Asturian Troubadour and Militia

Finally, I was able to finish a painting project. The Asturians would be added to my Christian warband for Saga C+, either as Spanish or Crusaders. Both would be suitable for a force settled in the early Crusades era.

The Troubadour started his life as a Bretonnian Quest knight, by far one of my most beloved models. You have to love his Mandoline. As Troubadour, he was more a side-character for the warband, but one I definitively wanted to add  due to flavour reasons.

Like every good Troubadour, he actually is of french heritage and so carries the coat of arms of the village of Estagell from Occitania. For Saga C+ isn’t a mass system, I will paint every knight his own personal coat of arms, taken from villages of the area of Asturia. Surely, they will not be absolutely historically accurate, as many villages will carry more recent coats of arms, but at least it will get as close as I can get without a serious study in Asturian archives. I try to keep it simple, and so, he Troubadour got a very iconic imagery – the lamb of god carrying his banner.

As for the peasant rabble, it wouldn’t fit to give them individual heraldry, so they would carry the Asturian sigil – the cross of victory – on their shields. I tried to keep a little unification with the use of the colour blue, but at the end, I also like the scratched-together feeling of these lads.

They also started their lives as Bretonnian peasants from Warhammer Fantasy, but now live a second live in the wondrful teritory of historical wargaming. I really hope to finish the warband in this year and also fight a game.

Lovely faces. Sadly, I didn’t realiz that the casting fin on the right guys’ head would look so prominent until it was too late. 😦

The “Dornish peasant”.

 

WIP – Asturian Troubadour

Just a little work-in-progress in addition to my Asturian warband for SAGA. I hope to finish the whole group in summer. Matching to the more uniformed warband, this troubadour should share the basic colours of his country, blue and yellow. Perhaps he is a relative of the noble leading the company.

The model itself is a leftover from my Warhammer Bretonnians (like the Bowmen). I love the mandoline and his moustache. Thanks to SAGA, he will play some lovely tunes on the battlefield. Spains answer to Scottish bagpipers, if you will.

To make my whole historical collection a little “darker” than my fantasy miniatures, I used Warplock Bronze instead of a lighter Bronze tone to highlight the silver of his chainmail armour. This should be more apting to that period.

Saga C+: Priest and Bowmen

Some weeks ago, I finally managed to finish painting at least two units for the next gaming project, Saga: Crescent and Cross. I hope that I will will be able to play a game in summer.

The war band I want to field should be situated in one of the countries which took part in the fights of that era. That left me with the Holy Land and Spain to choose from. First, I thought on using the colours of the nobles of Foix, but then I changed my mind and will try to base their colours on the kingdom of Asturias. Hopefully, it will look the part.

Not directly a unit by himself, but also a vital part of any christian war party, I definitely had to paint a monk. I thought that a Dominican paint scheme would be better suited to Asturias and the beginning Reconquista than a Franciscan monk. Besides, a black/white habit would also give more contrast than a brown robe.

I love the stern but thoughtful look on his face. Sadly, I don’t know which company produced him because I bought the miniature at the last flea market in my club.

The Archers are someof the remnants of my Bretonnian army. I really like both the dirty and shabby look of the newer and the more uniform outfits of the older Bretonnian models. With the lad above, I used the head of an old Chaos champion to add a little grotesque element to the Archers.

The bowman with the hood adds an element of hastily press-ganged recruits to the more militia-looking men. Or he just sweats too much wearing a real helmet in Hiberian climate.

After the massive unit of Archers, I will continue with the halberd men and a further ally for the warband.

Charity Tournament 2012

Last week, the wargamers of eastern Austria gathered in a charity tournament to collect as much money as possible for supporting an institution which makes researches in cancer, especially for children (the St. Anna Children’s Hospital à http://www.stanna.at/).

The event contained more than Warhammer, Warmaster, Warmachine and 40k was also played. We were able to play in the rooms of the tin miniature museum (http://www.zinnfigurenwelt-katzelsdorf.at/), a place where some players of the area play regularly.

Due to the character (and the purpose) of the event, it was clear that it should be a less competitive sort of tournament, where the goal would not be to overrule and smash the enemy. Thanks to the organisators and the players, the tournament was very funny and enjoyable. For gathering more players than in usual tournaments, two players would face each other in every battle. So, for the first time, “team austrohammer” would enter the battlefields of Lower Austria.

Preparations

Due to the fact that I wasn’t able to field my dream list of ten Mournfangs, I decided to field my old, beloved Dwarves. Thanks to the very unrestrictive Army Choice, I was able to bring a very tough artillery with me, which would have been banned in most other tournaments.

The Army Lists

Runesmith, General, Shield
+ 1 x Rune of Stone, 2 x Rune of Spellbreaking
– – – > 127 Points

25 Quarrellers, Great Weapons, Musician, Standardbearer
– – – > 340 Points

30 Dwarf Warriors, Great Weapons, Musician, Standardbearer
– – – > 315 Points

Cannon
+ 1 x Rune of Reloading, 1 x Rune of Burning
– – – > 105 Points

Grudge Thrower
+ 1 x Rune of Accuracy, 2 x Rune of Penetrating
– – – > 155 Points

20 Hammerers, Musician, Standardbearer
– – – > 258 Points

As you can see, the purpose of my half of our army was to shoot everything coming to near. The cannon and the Thrower would be essential to deal with anything our melee units would be too weak to do so. The Quarrellers were simply there to field a second core unit, and I would have preferred a bigger unit of Hammerers. But sadly, due to the Army Restrictions, they were as big as possible.

