February Painting Update - Finns, Irish and Scots

No historical content this week, but a few pictures of my painting efforts these past couple of weeks.

More Dark Age Finns, this time some Black Tree Design unarmored Bondi:

Also from Black Tree, some skirmishers with Javelin.  I kept them nondescript enough to use anywhere from the Byzantines to Ireland.  

Four Irish mounted fianna from Gripping Beast: 

Finally, mounted Scot warriors from Crusader Miniatures:  

Surprisingly, these were my only disappointment.  Usually, Crusader is my favorite manufacturer, but these were a bit of a let down.  Part of is my fault for mistakenly ordering the wrong pack (I wanted the Thegns with chain mail) but I was also a bit disappointed in the casting quality.  The horses were fine, but the men had excessive flash, and the faces are "muddied." 

Open Combat - Finns v. Vikings AAR

This weekend's game was another delve into Open Combat using the Dark Age Finns I put together last week.

The scenario was Capture from page 43 of the rules. Two rival raiders, Finns and Vikings, both fall upon the same village at the same time.  The winner is whoever can get out with the most plunder.  Livestock, pigs, sheep and reindeer were considered neutral or submissive, and the two villagers and the dog were hostile.  My opponent took the Finns who approached from the "north" end of the table, and my Vikings from the lower side.

Below, a Finn target a villager. As a hostile, she attacks and scores a 6 on a mental attack and escaped.

My Vikings close in on the reindeer, who conveniently move towards them on their randomly generated moves. 

My Viking makes it off the table with his prize, a lady who is not that happy with her situation.

Fighting over the sheep in the pen.

The Finn, with the Nimble perk, jumps the fence, avoids a Free Attack runs off with a sheep. My archer tags him, but he still has enough Fortitude to get out.

The plundered village: 

Final score, Finns 10, Vikings 6. 

Open Combat's initial draw is the flexibility of force creation. There are no approved lists; characters can be as fast or strong as the points you are willing to pay.  My opponent and I also stumbled onto another element that added to the fun when we kept our character's scores secret until combat began. In most all games, each player can know the opponent's strengths and weaknesses by knowing the lists.  But in Open Combat, the exact power of each model can vary, giving one the opportunity to bluff and feint.  Obviously some trust in your opponent is required, but we're all gentlemen here.

The interaction with the terrain and objects may be the next best feature of this rule system. Figures are a part of their environment, and the terrain can be much more dynamic than usual. Every tree, fence and barrel can become part of the action.  

Viking Age Finns

The Vikings are at the heart of my interest in the Dark Ages and wargaming.  After years of reading and study, I continue to find new facets to the Viking story. One area often overshadowed in comparison to the stories of Western Europe is the Eastern Baltic.

The Baltic Finns, Estonians and Karelians are a related group of peoples speaking a Uralic language, somewhat related to Hungarian.  In the Viking Age, their cold and marshy lands marked the first leg of the journey eastward to the Dnieper .

Viking goods and burial sites begin showing up in the Lake Ladoga region in the ninth century. This might indicate a pattern of Viking settlement in the region, as they set up semi-permanent bases on the road to Constantinople. The artifacts might also indicate that the Finns and Karelians traded with the Vikings and also adopted some aspects of their culture.

A significant Finnish element to the Viking Age might be the naming of the Rus.  The Finn word for Swede, Ruotsi, may have stuck to the Eastern Vikings as they blended into the people later called the Rus.  There is not a great deal written about the interaction between the Finns and the early Vikings, and even less is available in English.  The story of the Vikings in the west is shaped largely by its raids on targets containing literate monks and by the later Icelandic Sagas. There is no comparable preservation of early Viking encounters in Finland and the Baltic. It can be surmised that the Finns were a frequent target for slave raids, but this decreased in frequency as the Vikings traded and mixed with the Baltic peoples.

This early twentieth century Russian painting served as my primary visual inspiration for painting up some Viking Age Finns.  Pinterest is also a good source of recreations of Finnish folk clothing from the Viking era, although much of the work is focused on female dress.

