lycanthropy or human shapeshifters, but I do know that the word 'assassin' comes to the English language from an 11th century Muslim sect who trained and directed operatives to infiltrate enemy strongholds and courts to kill clerics, rulers, and officials. The most commonly-repeated theory holds that the word" Hashshashin" or "Assassin" comes from the Arabic hashishi, meaning "hashish users."  Chroniclers including Marco Polo claimed that the followers of this sect committed their political murders while under the influence of drugs, hence the derogatory nickname.  The Koran includes a strict injunction against intoxicants, so claims of hashish use by this sect may have been propaganda created by the European Crusaders or the Seljuk Turks -the latter group were the sect's most frequent target.

Regardless of how the sect's killers got their nickname, the connection to the Arab history is enough for me to incorporate it into my theme.  So, instead of men turning into beasts, my warband's "Shapeshifters" will be represented by deadly assassins, who when battle is joined, toss aside their disguises to reveal infamous killers of legend.  And by "legend" I mean my own fantasy version of the sect, not the historical version.

These models are Artizan Designs' Black Guard from their Moors model line.  I want my assassins to be more fantastic and flamboyant than their namesakes, so I replaced their right hands and original weapons with fancy curved swords from Frostgrave's Cultist plastic kit.  To make them clearly stand out from my rank-and-file models, I'll paint them all in black..




Lastly, since my Lords of the Wild warband are nomads, using a static object for my Sacred Ground terrain simply won't due.  Instead, I am going to use this tent that I bought from a 3D printer on Etsy,  to serve as my warband's Sacred Ground.  Presumably, the tent will contain the nomad's most sacred relics. 

The plan is to mount it on a styrene base, and fancy it up some by adding a couple of resting camels and other interesting thematic bits.