My partner, a High Elf player, would provide us with the very important melee power (with his White Lions) and a good support in the form of an Eagle and light cavalry.

1 Noble 143.0
Armour of Caledor; Guardian Phoenix; Great Weapon

1 Mage 155.0
Magic Level 2; High Magic; Staff of Solidity

20 Archers 225.0
Musician

19 Spear Elves 196.0
FCG

19 White Lions 335.0
FCG; Standard of Discipline; Ironcurse Icon

5 Ellyrian Reavers 95.0
Bow

1 Repeater Bolt Thrower 100.0

1 Great Eagle 50.0

Game One

The first game and we faced two players I have never played against before. We would have to fight an alliance between High Elves and Bretonnians (could anyone guess a fluff for THIS match-up???). Well, they fielded the obvious strength-five-catapult (if I hadn’t used the same Warmachine, just with the possibility to reroll the artillery dice, I would complain a lot about this piece of artillery…), some knights (flying and mounted) and the obvious White Lions. It promised to be a tough and interesting battle.

Both sides decided to place their armies on the same side of the battlefield. So there would be a tough melee in the middle of the table. I hoped to shoot the bretonnian Thrower with the first or second shot of my cannon. Our opponents started the game with placing the flying Pegasi knights before their battle line, perfect for a charge of my Hammerers. I wondered why they gave us the opportunity of charging their Pegasi knights, but nevertheless, we took the chance and charged with Hammerers and White Lions (on the knights). Meanwhile, both sides laid strength-five-templates at the opponent’s units and reduced them to mere rubble.

The Hammerers broke through the Pegasi knights (obviously), but the White Lions gut stuck in the knights and had to be supported by the Dwarf Warriors. Sadly, we were not able to break the unit. The last member of bretonnian chivalry stood with a double-one on his motivation test. So we didn’t get any points for the melee in the middle of the battlefield. The left flank proofed to be a much tougher place for our eagle and light cavalry than expected. We had hoped to get their artillery by outflanking them with our fast units. But the archers were able to protect their artillery against such attempts.

At the end, we parted with a result of 2:2, which was a little bitter for us, for we had expected a far better outcome due to the heavy losses our opponents had to endure. But anyhow, it was a nice game and well fought.

 

We even had the possibility to purchase ‘some’ 40k-stuff:

Game Two

Having plundered the grill station, we were ready to face our next opponents. I was surprised that we had to fight one of the highest rated teams at this event, an alliance between Wood Elves and Dwarves (again, I would really like to read a proper and fitting explanation for such a battle) fielded by Martin, a local legend and member of the team which has won the silver medal at the ETC (Dwarves) and Meni, a regular tournament winner (Wood Elves). I was very happy about the Burning Rune on my cannon, for we would need it very badly against the obvious treeman. Sadly, this battle saw a very interesting formula:

Grudge Thrower & Cannon < Cannon

Our artillery proofed to be incompetent (mishits and disability to wound) and was taken out of battle by counterfire. Meanwhile, our melee units were unable to deal with the treeman and the Dryads. We tried to save at least one corner of the battlefield (we played a scenario where every side had to conquer as many quarters of the table as possible), but it wasn’t enough and the outcome was a mere 0:4.

Some impressions from the tournament site:

Game Three

Well, after the second game, with only two points at the moment, the last one should be a little bit more successful. Our opponents fielded a coalition of Skaven and High Elves, containing a Plague Furnace, a Hellpit Abomination, White Lions and many Plague Monks. At least, locating the targets were pretty easy: for this was a scenario where you had to ‘break’ the other army, meaning that you had to conquer enemy standards and kill the enemy general, all we had to do was sitting at the back and shooting. My cannon got the order to shoot the Hellpit Abomination – she didn’t count for the outcome of the game in victory points (as normal victory points were not calculated), but could very serious damage to our troops.

Happily, I managed to shoot the Abomination in the first turn. Having cancelled this threat, both units of White Lions faced each other at the right flank, while the Skaven marched towards us a little bit slower. It came to a big melee with my Hammerers unit containing my General with the Plague Monks and their Plague Furnace. Obviously, the Ratmen had their banner which allowed them to reroll attacks and wounding hits in the first round of battle, so my poor Hammerers suffered severe damage right from the start of this important fight – at this moment, all armies including our High Elves were ‘broken’, so the outcome of the battle laid on the shoulders of my Hammerers – if their banner and the General would fall, I would be ‘broken’ too and we had a 2:2. Gladly, I rolled luckily enough to save at least the Runesmith and we won the battle 3:1. So, it wasn’t that bad at all.

We landed on the second-last place, only our unlucky opponents of the third round (who managed to kill their own magicians with a miscast) scored less.  But hopefully, we will see many of the participants of this tournament on the next events.

Afterthoughts

All in all, it was quite an astonishing tournament. The site was very nice, the games were fun to play, the catering was good (grilled sausages and chicken) and we were able to play for a good cause. So altogether, I’m looking forward to compete again at the next occasion. Sadly, the Dwarves played a humble and poor part in the battles, but after all, it was for the fun and good cause, so be it 🙂 The High Elves, on the other hand, were an interesting partner. With the White Lions as a frightening melee unit and the Eagle as an excellent unit for frustrating enemy units, they filled the usual gaps of a Dwarf Army – movement and melee skill.

Hope you enjoyed this tournament report. If you have some money left, I would ask you to have a look at the homepage of the St. Anne Children’s hospital (http://www.stanna.at/) – it’s definitely worth it!