The Old Geezer Saga Club

This past Saturday (Sept 16th) the Old Geezer Saga club got together for a 6 point mini tournament. My very good and long time friend Skip drove 13 and a half hours from Georgia just to game with us!!! Well in truth he was coming to see his nephew's new baby and we used that as an excuse to get together and do some hardcore Saga gaming. Let me introduce you to the Old Geezer boys....

From left to right, Mark "The Merciless", Rob "The Luckless", Skip "Torok the Terrible" (nickname based off his Steppe Nomad army), Kevin "Old one Eye", Dave "The wise one", and Harv "The Faithful".

Our day started at 10 AM and we played three scenarios. Each scenario was to have a two hour time limit, and counting breaks in between, only supposed to last until 6 PM. We ran over by an hour and a half.... hmmm I gotta fix that next year. The three games played in this order where "Champions of God", "God will recognize his", and finally "The Challenge" (not realizing the special rules and victory conditions had changed for the better!).

I should not have, but somehow, ole Skippy used Jedi mind tricks on me to get me to play the Mutatawwja. One should never play in a tournament environment never having played the army before, I know that, I've told him that, but somehow he got me to jump on the "this is a cool army board train".

The armies involved were as follows:

Vikings - Harv
Pagan Rus - Skip
Normans - Rob
Welsh - Dave
Irish - Mark
Mutatawwja (which should have been my Franks) - me

My first battle using the Mutatawwja was a learning experience. I had my Army setup as follows:

Warlord (was a Priest, the Enlightened one, definitely not a fighter)

3 points of Warriors (made into four six man units)
2 points of Hearthguard (four man Camels, four man horse)
1 point of Naffata (one given to each warrior unit)

Now this setup works, I think really well against Cavalry armies, but against foot I would ditch the mounts and go with foot Hearthguard. Rob had his Normans all mounted except for 1 unit of foot bows. His army was made of the following:

Warlord
1 point of Levy bow (used as a 12 man unit)
5 points of Warriors ( 2 X 10 mounted Warriors, 2 X 8 mounted Warriors, and 1 X 4 mounted Warrior)


The Mutatawwja are a fun army to play, you have to be really thoughtful about when to sacrifice a model, like pace yourself. Having the Enlightened one really helped give me that combo dice ability punch, and the Naffata were instrumental in causing fatigue on an enemy unit that I could then follow up smacking with a different warrior unit and using that fatigue to my advantage. The Camels were just awesome against his horse. I walked up with a naffata unit, caused a hit on an eight man mounted warrior unit which placed three fatigue on him, and then smacked him with my Camels. If was glorious! But in the end I got a little greedy and lost my camels and my units were whittled down and I had used way to many sacrifices so ended up being defeated by Rob's Normans.

What I took away from the game was some good lessons learned and I used those to my advantage in the next two games. If you're looking for that "fun factor" army the Mutatawwja are for you. If you're thinking of taking them to a tournament I would highly recommend playing them quite a lot and against many different opponents to learn them really well. If you go to a large tournment there will be a higher likely hood of more experienced players there and you will get your butt handed to you most likely with these boys, BUT, it will be gloriously fun!!!!

I'll show a few pictures here, and would love to share more about the battles but my friends notes where like reading doctors notes (unreadable scrawl) so I'll just post a few pictures and tell you how they finished below..

[above the Champions of God scenario]

[above God will recognize his]

I am sad to say that after a full day of gaming and lot's of questions, and trying to be a good host, I was completely worn out by the end of the day and completely forgot to take photos of our last game "The Challange".

The final results are as follows:

1st Place = Mark's Irish (and until the next tournament we all have to call him "The Boss".... sadly)

2nd Place = Skip's Pagan Rus 

3rd Place = Harv's Vikings (and a great job for only his third time playing!)

4th Place = Kevin's Mutatawwja (I just know I would have won playing the Franks;))

5th Place = Dave's Welsh (Dave had a grand time and learned alot, but more importantly this is his first army he completely painted for a gaming system in like 20 years, and they look great to boot!!!)