The Invitation of the Varangians, by Viktor Vasnetsov, 1909.

These Crusader Bondi archers are unarmored and some are beardless which fits in well with some of the presentations of Baltic Finns and Karelians.   In the photo below, the figures on the far right were given a fur hat and cloak using a bit of green stuff.

While a full faction of Finns is not really something I plan to pursue, I can see them fitting into a Rus warband in SAGA. However, as I dig into Open Combat, I find that it is a great system to do small custom warbands as I explore some of the more obscure recesses of the early Medieval period.

Here is a quick stat box for the eight figure shown above:

NAME	SPD	ATK	DEF	FOR	MIN	WEAPO NS	SPC	RENOWN
Leader	5	6	6	5	6	Bow, Sword	Inspire, Intimidate,	30 pts
Hunters(x7)	5	4	4	4	3	Bow, Dagger	Aim, Surefooted	24 ea.
Breakpoint			26			Total Renown		32 + 168 = 200

This small band will make a raid on Viking settlement in an upcoming game, after I finish some longhouses - the subject of my next update.

Norse Gaels: Vikings in Ireland

The story of the Vikings in Ireland is a fascinating part of their history, but one that is not as often told as their role in England, Iceland and the New World.  Even Irish national histories minimize the effect of the Norse in their country. The Vikings deserve a great deal of credit for hastening the trend towards centralization and urbanization in Ireland.

Unlike England, the Vikings in Ireland were never present in such numbers as to effectively colonize and conquer large swaths of the country. Instead, they built coastal settlements and focused on raiding and trading. From these bases in the late ninth century, the Vikings formed alliances and fought alongside one Irish kingdom against another. These alliances shifted but could be strengthened through inter-marriage.  Most famously, in 999 AD the Irish High King Brian Boru was married to Gormflaith, an Irish princess who was the mother of Sigtrygg Silkbeard, the Norse king of Dublin, from her previous marriage to Olaf. Sigtrygg was then married to Slaine, one of Brian's daughters.  These Hiberno-Norse (or alternately, Norse Gaels) faded from significance after the Battle of Clontarf in 1014, though Sigtrygg held on to Dublin until 1036.

For SAGA, the Norse Gael faction is a mix of the Vikings and the Irish, leaning a bit towards the Irish.  The Norse-Gaels are fairly "shooty."  The Levy and the Warriors are both javelin throwers. Alternately, warriors and hearthguard can be armed with Dane Axes.  They cannot be mounted as the Irish can, but on the whole, their defensive values are a bit better.  Furthermore, their "gimmick" is the Challenge, in which significant combat bonuses can be achieved - if luck is on your side.

From some of my many unassembled Wargames Factory sprues, I threw together a few dedicated Norse-Gaels.  The first unit of warriors below is kit-bashed from several sets to achieve a mixed Viking-Irish look.

Norse-Gael Warriors with double-handed axes below.  The unit leader in front does not have a double handed axe, he has an axe in each hand. He was inspired by Floki from History Channel's Vikings - which is perhaps the only thing left worth watching on that channel. 

A six point Norse Gael warband below. If all goes well, this will be my army at my next tournament. 

Irish Warband from West Wind

The Irish have been my preferred SAGA warband lately for reasons of both game style and familial lineage. While most of my figures have been from Crusader Miniatures, I picked up an army pack of twenty from West Wind on a sale a few weeks age.

West Wind's Irish warband is, judging from the rest of their offerings, aimed at the early Dark Ages or Age of Arthur. Nonetheless, it is not too much of a stretch to use these for the era of Viking invasions in Ireland, especially in the ninth century.

Below, a group shot of all twenty.  For a paint scheme, I stuck with a limited palette. The shields were all red and white and I worked on plenty of variations of Celtic crosses, some historical and some improvised in that style.

The rank troops are for spear or javelin (unsupplied) and come in four different poses. Hands will need to be drilled out in order to fit the weapon.  Heads are separately cast, and there are 10 variations.  Shields are separate as well (except for the musician).  

