Battle for Wadi Nashif : Saga Crescent and Cross

Not a historical battle but I thought it would be fun to roll out a Crescent and Cross Saga game for a change and mainly so I could get the Saracen archers completed a few weeks ago on the table. I mustered up two 7 point warbands using the Crusader and Saracen boards. We had a simple random deployment which ended up with a corner to corner battle, the saracens slightly obstructed by the wadi itself. We played 6 turns with the victory going to the side who had killed the most of the enemy.

The Saracen force coming on from the corner where the wadi is located, light cavalry and archers

Some light spearmen and heavy camel riders supporting the warlord

The crusaders of course have knights, crossbowmen and armoured spearmen

The Arab light horse seeks to gain advantage on the left flank

The saracens use some of their tricky board activations to draw the Crusader knights across the board splitting up their advance and then crashing in their charge

The light archers hiding in the wadi move forward to try and target the enemy horse

The camels getting the charge wipe out one unit of knights and the Crusader warlord is lucky to escape with his life

The Saracen archers keeping in the cover of the wadi

But within a couple of turns both the camels and the crusader knights have been destroyed and the Crusader Warlord has been caught out in the open on his own and put to death

The saracen light horse now moves up

The battle is in a delicate position with almost equal VP’s the Saracen warlord is incredibly lucky to survive one assault 

The battle could go either way

The Crusader foot knights charge in one last time to attack the Saracen warlord, but he survives again through some lucky dice rolls

He can then charge forward with the remaining light cavalry to finish the battle and claim victory

A tightly fought battle with the saracens getting lucky rolls just when they needed them. I wouldn’t want to play SAGA every week but it is always fun every now and then. It was a balanced battle going down to the last 2 combats.

We also visited  Vapnartak wargame show at the weekend, slightly smaller than previous years, but nice to catch up with a few people and talk about wargaming all day with like minded folk. Sadly no bring and buy due to the COVID restrictions but I wasn’t going to go home empty handed.

A mix of Foundry Figures for the ‘Great Game’ a couple of gripping beast warlords and rockets and craters for another sideline project 🤢

All the best and thinks for looking 👍

Painting progress 2nd New Hampshire, Saracens and German Paratroopers !

I have been busy like many getting family stuff ready for Christmas and tidying up after the Lakonian Plains Battle. But in the background painting continues …….

First up the 2nd New Hampshire Regiment, my Continentals had been falling behind the British so time to get them catching up. Characteristic light blue jackets, I have tried to mix and match the trousers a little so they aren’t to regular. The flag is temporary as I their official flags are in the post. Mostly Perry plastics but a few Foundry metal command figures thrown in to give a nice mix. The only other thing of note is when I came to basing them I realised I had painted 25 rather than the 24 so one base has five figures, it also adds a little variety

Next some Saracen archers from gripping beast. Mainly earthy colours, I guess these can really play as any Eastern European tribal archers, nice to get these done as I bought them cheap in a sale about 5 years ago ! It shows I do get round to things in the end

In the same vein I have had these Fallschrimjager mortar crew sat in a box for lots of years so it was about time they got painted up. Lovely crusader miniatures which I think I picked up at a show ? The standing figure was just so I could match them with my other figures

Finally the weather has been very mixed recently and not photogenic, however we managed a walk last weekend which gave us some more interesting views. Here looking towards the Langdale Pikes.

Next up hopefully an ACW game and a remote game with Jon. More painting and I was hoping to put together a Christmas video if I get time.

Thanks for looking 👍 Matt

Crescent and Cross a game of Saga

It has been ages since we saw a game of Saga in the dungeon. But with my work mate keen to try anything I thought I would try and hook him into Saga. I have had Crescent and Cross for ages but we haven’t really played it enough focussing in the past mainly on the traditional Saxon/Viking version. One issue of course is Crescent and Cross is based on the first version of the saga rules. This doesn’t matter to me as I actually prefer this version.