6th Place = Rob's Norman's (Rob is a great guy and a good player but somehow always finishes last, now you know why he is called the luckless;))

Top slaughter points honor's went to Harv who tied with Dave with 61 points. Well done gentleman. 

In all we had a grand time, and we ate, drank, and gamed. What more could a gamer ask for!

Cheers

Kevin

Samurai Saga warband complete!

Today I finished my last group of Ashigaru archers for my 6 point Samurai Saga list. Just in time for my friend coming up from Georgia to game with me this weekend, though I do have some other units I need to add to give me some different options, it's good enough to hit the table.

Saturday I am running a local six player Saga tournament at my home, and then on Sunday I will be gaming one on one with my long time friend and his Samurai warband he just recently completed as well. I of course will try and post an AAR of all the action later in the following week.

Here are a couple of pictures of the two 8 man warrior units that complete the basic building blocks of the army.

[Above the first of two units]

[Above the second of two units]

As always thanks for looking.

Cheers

Kevin

KATO KIYOMASA: Samurai Warlord unit for Saga

I selected the Perry miniatures model Kato Kiyomasa as my Warlord and although he has nothing to do with my Takeda list (Takeda figure was out of stock) I love the giant hat and decided to use him. Another reason I picked him is because he was a pretty awesome General and soldier during Hideyoshi ill-fated Imjin War.

William Scott Wilson describes Katō Kiyomasa thus: "He was a military man first and last, outlawing even the recitation of poetry, putting the martial arts above all else. His precepts show the single-mindedness and Spartan attitudes of the man, [they] demonstrate emphatically that the warrior's first duty in the early 17th century was simply to 'grasp the sword and die'. Contemporary accounts of Katō describe him as awe-inspiring, yet not unfriendly, and a natural leader of men."

Nuff said, he was one bad ass dude, so I hope I did him justice with my latest work.

Skip you might as well throw in the towel now because....

Kato is so deadly in fact, that his enemies would be blind from overexposure to pure awesomeness!!!!

Cheers

Kevin

KOSAKA MASANOBU retainers, a mounted Samurai unit for Saga

Kosaka was known as the "Nige Danjo" (literally, the fleeing Danjo (Danjo stands for a formal title, Danjochu)), because of his cautious commanding and skillful retreats.

Hero of the fourth "Battle of Kawanakajima" as the general in command of Kaizu castle, Kosaka played an important role in this battle. He informed Takeda via signal fires of the movements of Uesugi Kenshin's army as it approached, and then led the sneak attack up the mountain Saijoyama with 8,000 of Takeda's men in order to drive Uesugi's men down to the plain where they could be surprised by Takeda's army. Even though the tactic failed, Kosaka led his men back down the hill, attacking Uesugi's army from the rear, turning the tide of the battle.

So we come to my little elite unit (hearth guard in Saga) I've painted up for my Saga warband. September 16th I will be meeting my nemesis in the field (he is bringing an Oda Nobunaga list) to battle against what was supposed to be my Takeda list. Unfortunately my other mounted Samurai that I needed are on back order so I will have to do a vanilla list (very sad face here). But it is more important to cross swords with my long time friend as we only get to see each other a couple of times a year. In the past when we had 15mm Samurai DBA armies we would drink Saki, and eat sushi. A tradition that I intend to keep going. It will be glorious and songs will be sung about our great adventures long after we have left this earth...... okay probably not, but one can dream;)

So here is my four man Elite/hearth guard mounted Samurai unit, miniatures by Perry.

I use Crystal Clear to coat my miniatures. It doesn't yellow with age and it's like nail polish sealer in that it's not easy to scratch the paint on these boys. To take the shine off I use Testor's Dulcote. It's a new formula these past few years so doesn't give them a complete flat finish look, but still I like the result. Besides they're toys after all so a little shine makes you think this;)

As always thanks for looking

Cheers

Kevin

Ashigaru Teppo unit for TSUCHIYA MASATSUGU

Well I am on a roll. Painted more figures in this last month than I have for the whole year. That's not saying much, but at least I am painting. I am not sure which is harder, Highlanders or Samurai. Tartans drive me crazy, and Samurai are so busy. I think I prefer Samurai over Highlanders, but in either case they take me a loooonnnnggg time to paint. But I am having fun with the Samurai right now and that's all that matters.

