Saga Begins...

Hello everyone.  I finally received the first of my Saga items.  I've asked for some help with some friends, and with some shopping and finding a few sprue deals on Warlord games I have been able to assemble a fairly decent force, possibly even enough to start a second Warband.  I'm thinking in the future I'll just roll with vikings, but who knows? We'll see.

The very first thing I did was get some cheap alternative for Saga Dice.  Gripping Beast's dice are quite expensive, so I figured I'd just make my own. They're pretty .. ghetto?

They're just basic sticker print outs with all the dices that I found for real cheap on eBay.  Well, I don't suspect they'll last long because I found the corners to slide off easily, and once you stick them on there's really no re-sticking them when they're worn.  In any case, I have multi colored anglo-dane die which look pretty ramshackle to me. Still need to make two more.

If they don't last long I'll just invest in the better dice.  

Second, my friend sent me a few of his Wargames Factory Saxon theign sprues . I have eight armoured fellows that could be used for a warlord or hearthguards . 

 

I wish these were not out of production!  You can see here in the pictures that the detail was pretty decent when they were being made.  The flash is there, but not too bad.  Nor were they too oversized (compared to the heroic scale of other companies, like Citadel minis).   You get a whole lot of arms and all sorts of poses you can make. But you have to be really careful because Wargames factory mini's are infamous for looking deformed when you glue them together - the poses can look really wonky!
I really like the heads on the sprue to.  You get a mix of different dark age styles, mostly unarmored heads. I will probably use these for the regular warriors / levy troops.

 

Here's a  shot of all the weapons, extra arms, shields and accessories.  And the flipside of the same thing.  I appreciate how they offer three different shields, the typical round shield variants and one kite shield.  Having mostly spears makes sense to me.  I wish there were more two handed weapons and bows, though. I will need to go and find some bows and Dane axes for my levy and hearthguards.   They also have the Saxon dragon standard in this sprue which will be good if I later on make an Anglo-Saxon warband.

I'm still expecting some Gripping Beast Plastic Vikings to come in, so we'll compare them soon. I've also got a whole wack of Wargames Factory Fyrds, the Saxon fellows without armor, that are going to be coming in from Wargames Factory. They with the viking and a bit of bit swapping will make the bulk of my Anglo-Dane army's Warlord, hearthguard, warriors, then levy.  I just hope with the amount I have coming in I have enough bows to cover all the levy.  Dane axes are still an issue, as I mentioned.

Until next time!  Bye ~