Anyway I  now have plenty of figures suitable for most of the factions in my Al Andalus collection. With this in mind and after a short introduction to the rules we jumped into a six point battle with Crusaders vs Saracens. I didn’t take many photos as we were spending plenty of time discussing the rules. But here are a few of the battle

The two forces line up fairly close as we wanted to get straight into the action

Some cavalry action on both wings and the crusaders get the better of the combats

Strange to be playing Saga with smaller units, but the rules some came back

Two units of a try crash into each other

After some fierce fighting in The centre the Crusader warlord finds himself isolated he only just survives by sacrificing three of his hearthguard

But then determine to be aggressive he charges in against the Saracen Warlord and finally gets the better of the combat.

A fun game with the crusaders getting the better of it. Nice to play these rules after a long period, they are very different from others but provide a fun and challenging alternative. We will be playing some more saga again soon.

700BC to 1940AD another progress update🙂

Just don’t seem to have time for blogging at the moment, life and work getting in the way, but hopefully my regular followers will stick with me. The good news is I am still managing to keep progress on a number of projects.

I picked these two cars up in a second hand shop in Kendal

We managed a trip to the small Dumfries show, unfortunately with home circumstances as they are I didn’t have time to put on a game but managed to pick up a lot of goodies, the best of the pick being a full unit of light Persian infantry for a £5

Also picked up these two and managed to find some spare horses for them to ride

My painting has progressed well, these Persian Camels were picked up at the York show in February and they jumped up the Painting que

Not sure of the manufacturer, they are nice models and impressive in scale here they are next to their diminutive Gripping Beast camel

The 1927 truck has been painted up as an ambulance

A nice little vehicle for my Sealion project

And another unit of Arab spearmen have found their way onto and off the Painting table. The last of my plastic Arab infantry for a while, Gripping Beast figures six to a base and hand painted shields 🙂

I do have a couple of games to catch up on hopefully I load them soon 😀

Slow progress but some more Berber/Arab infantry

Slower progress than I would like but I have completed another Arab/ Berber unit for my Al Andalus project.

Eagle eyed will notice I have changed basing styles from previous figures for this project, firstly I think the units look nice like this, secondly I think I have enough single based figures for any possible skirmish game and storage like this is much easier. I’ll take a shot of the two basing styles together when I get a chance. The unit is very much ‘Berber’ with shields all hand painted so don’t look too close 😩 I still probably need to paint the edge of the banner which is too white.

Updated the post with a picture of most of my Arabs in one place, I didn’t dig out the camel archers and like every good project I have a fair few in the painting que 🙂

This weeks painting : 28 mm Arabs

The news in the UK is somewhat depressing currently, I wonder if amongst the many conflicts which have occurred across Europe we can find a similar situation to the current political crisis ?

Anyway as I have wept in my red wine 🍷 I have finished off these Arabs.

A very simple paint job, but is works when they are a whole unit, just for a change I gave them a more consistent colour scheme for the shields, as the last unit I am happy with some, others less so. They are Gripping Beast figures I think bought as a very cheep lot at a show, I like these figures more so than the Black Tree Arabs partly because they have the shields attached. One more full unit of Arabs to complete🙂

On a similar theme : Heavy Arab Cavalry

So on a similar theme these guys were also part painted before the holiday and have been finished off this week. They are not bad for plastic tat as Mr B would say 🙂 (Gripping Beast for those interested) and I can now add them to my gradually growing Arab force. Not quite ready for a battle yet but I probably need a collective photo to see where I am upto. The random joy of doing what you enjoy, means I paint up some of these units knowing that one day without much real planning I will have an army to fight a battle with 🙂

I am not hugely happy with the shields as although attempting randomness they all came out a bit too similar, but they are colourful.

Tennessee adventure units painted and another show

The summer holidays have remained a busy time. Although I haven’t done too much gaming (I do have another ACW battle to blog) I have managed to keep pushing on with painting.

First up I have completed (missing grass) an Arab Infantry unit. This are for the first millennium project which is slowly developing I need to knuckle under and get some cavalry done now both Spanish knights and two full units of Arab cavalry. The shields were a bit of an experiment. They have worked partially and look fine from a distance

Next up I finished my Federal skirmishers, the Perry Infantry comes with a small sprue of these in each box so I have quite a few, here are 16 which should be enough, I have worked up some additional rules for them so when I have some Rebels they can make an appearance. I might also think about using them in a skirmish game ?

