Little Big Men Studios shield transfers for Saga

Had a welcome surprise in the post yesterday with the arrival of some Little Big Men shield transfers.

The thought of painting all those shields did not inspire me so I thought I would give these transfers a try. I put one on this morning and it looks fantastic. Very easy to apply and should really make the figures stand out. Highly recomend them at only about $20 NZ for 48 transfers and only took just over a week from ordering them to arrival in my letterbox.

Sorry abit blurry but you get the idea. Looks very natural in real life.

The 'Saga' begins

I have made the jump into Saga. Saga is a game based in the Dark Ages where Vikings rampaged across Britain. Skirmish style with 28mm figures. The difference with this game and others is that they use 'battleboards' and special saga dice

Viking battleboard

Anglo-dane saga dice

The idea is depending on how many units you have decides the number of saga dice you roll each turn. Those dice can then be placed on your 'battleboard' to trigger activations and abilities. Very cool concept and works well. Played a first game last night and was very happy with game play.

I have brought a few boxes of Wargames Factories Vikings. 32 figures in each box give you heaps of figures and plenty of options for conversions etc. With the two boxes I can get enough figures to do a Viking and Anglo-Dane warband. I also picked up a couple of Saxon boxes so will do an Ango-Saxon warband at some stage as well.

I have assembled all my Viking and Anglo-Danish figures and will climb into some painting this week.

My converted Anglo-Dane warlord and four Dane axes

A unit of levy bowmen

A test figure. I plan to put snow on the base and abit of dead grass.

Will try and get a full battle report up here soon once I have a warband all painted...

Dystopian Wars tournament report (Tagcon 2012)

Last weekend I travelled north to play at Tagcon in Timaru. Usually a small tournament it has a really nice atmosphere and a greta venue.
I was playing Dystopian wars with a 850 point limit. Here is my fleet below

Mixed cruiser squadron

My Sky Fortress

One of my most effective squadrons, the destroyers (14 rockets at RB 3)

Day one vs Nigel with Antartica
The mission was
• The Grudge
o Sometimes an enemy ship is infamous, sometimes it’s a symbol, or is of unusual ability, or just has an insulting flag. One thing is clear; you will not tolerate it to float further. Fortunately you detected this ship when closing on an opposing radio outpost to cut off the enemy’s contact with the outside world.
o Before deployment-
 (starting with defender) both sides select an opposing vessel and declare this to the other side
• This vessel is worth double victory points.
 Both players (starting with defender) place 1 radio station in no-mans land (8 inches fm centre line) and no closer than 8 inches to the ‘short edges’.
• The radio station has stats as per book (dr 4, cr 6, hp 5, aa 2, ap 4)
o Deployment-
 Main body- deploy up to 8 inches in and no closer than 12 inches to the ‘short’ edges
 Advance guard, up to 16 inches in, and can be placed up to the short edges.
o End conditions. The game ends at the end of the turn when 2 of the 4 ‘objective’ models are destroyed/prized, 6 turns or time
 The objective models are the ‘grudge’ ships and the radio stations
Nigel had two battleships that were very slow to get into the actio so I was able to quickly over power him. I named one of his meduim flyers as the grudge vessel and my robots shot it down in know time while my other ships sat back and blew the radio staion to bits. Win to me

The FSA masssing to take on the Antartica fleet

Game two vs Dave B and his Prussians
The mission was:
• Infiltration
o On board your ships you have some ‘distinguished’ gentlemen who dabble in information collection and retrieval. To do their job they need to get to a certain port along with some of your marines (equipped with longer range jet packs) to ‘assist’ in dealing with the locals, unfortunately there appears to be an opposing fleet in the way.
o Before deployment
 Each player places 2 ‘exit’ point markers on the map. These are to be up to 8 inches from the opposing long table edge and no closer than 12 inches to the short edge
o Deployment-
 Main body- deploy up to 8 inches in and no closer than 12 inches to the ‘short’ edges
 Advance guard, up to 16 inches in, and can be placed up to the short edges.
o End conditions
 At the end of the turn when one side has flown off a total of 8 marines
 6 turns or time.
o Victory points
 In the assault phase a squadron within 4 inches of one of it’s fleets exit points can fly off 1 marine counter. This reduces their AP correspondingly.
 Each marine flown off in this manner earns 30 victory points.
I tried a refused flank tactic and massed my fire on his one flank decimating them by turn 2 and allowing my forces to sail across unoppossed to the exit point and fly off 'marines' at will. Win number two to me.

