SAGA into Open Combat

Apologies for going a whole month without blogging. I have done my share of gaming and painting in the past month, but kid's birthdays, school sports and a return to running nearly eliminated my blog time. On the positive side, I can now build up a reserve of posts for times when I am crunched for time.

SAGA is my usual go-to historical skirmish game, but Open Combat is increasingly filling a niche: a quicker game, fewer figures, or games with newer players (like my young son).  SAGA is far quicker than most historical games, and its unit point system makes list building a matter of minutes.

On the other hand, Open Combat can be time consuming with its initial RPG-lite character creation, so I have been working on a few rules to convert SAGA figures into Open Combat.  As an “open” system, Open Combat can handle any self-imposed rules players choose to create.

First, to preserve SAGA’s units, the different quality troops will have assigned Fortitude and Renown points. These values will be apply across different factions. Warlords will not be assigned FOR points, as Warlords are meant to be more unique than other troops.

TROOP TYPE	Renown	Fortitude
Levy	12	2
Warrior	18	3
Hearthguard	24	4
Warlord	30	-

Norman Archer (Levy) 

SPD	ATK	DEF	FOR	MIN	WPN	Abilities
3	2	2	2	1	Bow	Aim

For Warriors, the points go up by 6, giving them a Renown of 18.

Norman Spearman (warrior)

SPD	ATK	DEF	FOR	MIN	WPN	Abilities
3	3	3	3	2	Spear, Shield	Resolute, Shield Bash

The Warrior with a crossbow makes a formidable Dark Ages sniper:

Norman Crossbow (warrior)

SPD	ATK	DEF	FOR	MIN	WPN	Abilities
4	4	2	3	2	Crossbow	Marksman, Aim

The classic Norman troop is the mounted cavalryman. The Warlord, center, is flanked by two knights.

Norman Knights

SPD	ATK	DEF	FOR	MIN	WPN	Abilities
7	4	4	4	2	Lance, Shield	Furious Assault

Warlord

SPD	ATK	DEF	FOR	MIN	WPN	Abilities
8	5	4	5	3	Sword, Shield	Furious Assault, Inspire, Intimidate

To set your points for a match, begin with 30 for the Warlord, and add multiples of 24 to make purchasing easier.  The warband above is worth 198 points; 30 for the Warlord, 48 for four levy, 72 for four warriors and 48 for two knights. Finally, this is not meant to go against the ethos of Open Combat or "fix" it, but more as a way to show its adaptability to a variety of settings.

Up next, creating some foes for the Normans.

A Horse is a Horse

Last year, I purchased a shedload of Essex Arab and Tang Chinese figures from a webstore that was closing down.  A number of them were cavalry and unfortunately they were riders only - no horses. But at well under a dollar for a 28mm figure, I couldn't pass it up.  However, finding compatible horses has been a bit of a quest, but I like the hunt. Essex's would of course be perfect, but after rather high shipping costs and currency exchange, I was looking at about a $4 horse. Wanting to keep costs low, I looked at a variety of plastic sources.

HaT is a manufacturer of mostly 1/72 soft plastic figures.  I have a Macedonian and Persian army from them.  They are good figures, but no one seems to game ancients in that scale - it is either 15mm or 25/28mm.

HaT must have recognized this and has begun putting out a line of 28mm El Cid era figures. They still do not seem to have much of a grasp of the wargame market as their figures are upscaled from their 1/72 line.  Details like chainmail and faces are indistinct compared to any other plastic 28mm products on the market.  Most striking though, are the proportions. The HaT figures are more accurate, with a figure about 7 heads tall, whereas most 28mm figures run 5 or 6 heads tall.  This can make HaT's visually incompatible side by side - if that matters.  Because all I wanted were the horses, which don't seem to suffer from scaling issues, I bought a box:

Three identical sprues come in a box. The horses and riders are single piece models, in a hard, slightly glossy plastic. The horses are good, the riders are the weak point. 

On the other hand, they are inexpensive.  I can get a pack for under $16 at a "big box" hobby store, or pay a little more via the internet.  That's a decent price for 12 plastic 28mm figures - but are they worth it in terms of quality?

Below, here are some of the Essex heavy cavalry mounted on HaT horses.  All it took was a little shaving of the saddle and some file work on the rider.

Essex Arabs on HaT horses.

I was tempted to work on a unit using the included figures. I clipped off the original heads and glued a spare head from the Gripping Beast plastic Arab box.  Since the head is what are eyes are most drawn to, this conversion goes a long way to make these figures compatible with other 28mm lines. 

HaT Arabs with Gripping Beast heads

Below, a comparison of the converted HaT to similar models.

From left to right, Old Glory, the converted HaT, Gripping Beast and Artizan. 

The same horses for my Tang China cavalry

Overall, the HaT's are a good, but not ideal way to supplement your early Arab or Moor army. In light of the recent announcement from Gripping Beast that plastic Arab cavalry is coming in April, I am afraid these might not be so useful after all.

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.