There are also four unique figures in the set.  Two are warriors with short swords, which are cast-on and not separate.  For a SAGA warband, these can serve as your Curaidh.  

The other two unique figures are a command character with a banner and a musician.  The rough and improvised banner is the detail that most distinctly places these figures in the pre-Viking age.  Using a separate staff and Viking-era banner is easy, but the metal-cast banner is nicely sculpted and unique among my collection.  I went with it. 

These are good figures but do require a bit of prep work.  Drilling the spear holes is a plus for long term stability, but it is an extra task.  Casting quality is good, but some cleanup of jagged areas is necessary.  The neck pocket will also need to be opened up a bit on most of the figures in order to get the head to glue in properly. That is a small price to pay for having some customizeable options.   

For SAGA, these twenty figures give you two points of warriors, a half a point of Hearthguard (Curaidhs) and a Warlord.  One would need at least 12-20 more figures to get a complete six point warband out of this box, so this could best serve as an expansion to an existing army in that game.  

Open Combat by Carl Brown

Apologies to all for dropping off the blog for a while.  Work, family and church has kept me incredibly busy of late, and I can't promise that my pace will pick up anytime soon.  I do have a number of new painted figures to post, as soon as I have time to take some pictures.  In the meantime, here is a review (of sorts) for a new game I picked up and played recently.

Open Combat by Carl Brown is a new miniature rule system released through his website and company Second Thunder.   Having heard about the game from a couple of my favorite podcasts, Meeples and Miniatures and Fool's Daily, I decided to pick it up.  On the face of it, the game system is flexible for ancient, medieval or fantasy gaming with a limited number of models per side. It is easily customized to fit any miniature, and it promises to be quick to set up and quick to play.

What is perhaps the most unique aspect of the game, one that sets it apart from other miniature wargames, is the creation of your army list or warband.  Warbands are based on a point system ("renown") and can be set at various levels for desired length of play and size of the warband.  One hundred points will get you a small force with some average to good characteristics. Points are assigned to each individual model for five basic statistics - Speed, Attack, Defense, Fortitude and Mind.   Weapons and special abilities (Aim, Inspiration, etc.) add points as well.

The mechanic for combat is based on adding up modifiers to the character's attack value, such as cover, high ground and so forth.  The number of points greater than the defender's total (if any) determines the amount of dice the attacker rolls, with a maximum of three.  The attacker takes the best value, and this should give him a greater chance of scoring a hit.  There is no save roll if a model is hit, this is built into the modifiers and the fortitude (i.e. "hit points").  This makes for a quick resolution of combat.

Initially, I was a bit perplexed by the lack of lists or standards? What is the typical defense value for a Viking in chain mail?  What sort of attack would a Roman legionnaire have? And, if we're getting into fantasy, what about a goblin, an orc or a werewolf?

Lest you think the lack of lists can be attributed to the authoer's laziness or inattentiveness, it was purely intentional and it may be the key selling point of the game. In a true skirmish game, each miniature is an individual and all individuals are distinct. Not all Vikings were equally tough. A quick but naked Celt could have a defense of 6 and a clumsy Roman in armor might have a defense of 3 if you so choose.  This gives you the freedom to create a warband with a few powerful heroes or a swarming mob, or somewhere in between.  You could even create a warband made of a single god-like character (25 attack! 25 defense!) but the rules system naturally limits such pointless overpowering.  No matter how high your attack, you still roll only three dice and pick the best, and no matter how high you defense, your opponent still gets to roll a single die. Regular players of the game should find an equilibrium based on their style of play.

---

For my initial game, I decided to test out character creation and put some Skraelings up against Vikings.  The Skraelings were initially for SAGA, but I never had a great desire to play their battleboard. Loved the figures, so now I can play the Indians as I envisioned them.  The Vikings were led by an 11 year old son of a friend, a Boy Scout with an deep interest in history - definitely a future war gamer.

The Indians are low on defense and fortitude, but I spent points on Speed, Aim and Nimbleness. Run and Gun! 

