Saga World Cup 2026 - Part 1. Preparation is ready

Stockport 1.-2.82026

Tradition of organising Saga World Cup as team tournament started already before covid and has now again continued for couple of years. I have considered organizing a team from Finland, but even missed the WC in Sweden 2025 due to being too busy playing other games at the same time...

So now it was certainly a high time to put together a team and so we did!

Jaakko - Age of Crusases, me- antique, Mr. I - Chivalry and Petri - Dark Ages

Read on to learn about our preparatios and how it all went down...

Age of Caesars - Palmyra in action

First go!

AI savvy gamers had produced quite reliably correct Palmyran BB
and of course I wanted to give it a go! Read all about it.

Armies on Parade: Ancient Persians - updated 22.7.2026

My typical Persian army, from left to right  8 warriors on camels, 6 HG in a combined formation, scythed chariot, warlord on horse, 12 levy with bows, elephant and Camel riders mercenaries. Might chance warriors to normal (horse) cavalry, if the opponent doesn't have lot's of cavalry and HG to mounted, if the opponent has very good shooting defense, like Republican Rome.

Armies on Parade: WW2 Finns

 The Army, that made me start Bolt Action

ASOIAF: Nordic GT - Winter War!

King in the North!

 This year it was our turn to organise the Nordic GT for ASOIAF here in Helsinki.

See previous GT results here

Picture credits besides me go to Antti Vaaranen, Oskari Anttonen, Andras Libal and others. Thank you!

Hobby year 2025 in retrospect and plans for 2026 - WIP

Highlights of the hobby year

Higlight of the year was certainly participating in The Invitationals -event, where 100 top Song players from around the world played in a team tournament and in the two day main event. 

Painting during 2025 - Going for the 500?

What a painting year!

This year has seen me painting couple of whole new armies: Brotherhood without Banners and House Greyjoy for ASOIAF, as well as many historical miniatures for Napoleonic, WW2 and Age of Chivalry, for example. As I'm writing this I have finished 404 new miniatures and finished 44 miniatures I have started painting earlier (before 2025). As I have quite few more started miniatures, I was thinking to reach 500, but as we decided to go for a last minute holiday for the rest of the year, it's not likely to happen. Oh well, more miniatures to complete 2026.

Armies on Parade: House Greyjoy for ASOIAF - Updated 8th of January 2026

We do not sow!

First model I painted was of course Balon...

ASOIAF: REALMS OF BATTLE 2025 in Warsaw

Had once again great time in the largest Song-tournament of the year with some 160 players in Warsaw. This time my tournament success was just awful, but luckily the games were pretty good and tight: two ties (victory through points on the table), 2 x 1 point defeat, 1 x 2 point defeat (also one crushing victory and one crushing defeat). Even better was to meet with old friends from the Song community and to get a couple of new ones - special mention to Andras from Romania, whom hanged out with Team Finland (aka Monsters from the North) on Sunday evening and on Monday. One highlight of this trip was also to visit Wargamer HQ, where we mostly buy our toys for Song and other wargames. Thanks for hosting us Michal and Tomasz!

Some of the pictures are by Warfactory (source Facebook) and some by Antti (Rivarama).

Wargamer's Summer - WIP

 We wargamers see the world in a different way, don't we?

This is what I did this Summer.

Sitting in my castle in the edge of Peak District, England

ASOIAF: Game with Grant from Yecats MIniatures

 Great to meet and play F2F

If you're into ASOIAF and have an internet connection, you probably know Yecats Miniatures and their YouTube channel. I've visited the channel as a guest a couple of times and as I was on a holiday in UK, we agreed to have a game at his house, near London.

Read on to find out how it all went down!

First half of 2025 on the painting desk - Updated 12.5.

Miscellaneous stuff painted 

Finishing the Brotherhood without Banners for Song

Lady Stoneheart

Beric Dondarrion, the Lightning Lord

Thoros

ASOIAF - THE INVITATIONALS 2025 in Stockport UK - Updated 21.4.2025

Best of the best gathered at The Invitational

From left: Seppo (Geelot), Jaakko (Corpmake), Johannes (Forestpond), Antti (Rivarama) and me (Kujala). Photo by Doug

Team Finland joined both the Team event on Friday with 5 players and with 6 players on the actual event. Our team was truly the best players from Finland, at the time of writing this all Team event players are at top 6 in Finnish ranking with an average Elo of 1907 (probably was even higher when we entered the tournament)

Several pictures in this blogpost are by the awesome Doug Gordon, see more of his photos of the event here 

NOTE: my most recent update (last games and conclusions) seem to not have been saved, darn. now re-written.

Armies on parade: Brotherhood without Banners

ASOAIF: Finnish Nationals 2025

 Largest ever ASOIAF tournament in Finland

with 30 players!

Banner designed by Johannes

Hobby year 2024 in retrospect and plans for 2025

 Another very active hobby year gone by

Song (ASOIAF) continues to dominate "what I play", even if it dropped by some 20 games palyes compared to 2023, it's still almost double compared to ALL OTHER games played.

So the balance of different games leveled just a bit in the total of 179 games played. That's more then 3 games a week - an active hobby year indeed.

My regular favourites remained on the top, besides Song: Saga activity is rising with some new players at the club, same goes for Bolt Action where we saw the launch of the new edition. Mythic Battles was played quite a bit as Ragnarok activated me and couple of other players too. First ever Star Wars Legion tournament was ran at the club too. I participated in two ADLG campaigns with my Persians so that kept this game on the agenda, even if I'm not the biggest fan of these detail and quite complex rules, it's the system that is active at the club, so that's what I gotta play as I want to field my 15mm Persians.

Painted 2024 - to be updated

500+ miniatures got painted again!

It's 2024

Don't ask me how many other miniatures I started, but did not finish...

ASOIAF Battle Report: The Others vs. Greyjoys

The White Walkers march again

 I've been building The Others army since 2019, it was originally designed by Yannic & co. for the 1.5 season of Song but has now been redesigned by Board man gaming, find it here.

Since familiarizing myself with Shane's (BMG) awesome work, I've been brooding to play with them again. This week it happened with a club mate Ilmo, playing Greyjoys

Finished some paint jobs too:

FF Heroes converted: Harma, Rattleshirt, Styr, Weaper & Great Walrus 

Some more armoured troops, including a converted Styr's chosen.

When I play FF with these, they are Thenns

ASOIAF: Custom Tactics Boards

 Tactic's Board as a Diorama

In Song we mainly use 2D terrain (check my 3D terrain here) so to fill the "visuality gap" of the game, I've modelled several "Diorama Tactics Board". Latest one is based on 3D printed Dragonstone board used as the base. Read on to learn how these were made! 

ASOIAF: Finnish Nationals 2024

 

As part of the Talvisota (Winter War) event (organized by Nopat & Taktiikka club, 300+ players) Finnish Nationals for Song was now

organized for the 2nd time. Head TO was Antti, our Champion from 2023.

Tournament in ASOIAF Stats

In this post I will report my journey in the tournament as well as share overall feelings and atmosphere from the event, not forgetting the best painted army...

We also appeared in Tourney Ground with Jaska to discuss the event