Musicians and Priests: House Rules

It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets. 

- Voltaire 


Well before SAGA, I had two modest sized armies of Anglo-Saxons and Vikings. Blame Bernard Cornwell. Somewhere along the way,  I added in Normans and Byzantines. Either through the purchase of unit deals or the occasional impulse buy, I have ended up with a number of support figures for each army. WAB made use of such figures, but SAGA does not.

This is a very minor house rule.  It is not intended to alter the game play and/or the outcome of a game.  Its main purpose is to add variety to the table and make some use of the musician and priest figures that I have accumulated.

1) Before starting a match, each player can choose one support character, either a musician or a priest.

2) Musicians and Priests are attached to a unit at the start of the game.  They can attach to any unit, Warlord down to Levy. They cannot switch units once gameplay has begun. Their base must stay within VS distance of at least one figure in the unit.

Each character offers slightly different advantages:

3) Musicians:  If attached to Warlords  musicians increase the range of the We Obey activation rule by an additional S length.

If attached to a group of warriors, hearthguard or levy, the musician increases their attack dice by one.

4) Priests: When attached to a unit, they generate one extra defense die.

5) Priests may not be mounted. Only musicians may attach to mounted units, if they are mounted as well. As an extra benefit, priests and musicians offer one additional casualty for their unit. It is the controlling players decision on whether to remove the musician or priest after suffering casualties.  Once their character has been removed, the benefits they offer are also removed.

All musicans are treated equally.  Drummers and string players are welcome.

Norman Infantry and Recommended Reading

As I continue my work on my Conquest Norman Infantry, I am impressed with how useful they are in a variety of roles.

Here is a group of unarmored Normans set up as Breton skirmishers.  I shortened the spears to javelin length and added a few bare heads from other manufacturers.  

A unit of Normans 

Another option included in the box is a double handed axeman.  Paint him a mustache and you have an Anglo-Dane huscarl.


Non-Fiction:

Haskins, Charles Homer The Normans in European History.  Haskins deserves praise as one of the greatest medievalists of the early twentieth century, while he was less than successful as a close advisor to Woodrow Wilson at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919.  Although close to a hundred years old,  The Normans in European History is an excellent description of how the Normans evolved from Viking settlers (or extortionists of the Franks) into an organized medieval state in under two centuries.  Haskins' historical viewpoint is a product of his times, and he attempts somewhat unsuccessfully to view and define the duchy of Normandy in twentieth century nation-state terms. Available as a free ebook on Google Play and Amazon.com

O'Brien, Harriet Queen Emma and the Vikings. Popular history about a central, but often forgotten figure in the great game of pursuing the throne of England in the eleventh century.  Emma, a Norman princess, was married to two kings of England, Aethelred and Cnut, and mother to two as well, Harthacnut and Edward the Confessor, and finally, aunt to William the Bastard (Conqueror).

Fiction:

Duggan, Alfred. Knight in Armor. Finest piece of historical fiction on the Crusades that I have read.  The eponymous knight, a young Norman who joins the First Crusade, is not particularly likeable or intelligent.  Published in 1950, it rests both chronologically and spiritually between nineteenth century romanticism and late twentieth century revisionism.  The march across the Near East is shown as a bloody, sordid and mostly unholy affair, and yet the final few pages capture the elation, desperation and triumph of achieving such an unlikely conquest.

Duggan, Alfred. The Lady for Ransom.  This time Duggan follows a band of Italian Normans who become Byzantine mercenaries and are present as the empire fell apart in chaos after the Battle of Manzikert. If Duggan wrote a bad book, I have yet to come across it, and this is one of my favorites.

Ludlow, Jack - The Conquest Trilogy.  Ludlow's trilogy is comprised of Mercenaries, Warrior and Conquest and recounts the de Hauteville family's conquest of southern Italy. Obviously impressed with Norman military prowess, Ludlow begins book one with the practical eldest brother William Ironarm who sought his fortune in Italy as one of many Norman adventurers. The series finally finishes with the domination of Southern Italy by the youngest brother, Robert Guiscard. The dialogue is terse and efficient, and it captures the political and military machinations of the Normans, Lombards, Byzantines and the Papacy very well.  Stylistically however, Ludlow is dry and clinical, and almost never evocative, as the setting demands.  Having finished the series on audiobook, the excellent narration by Jonathon Keeble compensates for the lack of mood in the prose.