Above, the Vikings advance to the tree line. 

Initiative is the usual IGYG system, but rolling a "1" during combat ends your turn.  The does bear some similarities to the Song of Blades and Heroes iterations, in that a poor roll ends your turn before all the models have moved.  

Position matters in Open Combat.  This Viking about to get shot in the back will only be able to apply half of his Defense value.  

Above, the Jarl successfully defends against a Brave attacking from the high ground and then pushes them back,  He has taken some damage, however and...

another Brave activates and takes him out.   

With their Jarl slain, the Vikings reach the breaking point on their renown, and the game is called in favor of the Skraelings.  Total game time is under an hour, not bad for two players, one completely new to miniature wargaming.  

---

Open Combat definitely fills a niche in my gaming habit.  The DIY nature of warband construction allows me to field some figures and forces the way I think they should be played, all within a balanced game mechanic.  It is quick to learn, and quick to teach, but not at all oversimplified.  

Currently, it is only available as a PDF from his website, though a published edition may be down the road if the game catches on.  I hope it is because Carl Brown is very supportive of his product through forums and outreach.  

Update:  Apologies to Carl BROWN for originally listing his name as Brand.  Not sure who I can blame for that, but if I find the culprit I'll be sure to identify him!

My Vikings are bigger than your Vikings

On my last post about Black Tree Design Vikings, there were some comments and questions about their relative size and scale, specifically the fur clad Vikings.

The photo below is a sampling of my various BTD Vikings.  Even without drawing a reference line, the bald guy with the axe is noticeably (but not excessively) taller than the rest of the warriors.  The archers were, I think, the slightest of all the BTD Vikings.

Vikings are perhaps the most ubiquitous ancient/medieval range of miniatures.  They offer a lot of reward for collectors who like variation in their painting routine.  Plus, they can often do double duty in fantasy gaming.  That may explain why there are so many Viking manufacturers out there. 

Here is a size comparison of the BTD Vikings with some other popular manufacturers.  From left to right: Gripping Beast plastic hirdman, Gripping Beast metal (?), BTD and Crusader hirdman,  Again, the barbarian Viking comes out the tallest.  

On the last big Black Tree sale, I also purchased a few packs of Dark Age/Viking villagers. Below, a group of Viking elders (DA1011).  It offers a nice social cross section, from a poor thrall to a well off village elder. The wealthy beardless gent on the right would make a more than passable Njal from the great Icelandic Saga.

The pack (DA1070) shown below is the only one to offer a female figure, and it was out of stock for quite awhile.  Apparently, a mold was lost, but it is now available.  

Finally, mixed pics from a couple of other packs that I have multiple copies.  Useful for populating your village with artisans and workers.

Vikings from Black Tree

This past summer, Black Tree Designs had one of their massive 50% off sales. I hardly needed anymore Vikings (as if "need" is a word any wargamers ever needs to utter) but I really liked the look of some of their packs.

I've been rereading some of the Icelandic Sagas lately and these Vikings seem to fit into the aesthetic of those tales. Survival was more precarious in Iceland, and minor transgressions could be a cause for murder. With their furs and axes, these Vikings seem more like men out to settle a feud rather than hop on a longship.

DA1105

DA1015

The unit below will be fielded as Norse-Gael hearthguard in SAGA, which I hope to focus on in the future. Their Challenge mechanic is interesting, but I've not played them enough to make the most of that faction's abilities. 

DA1008

I also purchased three packs of the Viking villager packs that should be finished soon.

Reading Recommendations

Any of the Viking Sagas are recommended. On one hand, many can be tough to read, for they contain genealogical lists and side stories that are tangent to the narrative. Overall though, the sagas are a fascinating look the social values of the Norse people in the dark ages - as viewed through the lens of the thirteenth century Christians who wrote down the sagas.  Two of the best (and most violent) are Egil's Saga and Njal's Saga. 

