The Saga Continues

I am back living in Germany now. My sojourn in Finland was completed a month ago and my SAGA in Germany continues. I am in the process of writing a campaign based on the Harrying of the North and as a preliminary to playing it I decided to get myself back in the gaming saddle so to speak. So last week I pulled out my Anglo-Saxons and faced off against me regular opponent Steve and his Normans.

The game was great but we both quickly realised that we have a lot of catching up to do with the rules and factions before we embark on a campaign. I narrowly won thanks to succesive volleys of fire unto the Norman Hearthguard. This whittled them down to an ineffectual level and allowed my hastily advancing warriors to engage decisely in the centre despite having to weather a storm of arrows and bolts. We will play again this week, tonight to be exact. I will be bringing out my Anglo-Danes to play just for some variety as once the campaign begins we will be locked into our respective forces for a good few battles.

Orcs, Orcs and more Orcs

I have been painting.... honest I have. The thing is I have been painting Orcs, lots of orcs and they pretty much all look the same. So really there hasn't been much point in putting up a post which would show all the same models over and over. Here are soe of my rank and file orcs finished except for shields and basing. I don't want to base them until I know what is up with 9th edition fantasy and I don't have any materials here in Finland to use. I am happy with the results but they take way too long to paint and I have little time to be painting as usual. Getting four done a week is excellent progress for me but basically all my free time at the weekend has to be devoted to painting which is annoying. I also painted another eight not shown here but they are for a different regiment which is much further along than the spear boys. Once I am back in Germany permanently I will base and photograph everything.

I stopped painting the Savage Orcs. They were turning out fine but they were boring as hell to paint. Instead I took out some very old Orcs, I bought them around 1998 I think. I cleaned them up replacing the damaged pieces of which there were few thankfully. I didn't seem to be too dedicated to the removal of all the mould lines back then so clean up took longer than anticipated. The paint job was terrible but not too thick so I could just paint over these guys directly. I hate having to strip models. It takes ages and is never too easy with plastic. I have another twenty eight of these to paint so I will be busy with them for the summer at least. I have the old metal command group that came with them originally too so I will have to get them painted up also. I can always get a few more Savages done as a break from these if I need it.

Laois Masters

I mentioned last week that I am attending a tournament at the end of the year called the Laois Masters. This will be its third year to be run. I can't guess what effect ninth edition will have on the format but the current composition rules are interesting and endeavour to have a lot more core infantry on the table. The scenarios are all based on Blood and Glory, the best scenario in eight edition in my opinion. The games are all 3000pts with no grand armies allowed. On top of that the rare and lord allowances are set at the 2400pt levels. Minimum core is set at 40% so 1200pts. That is a lot of core in any army and should mean that we see a lot more boots on the tabletop. More special also means a lot more possibilities for warmachines and elite troop types but I feel that should balance well with the increased numbers in general.

For my army it means I would definitely have to add at least another core regiment. That would be forty Orcs. That is a lot to paint but I had intended painting it anyway. I don't know if I mentioned it here before but I have one hundred and sixty plastic boyz. Onto that you can add forty Black Orcs and about forty Savage Orcs. The Goblins may be uncountable at this stage but I have one hundred and thirty of them painted and eventual plans to do more. I want to eventually get all of this painted and of course I would also need to add all the support elements needed. This is a monster project but as I have the models I don't really have an excuse not to paint them. The only distractions I see would be Circle Orboros models and to be honest I have enough of them already.

By the end of this year I indend to have a huge chunk of this army painted and bring it with me somehow to the Masters. Now transporting that many models overseas won't be easy but I can cross that bridge once I come to it. I have got to get the models painted first. I have been partaking in a few hobby challenges with some of the other participants especially painting commitments. I exceeded my January target by a good margin but I doubt I will get much done on my February target. I have said I would get another eight Savage Orcs done. I am currently in Germany divorced from any possibility to paint so time will be short this month. Hopefully I can manage it.

More Savages

Here is the progress on my bunch of Savage Orcs. These are slow to paint and it is going to be at least two more months to get them done. The flesh is the problem and a complete lack of time to paint. I am getting an hour late in the evening maybe two if I decide to get less sleep. That really isn't allowing me to make much progress.

I have altered the painting slightly to bring in some more contrast in the skin. It has worked but is subtle. The effort hasn't been much so I am going to keep it up. Green is easily shaded with purple and I have added it to some of the deepest shadows especially on the faces. Beyond that I have brought highlights up a little and with the fur I went with white as the colour where it drapes over the shoulder. It is much better this way. Eight done and that means one fifth of the regiment complete. It doesn't feel like much progress but I am slowly getting there. I haven't considered what to paint next, that will be in the far future sadly. It will also sadly be more Orcs, I have just got to get through them.

One Months Tally

I am going to try and keep a tally of what I have painted this year. Time seems to fly by and little progress is made, a tally won't keep me motivated but it will indicate how lazy I have been. Unusually I have an aim for hr I want done by the end of the year. There is a tournament, the Laois Masters coming up and I want to get my army ready for that. It is a three thousand point game with some extra restrictions and while they haven't been completely signed off on they are:

1200pts from Core selection minimum

600pts from Lords selection maximum

1200pts from Character selection total

600pts from Rare selection maximum

So that means that I need to get a lot of painting done in the next eleven months. That level of core is three Orc hordes and a smattering of Goblins. That is going to mean some long evenings sitting at the painting table.

As for January's tally, I managed eighteen Night Goblins and eight Savage Orcs, not bad but not enough.