Painted Norman archers

Just a quick shot of the Conquest Norman infantry as archers:

Norman Infantry Review and Conversions

I have had a box of Conquest Games' new Norman Infantry for about a week.  A quick review: if you have their cavalry, buy this box. You will have more than enough troops for a SAGA warband, and you're more than halfway there for a decent sized non-skirmish game. I am currently leaning towards Clash of Empires - haven't tried Hail Caesar, though.  For about $30 USD, you get eight sprues with five bodies. Three bodies are unarmored, one is in a gambeson and one is in knee length chain mail.  Two command sprues contain a leader in chain and an unarmored musician/standard bearer, and a dead knight.  The models are crisp and well molded with a minimal amount of flash.  The line of flash going up the leg wrappings can be difficult to smoothly remove.

I have two small criticisms with the set.  Overall, the sculpting is excellent, though I do not really care for unarmored fellow who is in an awkward half-run pose.  He doesn't make a good spearman and with a sword in his hand he looks like he is about to trip.  And while the set contains plenty of weapon options (spears, swords, two handed axes, kite shields and round shields), it contains no bows or crossbows.  As levies are the weakest SAGA troops, it can painful to pay metal prices for 12 archers when there are plastic options available for warriors and hearthguard.  It's a disincentive to adding levy units to your warband.

My solution was to add in arms and bows from some bits left over from a box of Wargames Factory Saxons. Here are four Conquest Games infantry converted into archers, and given a black wash to highlight details.

The posing is not ideal for archers, but they might fill out the ranks behind a good set of dedicated metal Norman archers. Neither of those critiques should bar one from buying a box or two if a Norman army is your desire.  

Woodland Indians update

The Gripping Beast Skraeling army is almost completed - only a unit of warriors and the War Chief remain.  They will propbably put on hold, a box of plastic Normans awaits.

Non-Fiction Reading Recommendations

For further research on the Indians of the southeast, the best survey is Charles Hudson's The Southeastern Indians (1976).  It is a comprehensive look at the peoples of the southeast from the Paleolithic Era to the Cherokees.  The wargamer and military historian might better enjoy that same author's Knights of Spain, Warriors of the Sun (1997).  It is a well researched scholarly work about DeSoto's journey through the southeast, but its also a gripping narrative of the encounter between the Old and New Worlds at the end of the Middle Ages.  Centuries before, the steel swords of the Vikings were not enough to make colonization of the Americas tenable; later the guns, germs and steel of the Europeans made conquest almost inevitable.  However, in this brief moment, both sides faced each other with an equal share of advantages and disadvantages.  As DeSoto and his band haphazardly wandered across the south, they were also torn apart by their lust for gold and internal jealousies.

Historical Fiction 

People of the Weeping Eye
People of the Masks 

The First American series of books by Michael Gear and Kathleen O'Neal Gear can be an uneven lot.  Most books contain a liberal amount of New Age mysticism, but overall the authors avoid idealized depictions of harmonious first peoples.  They depict a complex, yet deeply tribal group of peoples, who build, destroy, scheme, love, fight, and trade.  It should also be noted that the authors engage in what fantasy writers would call world building.  No matter how archaeologically informed and researched, the authors do have to re-create the intricacies of social institutions without any documentation. In The People of the Weeping Eye warfare erupts as one tribe challenges the hegemony of another among the mound builders of Mississippi and Alabama.  For those interested in the Viking/Indian encounter, a more relevant book might be People of the Masks, about the early Iroquois, builders of the longhouses.

Dice Decal Giveaway

I have made a big pile of custom dice lately, and ended up with some extra sheets of decals.  Therefore, as a way of both saying thanks and avoiding waste, I am giving away six sets (three Byzantine, three Skraeling) on a first come, first serve basis.  Each sheet has enough decals to make 4 dice, blank dice not included.

Just be a subscriber to  my blog, and post a comment indicating which one you prefer.  I will respond back by email to get addresses.  I will probably be creating some new decals in a couple of months, so expect another giveaway of extras then.

Woodland Indians and Mound Builders

I've finally started painting my box set of Gripping Beast's Skraelings.  Here are the first eight.

Due to a strong local connection to the Etowah Mounds, I am depicting my figures as eastern Moundbuilders of the Mississippi period.  According to some sources, they developed and used many dyes on their fabrics, favoring reds, yellows and black.

While the time frame of the Viking settlement of Vinland does coincide with the Mississippi culture, it is very unlikely that they were the Skraelings so described.  Nonetheless, the trade networks established by the great moundbuilding cities like Cahokia, extended north to Canada and the Great Lakes region, south all the way to Meso-America and west to the Rocky Mountains.


Pictures from the Etowah Mounds in Cartersville, Georgia.

Defensive ditch surrounding the village

View of the second mound from atop the highest mound.
The Etowah  River is behind the stand of trees in the background.

View across the Plaza, where ceremonies and civic activities occurred