I've got three complete units for my Saga Warband. I have started in on painting a unit of Cavalry, and my Warlord. If I get those done I will have a 4 point and very playable Warband. My goal is to paint two more units (at least) so I can have a 6 point unit to face my nemesis from the South, the dreaded Torok the Terrible, in September. I think I just might have enough gas to see it through. We will see.

Here are a few snaps of my latest unit, an Ashigaru Teppo (Arquebus) unit flying Masatsugu colors.

....and below the unit together, ready on the firing line!!!

Thanks for looking...

Cheers

Kevin

DATE MASAMUNE Promo figure disaster....

Had a nervous breakdown yesterday. Got a promo figure with a magazine of Date Masamune. I was excited. Then.....

As I was mounting the nice little fellow an ankle broke off. No problem I says to myself, I'll glue ankle to base then Warlord onto that. It worked but....

As I assembled a banner man to put on the Warlord base, Date kept bending this way and that, waaaayyyy to easily. I kept saying to myself this is going to work, but as I struggled to get banner man on base it dawned on me that somebody would pick up my figure, innocently, and after all the time I spent painting it, it would break off. Soooo...... 

I ripped the cheap piece of crap off the base, made with too much lead in it (or whatever), and threw it away. I was steamed to say the least! I then tried to make my own plastic one (from Wargames Factory plastic set), became frustrated, and so gave up for the day. So I dug out the POS out of garbage to maybe one day make a fishing lure out of it (also because I felt really guilty about doing such a thing). 

[Exhibit A, POS material, but nice sculpt]

Then today happened.....

Good night sleep, a tasty breakfast, and I was off to the hobby room to see if I could make this right. Digging through my wargames factory plastic samurai kit I slowly started pulling out pieces I was going to use to assemble my new Date figure. Here is a picture of what his helmet looks like.

So with this in mind, I grabbed some plastic strut and glued on a very small piece to the front of the helmet I had chosen. When it had dried I carefully sanded it down a bit and then glued on the very cool half crescent of whatever that big ole thing is supposed to be. I used the lead piece that came with the promo figure as the plastic kit has nothing like this in it. 

I am very happy with how it turned out, and I have him in a much more dynamic action pose. "Forward you rogues! Do you want to live forever!".... oh wait I think that was Fredrick the Great that said that... anyways here is what I came up with. Hope you like it.

Cheers
Kevin

TSUCHIYA MASATSUGU Ashigaru unit for Saga

OMG! I can't believe I have not done anything with my Samurai since fall of 2015. Man do the wheels spin around.

Well after awhile away from painting anything Samurai, I started reading this book called "The Imjin War: Japan's Sixteenth - Century Invasion of Korea and Attempt to Conquer China" by Samuel Hawley. I have to say that it's completely wicked and awesome! Which you can figure out is why I am probably painting Samurai again. A really good read so far, and I highly recommend for those who are unfamiliar with the period to get Stephen Turnbull's book "Samurai Invasion: Japan's Korean War 1592 - 1598". A good compliment to the aforementioned book.

So I've finished up another unit, and it's another Clan from Takeda's 24 generals. Easy to research, for me anyways, banners and such. The Clan I chose to paint this time was Tsuchiya Masatsugu. White mon on black banner. The earlier Clan I did was Yamagata Masakage. Both these generals or family Warlords where killed at the battle of Nagashino 1575. My plan is to paint a unit of arquebusiers for each family and then to paint up some cool full armor Samurai dudes. Will see where my spinning wheel ends up cause as anyone has figured out who follows my blog, next week I could paint up Scifi, or Romans, or mice, or.... well you get the picture. So first two photos are ones I did two years ago, after that are pictures of my newly painted Masatsugu Ashigaru unit. Oh and you can click on the pictures to see larger ones if you don't know this already.

[Above I did almost two years ago]

[above first new group of 4]

[above 2nd new group of 4]

[and finally them all together]

As always thanks for looking.

Cheers

Kevin