I have previously recommended Finn Gall by James Nelson . The second book in that series Dubh-linn continues the story of Thorgrim, a dour Viking and his son Harald. Tired of raiding, Thorgrim is stuck in Ireland without a way home and becomes caught once again between Vikings jarls and Irish kings and princesses. The books bear some resemblance to George R.R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire series with its multiple POV characters and political machinations for control of a throne. However, Nelson's books are fast moving and efficiently-told tales that have come out twice in two years.  Sorry, George.

Dubh-linn at Amazon

Battle on the Ice with Battle Troll

A game of Battle Troll was on the agenda this week.  I have played Battle Troll a few (3 or 4) times, owning both the pdf and printed copy.  A few games were solo scenarios and its card driven combat mechanic can function well as an autonomous opponent.  I also played it with my young son, who liked the card artwork and could grasp some of the basics.  In these experiences, I avoided using the full combat rules, which took into account hit location and armor coverage.  In this game, my usual wargaming buddy and I decided to go all in on Battle Troll, with hit locations, weapon distinctions and accident charts.

The scenario was "The Ice Floe" Both sides start on rocky outcroppings and battle on the ice.  The ice is broken in the middle, with a somewhat stable ice floe to cross.  It is based on an incident from Njall's Saga, with one side led by Njall's son Skarphedin, and the other side by Thrain.

Skarphedin (on the large round base) and two other heroes slowly cross the ice.

Movement is not set, as in SAGA and other skirmish games.  Players roll 2d6 for walking and 3d6 for running.  If you roll a "1" in this scenario on a run, you fall and slide the distance rolled.  Which, if its into the icy gray river, is instant death.

No IGYG here, player order is determined by draws from a deck, with 6 cards activating one or more of your troops, six cards activating your opponents and one card ends the turn, resulting in a reshuffle.

Combat is resolved by choosing an attack action (swing, cut, lunge or jest) and a counter action (block with shield, counterblow, jump aside, jump back and jest).  The effectiveness of one attack against another generates a certain number of dice for each player.  Jests are useful in that they score reputation points against an enemy, which actually determines the winner of the game.  So does a kill obviously, but if you can insult your enemy before killing them, so much the better.

I did like the nice bit of meta-gaming during combat.  If my opponent is attacking me with a spear, and spears are more effective with a lunge, do I leap aside giving me more dice than him?  But if I know this, he does to, so he might surprise me with the swing, a spear's least effective attack.  But that would be so obvious, so maybe he is going with the cut...or maybe he is going to stick with the lunge...

By now, I was starting to feel like this guy:

The first one down is one of mine, slain by Thrain.

The next kill is by my leader Skarphedin against an enemy hero.  Skarphedin lands a Great Blow, which earns him 6 Reputation Points, but also earns the dead character points for dying in such an epic manner. 

Finally, after over an hour of game play, two characters lay dead, although most are wounded to some degree.  The game is called. My opponent leads in Reputation Points, due to wounds inflicted and his liberal use of jesting.

After playing the full rules, here are a few observations - 

• Resolving combat was very slow going at first and it improved somewhat as the game went on.  Wargamers who like checking and cross referencing charts will find this system a breeze.  Those who like to roll dice, see who has the best number might find it slow going. 
• Wounds need to be cumulative - which as best I could tell from the rules, they were not.  Characters may be slightly wounded multiple times, with no consequence past letting an opponent re-roll a single die. This would also speed up combat a bit, but might be an impediment to those playing the campaign, and need characters to survive and fight again.
• Wound markers for each character is a must.  Even though we were writing down who was wounded, numerous times we finished a combat and then remembered we could have had a re-roll against a wounded opponent. 

A final endorsement is the material included. Of the 80 pages, 24 are devoted to rules, with the remainder covering campaign rules - hiring men, building a hall, and lawsuits (seriously) - and numerous scenarios that are historically based and easily transferable to other skirmish games.

My friend's comment was that this combat system was basically an RPG system and I agree.   I might actually like to see more tactical RPGs use a reveal system similar to this, preventing players from "modifying" their actions mid-combat.