The FSA are at all stop unloading marines to win the game

Game 3 vs David and Empire of the Blazing Sun
This was going to be tough one as David had two sky fortresses and a carrier so buckets of tiny flyers and lots of activations.
Mission was:
• A quiet night
o A long day’s battle comes to a close. Damaged warships on all sides have sought safe anchorage to rest and repair. As the skies darken some unfortunate realizations have been made
 1) the enemy fleet appears to have bivouacked in the same locale
 2) their scout force and yours appear to be entangled
 3) there seems to be an eerie green scaffolding under the water
 Your orders- raise steam and secure the area; command will want to see what the ‘ground’ facilities for professor Malignant’s project are like.
o Before Deployment
 Divide table into quarters
 The ‘launch’- place a shuttle marker plus a 4 inch template in the middle of the map, for purposes of line of sight and movement- this counts as a mountain (incandescent rocket exhaust is not optimum sailing conditions). An area of radius 8 inches around the shuttle counts as the ‘central area’
 ‘battle damaged’-
• Before set up each player nominates 1 squadron in the opposing ’main force’-
• The squadron takes 4 hull points damage and a ½ mv token spread as the owner of the squadron wishes.
• Damage may be allocated to a maximum of ‘sunk’.
• Eg A Prussian player facing a British fleet nominates a opposing squadron of 3 Brit ‘tribal’ Cruisers, The Brit player may choose to just loose 1 cruiser, or have 1 at ½ move and the other 2 with 2 damage.
o Deployment
 Main body- deploys within 8 inches of their long edge and no closer than 12 inches to either short end
 Advance force- has outflanked, when deploying deploys within 8 inches of a short end and no closer than 16 inches to an opposing vessel. If this is impossible deploy up to within 8 inches of a short end and 2 inches from the players long end.
o End Conditions
 At the end of a turn one side controls 3 quarters of the table
 6 turns or time.
Sadly as the prevoius round had gonme over time we only had time for two turns. those two turns were very bloody. At the end I won just more so because of bonus VPs achieved when my Sky fortress sailed over a local island inhabited by dinosaurs and killed heaps of them. Win number three to me and the end of day one.

The infamous dino table. The dinosaurs were on the island in the fore ground.



Day two
Game 4 vs Nick and his Russian Federation.
Nick had won all his games on day one so this looked a tough one. A clever player he had focused on getting VPs not so much the mission objectives and with his russians being deadly in close in boarding actions had racked up points.
The mission was:
Reentry/Triangulation
o The infiltrators have reported back, an etheric frequency has been found to track the orbiter, and a new day has dawned. now you just need to find where that shuttle will be coming down.
o Before deployment
 Both sides alternate placing 2 ‘objective’ points each in no-man’s land
• 8 inches from centre of table,
• No closer than 16 inches from another objective point
o Deployment-
 Main body- deploy up to 8 inches in and no closer than 12 inches to the ‘short’ edges
 Advance guard, up to 16 inches in, and can be placed on the short edges.
• May not place within 8 inches of an objective point.
o Victory
 Control 3 points at the end of a turn
 6 turns or time
o Victory points
 Control of an objective
• A ship from a squadron must be at ‘all stop’ and ‘unbroken’ within 4 inches of the centre of an objective point.
• +100 vp for each victory point controlled at game end.
This game was the most enjoyable of the tournament, a real chess match. My plan was to just accumulate VPs and stay out of range using my superior lang range firepower. it was agood paln but I placed my sky fortress in the wrong place and with know wheer to go it got prized late in the game. My robots were my saving grace and they swooped in on the last turn to grab an objective. Still when the points were added up a had suffered a minor loss. game 5 would have to be a VP bonanza for me to win overall. My big hope was the Nick had to play david and his masses of tiny flyers, something I don't think he would enjoy.

You can just see my sky fortress sailing up the left into a whole lot of trouble.

Game 5 vs Bill and his Antartica.
Mission was
• Recovery
o What goes up must come down, although coming down in the midst of a battlefleet shooting at you is hazardous for one’s health according to 9 out of 10 doctors.
o Fortunately you are the one with the battlefleet, if only another force hadn’t turned up to also attempt to secure the capsule.
 Your orders- retrieve the capsule, or at least stop the other side from getting their gloves on it.
o Mission set up
 Place the shuttle on a short edge on the centre line.
o Deployment-
 Dice to select a long edge
 Main body- deploy in a box 36 to 48 inches from the shuttles short edge and up to 16 inches in from a long edge.
 Advance guard, deploy in a box 12 to 24 inches from the shuttles short edge and up to 16 inches in from a long edge.
o Special rules
 Shuttle is hit on a 6+ for turn 1, 5+ afterwards ‘obscured move’ (so if put on fire goes to 4+).
 The shuttle moves and shoots in the end phase- Move shuttle 12 inches straight ahead as a flier.
 Shuttle stats are as follows- flying model (massive non-capital))
• Dr8, Cr 10, hp 10
• 6 aa, 0 cc, AP 10
• Weapon- enormous static discharge has built up around the reentry vehicle. This will fire as a turret weapon in the end phase at the closest ship. tesla coils (s)- strength 12 rb 1. Turret, will hit as if the firing ship was not obscured.
• Due to the gravitational effects of the drive- surface ships can target the shuttle within RB 1 and torpedoes can be fired at it.
 Once shuttle hp or ap is reduced to 0 it crashes,
 Recovery operations- at the end of a turn an unbroken squadron is within 8 inches of the crashed shuttle + 50 victory points. The crashed shuttle will not move or shoot
o End conditions
 400 vp from crash recovery,
 shuttle exits map without being shot down,
 6 turns or time.
I had play tested this one before the tournament so knew the shuttle was really hard to shoot down so I just concentrated on Bills force for the first couple of turns while he turned his attention to the shuttle. By the time the shuttle came down my forces were massed around it his side was virtually destroyed. By turn 6 I had wiped him out and taken maximum VPs. Win to me. Sorry no pics of that game.

Wandering across to the other table David was just finishing off Nick so all was looking good. Come prize giving I was announced winner by only 5 Vps.
I won a starter fleet and promptly sold it to Dave B using the cash to buy some figures for my new SAGA army... more of that to come soon...