It’s spring time here in the midwest – one day it’s 60 degrees, the next it’s 30 and snowing. The roads are straight destroyed, with potholes that will swallow your car and send you into debt. Soccer season starts in two weeks and I coach two teams but we can’t play in the snow ohgod
Time to return to SAGA. Fire up some Wardruna and throw some furs down to do some light reading.
In the Mood for Some Massacre Points
Playing SAGA at AdeptiCon really rekindled my love of the game. It’s a simple game that captures the Viking Age (and Invasions, and Chivalry… and all of them) really well. The strategy is built into the boards and your list, but you can always throw a Hail Mary charge at the enemy in turn five and just break even on Massacre Points if you get lucky and Odin favors you. I recalled some of my games and my experience on the Strategikon of SAGA podcast here – check it out!
I brought my Norse Gaels to AdeptiCon. In the past I’ve gone with regular old Vikings, but wanted to try something new this time. Norse Gaels are the descendants of the Norse raiders who settled in Ireland and Scotland and intermingled with the Gaelic people who lived there. They settled in the Hebrides – the islands to the north west of Scotland, and created an entire kingdom in Dublin that last over 300 years. Many of the place names in Scotland and Ireland are Norse Gael origin, and many Clans can trace their ancestry to this group of people.
As with most historical games, when I’m really into something, I tend to consume a lot of media when I’m not painting. In this case its four different mediums.
There is a long series of novels about Viking Age Ireland by James L. Nelson about Viking Age Ireland. Nelson has written 20+ books about war at sea – with 10 in this series plus series about the AWI, ACW, and Pirates, plus non-fiction about the same topics. So far the series has been pretty good – I actually had to quit the audiobooks because there are a lot of names in the book, and they tended to run together – but I like the print edition, it’s much easier to follow. It’s perfect for grabbing ideas for a game of SAGA.
Vinland Saga is a manga series written by Makoto Yukimura. I have not been a manga collector previously, but my local comic shop got big into manga and this was recommended in the Goonhammer Discord as good historical fiction so I checked it out. It’s pretty amazing – I’m not nearly as educated on the middle ages as I am ACW or other black powder periods, but the author puts a ton of effort into telling the history of middle age England during the period, with real people and events from history. The art is great, the story is engrossing, and the pacing is very good.
The story follows a boy — of course — Thorfinn, who sees his dad get destroyed in a duel. It’s actually pretty funny, as his dad talks to him for a few pages while he stands there with tons of arrows ventilating his body. Thorfinn has to fight for a dude he doesn’t like and escort a prince who he sees as weak. That’s the story so far.
Of course, a very popular manga was turned into a very popular anime. I’m probably going to be shunned for this, but I prefer dubs as I sometimes do hobby stuff while watching TV – so we’re lucky that the series has been dubbed. The art is great, the action is awesome, and you again get that feel of middle age England from the scenes.
Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla was released in 2020. I’ve barely played anything in the series, which is awful because they’re historical fiction games, but I was always turned off immediately when I had to do the modern missions in some of the games I’ve played. Valhalla has very little time-wasting with the modern stuff – you basically do all Viking all the time. I’m 100+ hours in and not nearly finished with the game, nor the DLC, so I’m really happy with it. Leading raids on abbeys and villages is satisfying, making choices around alliances is rewarding, and the environment is absolutely gorgeous. 10 out of 10, would raid again.
The Next Generation of Heathens
My 12 year old son came with me to AdeptiCon this year and had a great time. We’re planning to do the SAGA Team Tournament next year, using Norse Gaels and Vikings. Vikings are a really straight forward battle board with very useful but easy abilities. He’ll have four points of guys, so not a huge army. It’ll be a blast, I’m sure.
To get him ready, I’ve built and painted a Viking army for him. It’s mostly Gripping Beast plastics with some pewter guys from various sources mixed in. Plastics mean he’ll be less likely to break them or chip the paint. They’re easier to push around the board and easier to transport around a tournament area. They have plastic spears and weapons that aren’t likely to come off.
I chose to make it a pretty simple list – four hearthguard, four berserker hearthguard (he insisted on that), eight warriors and either eight warriors or 12 levy. Warriors work better with certain abilities so I think we’ll go with those, but he might like the idea of bow guys shooting. We’ll do some testing – we have time. We might also substitute the regular hearthguard for warriors.
I actually found a good STL of Thorfinn from Vinland Saga and my buddy printed him for me in resin. The mini came out really cool – I just had to do a little fix up work on his short swords as the mini was not meant to be printed at a small scale. I think the paint came out nicely and he’s excited to have Thorfinn as his Warlord.
Vinland Saga, both the manga and anime, have been a huge hit here – my son is through the fifth omnibus and we’re on the second season of the show. It’s a really good touchpoint to connect with him on history I really enjoy. When I was his age I was watching Glory, Gettysburg, and PBS Civil War with my mother – the main reason whey the ACW is my absolute favorite thing to research and game.
My daughter is nine and loves to game with us, so I’m also creating a four point warband for her. She always wants to play as the girl in our games, rightfully, so I grabbed a ton of the Shieldmaiden minis from Bad Squiddo and had a few 3D printed to fill out a force. SAGA is again a pretty easy game to play, and four point games will go fast, so I’m excited to teach her this spring. I think as historical games go, it’s probably one of the easiest to get female representation in, so it’s a great choice for us.
My daughter’s hobby is cats, so I definitely had to get a mini for her with cats on it. Fish Lass Maria from Bad Squiddo is awesome – she’s carrying some fish from the market while being harassed by a squad of cats and kittens. I gave her a scabbard and then painted each cat like a cat we have right now (three of them) and two who we had forever and passed on. She’ll be the lead shieldmaiden for my daughter’s warband, heading up the Warlord duties while fending off a passel of cats.
And the Boat You Rowed In On
One of the books that Studio Tomahawk released way back in 2016 was Age of the Wolf, a campaign supplement for SAGA, written by wargaming stalwart Warwick Kinrade.
It’s a little outdated, with some references not working as it was written for First Edition – but I think I can handwave those and figure them out. There is a great site here that builds on the supplement a bit with some house rules and maps added. Ill
I’m hobbying up some boats for each of our warbands. I’m obsessed with fishing, so naturally over the last year or so I’ve tried to work in ways to shoehorn fishing into my wargames. Fortunately, fishing was a major source of food and work for people of the middle ages, so it’s not hard to shoehorn it in here. Each of our warbands is going to have a boat and we’ll figure out ways to get them into the game.
The boat I chose is an Irish vessel and has tons of sweet rowers with oars and a tiller. I bought a 3D printed norse longship for my son and a small merchant vessel for my daughter. If she wants a longship too I’m sure one could be procured quickly!
In my next post I’m going to write more about getting ready for the campaign – how to make our warbands, accessories we need, terrain, and new minis to paint. Skol!
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