First go with Byzantines - review

Testing a new Battleboard from Saga Age of Crusades:

Byzantines vs. Saracens

I've been slowly painting some FireForge Games plastic Byzantines (see review here ) as an allied force for my Rus / Medieval Russian army, that I've been playing our Kingdoms in the East -campaign. As the November Saga Game Night at our Nopat & Taktiikka Club was closing in (I was organizing it), I decided to take a sprint in painting my Byzants and challenged Saracens to a fight.

KIngdoms in the East - Round 2

Empires are developing

Map status after 3/4 games are played

Great excitement is brooding around the campaign and round two was kicked of in two weeks

after the kick off. Read on to learn how it went down...

EPIC FIRST CRUSADE HAIL CAESAR BATTLE

Battle of Dorylaeum 1097

The Battle of Dorylaeum took place during the First Crusade on July 1, 1097, between the crusaders and the Seljuk Turks, near the city of Dorylaeum in Anatolia. - Wikipedia.

Introductory video here.

Saga introduction to a new player

The Last Stand of Kilin Arslan

I gave an introductory game on Saga for two club fellows tonight. Did I win?

Deus Vult: Battle of Arsuf - Report completed!

Mighty Battle and a mighty man feast!

This was a long term plan: prepare for the first BIG Deus Vult gae of the year: Arsuf. Plan started to develop and it evolved into a weekend trip to Sultan Kallah's summer cottage. So an umpire and 4 mighty warlords packed their armies and supplies and gathered for an epic battle... read on how the both battle and all side events unfolded... 

Crescent & Cross campaign to be concluded today!

Siege!

"Building" a demolished castle wall section

As part of our excellent Saga: Crescent & Cross -campaign we played a big team game last weekend in Ropecon. The game was a team game of 2 vs. 2, where us, the attacking saracens had 2 X 6 point Saga-warbands and the defenders had 2 X 4 point armies - and the castle.

It was really a great game (see plenty of pictures in Mika's blog here) and since we demolished a wall section in it, I just had to build (= demolish) one. Now I'm hoping to be able to use it soon.

I'll probably write a report about the game as well, but this blog is about constructing that piece of scenery.

Unboxing Gripping Beasts new plastic Saracen / Arabic Cavalry

Christmas came once again... 

...and my gaming buddy Herkko acted as the Santa by bringing me one box each of the new plastic sets from Salute - THANKS HERKKO! (and your wife)

So let's see what I got...

Crusades campaign: Battle of Hattin (Deus Vult -rules), report by Mentor on Miniatures

Last Saturday we played a rather huge battle as part of our Crusades Campaign.

Juha was faster than me in writing a report, so let's utilize that:

Mentor on Miniatures: Deus Vult - Battle of Hattin: Last weekend we had one of the main battles of our Holy Land Crescent & Cross campaign. The battle of Hattin 1187 which sealed the fai...

Saga: Cross & Crescent campaign round 4: Teaching Crusaders a lesson

So round 4 started and I was eager to keep playing!

I wanted to play the scenario Assault at Dawn (C&C page 112) and got Mikko (a rather newbie on Saga) and his crusaders as my opponent. 

Table is set and unit counters deployed - good to go! (Myself on the left)

Saga: Cross & Crescent campaign round 3: tight victory to my saracens

Battle at the Jordan river (ford)

Third round continued on a second evening of gaming. Our muslim side had been so cunning that no muslim armies arrived for the game night and we got the christians to fight amongst themselves (as they historically also did).
Last night it was the right time for the saracens to make their moves as me (aka Mullah Nicodemus ibn Yahia ibn Aymaan al-Zugag) and Kalle (aka Amir Azad ibn Aijaz ibn Arman al-Manna or Kallah in short) moved to encounter Aleksis' (aka Baron Alexis du Rich d’Ibelin, le seigneur de Nablus) crusaders and Sami's (aka Hochmeister Samuel von Hauck von Der Orden der Brüder vom Deutschen Haus Sankt Mariens in Jerusalem) Milites Christi. Yes we have cool thematic campaign alter egos ;-)

Deployment done

Crescent & Cross Campaign in full swing!

Story so far...

So far our campaign has seen the big battle  of Kerak (Deus Vult -rules) - see report here and two rounds of Saga: Cross & Crescent. See summary reports of the games below. Some pondering on Saracen factions potential included...

Nopat-club Holy Land Campaign started - Battle of Kerak

Nopat-club Holy Land Campaign started - Battle of Kerak

Long waited Crusades campaign finally started yesterday, when 5 players gathered to play the battle of Kerak with Deus Vult rules set

CROSS & CRESCENT -PROJECT STARTED

Cross & Crescent -project started

Check the WIP-pictures and what's going on from the project page!