After our holiday in Seahouses I had some time visiting relatives and spending some time with the kids. As it happened this found me driving past Peterborough last Sunday and I popped into the local Hereward Wargame Show. It was slightly smaller than I expected and judging from previous photos perhaps slightly less well attended ? Anyway it was on the way home......

I only took one photo of a game which caught my eye. This lovely Air combat game over Malta I think. I had a good chat to the guys and was really impressed by the effort they had put in.

I did manage to pick up a couple of bits from the B and B, you can NEVER have too many fences or paint brushes. The building is an interesting one no idea who makes it but it is a 3D print I think and very flexible as a rural cottage. So I’ll get it painted up.

I also had my birthday and although I got my age wrong ! (Honestly) I had a few nice gifts, pride of place though went to this little beauty , the new tic 38(t) my mate had made and painted it, including the driver. I just added a little more weathering and the transfers.😀😀😀

So the final bit of this post was to flag that I have organised another trip to the USA yeepee and this is rapidly coming up. Early october will see me visiting the main battlefields in the western theatre starting in Nashville, I have some flexibility but plan to take in Fort Donaldson, Shiloh, Chattanooga, Chickamauga and look out mountain, Kenesaw Mountain and Stones River. Museums and other smaller battlefields where they cross my path.

I would be interested for any local advice as I know a few of you have been in the past. I will probably try and blog a diary of the trip as I did when I visited Virginia a couple of years ago.😀

The Holiday Painting.......

Well I didn’t get all the painting done on holiday but managed to get the following two units polished off. Photographed here before I had added grass to their bases, although I have now rectified this 😀

 My Federal dismounted cavalry, again Perry figures although I had an extra Foundry figure who got painted in the same batch.

and here are the Crusader Peasants for use in C&Cross or really any future Dark Age games.

Dark Ages from skirmish to massed battles

With my ACW project progressing well as you can see with the latest confederate unit I have filled a whole box 😀

I have been pondering where next to put some effort in, I am not quite ready for a whole new period so have been musing as you do on which of my current projects I could expand. There are several but I have decided to get stuck back into the dark ages.

All of my figures have originally been based for skirmish games but after much consideration I have purchased some 3x2 movement trays to allow them to be ranked up. This seems to give the most possible flexibility as they can be arranged in a number of ways. As shown in the previous post the completed Arthurian force can easily fit into my Saxon army.

With the new movement trays 18 man units seem to give reasonable feel for scale, they are of course spread out slightly thinner than I would like but I have a few double based figures which you can’t really see in the photo which definately help give a more cluttered feel, if I was looking to play a really large battle I could squeeze a few Vikings into the ranks as well.

The second force I am interested in is my Normans, they are woefully behind but luckily I have at least a unit and a half in the pile which would bring them upto 4 infantry units. I guess I am going to need another box of conquest cavalry...some time

Finally I am working on my Arabs no photo yet but I am obsessed with 11 Century Al Andalusia at the moment. I have lots of Arabs collected and ready to paint🙂

Skirmish in the desert : Crescent and Cross

It has been a short while since I posted anything, work (an unfortunate necessity to fund my hobby) real life and resting after the Dumfries game mean I haven’t hosted a battle in the Dungeon for a couple of weeks. I have however been painting, more of that later today if I pull my finger out and take a photo.

Anyway a few weeks ago we played another game of Crescent and Cross using the new SAGA rules. Looking for something quirky we played with two quite complicated factions the Spanish and the Arab Religious fanatics. We also managed to pick out a very complicated scenario which involved capturing quarters and gaining victory points at the end of each turn. Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it  but we probabaly won’t be playing this scenario again. However, I did take a couple of photos and it was nice to get the slowly growing Crusader collection on the table.

The scenario has both factions scattered across the battlefield

The objective is to dominate each quarter with overwhelming numbers and it soon became clear this was extremely difficult to do

But the camels got stuck in ......

Crusader crossbowmen took up a central position

Very happy still with the new desert terrain mat

Don’t rate their chances much 🙂

After a couple of hours of chess like manoeuvring and some rough and tumble combat darkness settled over the desert and we had a draw

Ok not the best scenario but a good workout for the 🧠 

I will post some paining updates later 😛