One man, a warband and a beard...

This weekend, I partook in the first ever Saga Grand Melee.... Well I say partook, I turned up at least. 

I'm going to keep this short an sweet. 

I WON.... The wooden spoon award in grand fashion. Losing all six of the games, on the trot. 

But I turned up and I made sure my viking kin made their way to Valhalla with sword/axe in hand.

Over all I'm putting it down to not sacrificing to the Wargaming or Dice gods before I ventures to the battle fields.

 

My match ups were:

Game 1 Normans - A good game to warm up, first time agains anything on horse back. 

Game 2 Vikings - The chap clearly new the rules, I now see the advantage in reading the rule book :?

Game 3 Normans - Couldn't of played a nicer opponent, really enjoyed this game (he had one major tactic, he kept buying me alcohol! :)). It took me till turn 3 to realise that perhaps I should be marching across the board into a hail of arrows. 

Game 4 Anglo-Danish - Opponent again read the rule book, I'm sensing a trend. First time agains these guys, and how they are hard to advance on. 

Game 5 Jomsvikings - lovely opponent! Scenario and my inability to roll anything my favour, shut the game down for me. Plus he rolled like a machine, 5s/6s all over the place. 

Game 6 Anglo-Danish - Again :? Against a friend in the real world, but still shut down before I even began. Getting hell bent on kill points, I threw a lot of things away in a silly way. 

On the upside, I won the best Facial Hair award and Most sporting player. And Wow the prizes are unbelievable. 

Overall, an amazing weekend, of high some lows, but lots of laughter and brilliant banta. Some alcoholics shinnanigans along the way. 

Thank you to the gentlemen Gripping Beast. Lovely guys, with brilliant banta and amazing generousity. 

Thank you to all who turned up and made the tournament what it was, and thank your too my opponents for six spectacular defeats. 

Can't wait for next year!! 

.... Now where is my rule book

The Pagans are coming!

So recently, I have been uncontrollable obsessed with the History channels series Vikings. 

And this has opened new doors for me in Wargaming, and steered me towards the rule set SAGA. 

I've had a few games, and I really enjoy the rules. 

After giving grippingbeast.com 90% of its views for the last two months. I decided Salute 2014 (where I was helping out on the 4ground stall) was my best platform for some thouching, smelling and tasting before I parted with my hard erned cash. 

IMO it's always nicer to hand over cash, instead of typing in some number and clicking a button. 

Naturally Vikings where my warband of choice, I figure I can use both the Vikings and the Jomsvikings battle boards with the same warband, for a bit of variation. 

A few pounds sterling later I had my minitures, and I am happy with my lot. But I felt they needed I little bit of tinkering with, so that they capture the image of a band of a ravaged Nordic raiders. So a bit of greenstuff and some bit bashing from the Gripping beast plastic set, that a good friend had finished with. Here is the Resault.

From my haul at Salute, I picked up 2x dark age, Viking buildings and a brilliant little Viking Long Boat. More on these later. 

As always, thanks for looking.