Wednesday, June 27, 2012

WIP - Bretons and General SitRep

It's been carnage here in the Duchy. The Duchess has been stricken with plague for the last week, along with the Duxlet and Duxettes, and I've been hanging by a thread. Nobody has been sleeping properly, and every night has brought with it more changes to sleeping arrangements than a French farce. Fortunately we seem to be emerging from the full hellishness of it all, no doubt due to the incantations I've been chanting and the various sacrifices.

Many would assume of course that this means the Dux has been inactive, sluggish or indolent as far as his hobby is concerned, but no! Despite the wracking consumptive coughs and curiously vivid codeine dreams I've been chipping away, and thus maintaining some shreds of sanity. So I give you the next project: a four point Breton warband for SAGA. These are the figures I was fortunate enough to win at the Hall of Heroes Saga tournament a while back, kindly supplied by Ian at War and Peace Games.

The Gripping Beast figures are very 11th Century Norman in appearance, so I've 'Bretonned them up' a bit by adding lots of extra javelins made from broom bristles, and I'll be going for a more Celtic feel with the shield designs.

What else is on the horizon? Well, Hall of Heroes has another tournament on 21 July, and I'm looking forward to it immensely. If you live anywhere near Sydney I strongly recommend you come along for a great day of gaming in a brilliant venue.

I've also organised a SAGA tournament at school for the start of next term with Conan the Librarian, so have to do a bit of work preparing some terrain for that. It looks like we'll have about 10 boys with warbands so it should be fun. We also have a staff day coming up where I'm running a session on the value of historical simulation games, along with a participation game based on a hall burning scenario from an Icelandic Saga. There are about 12 teachers coming to the session, so I'm planning to use Song of Blades and Heroes where each person controls a miniature each. Not sure how this will go - if anyone has a better suggestion for a game with so many people, I'd love to hear it.

Having listened to the latest episode of Meeples and Miniatures I'm also struggling to resist the lure of Muskets and Tomahawks. I'll at least try to hold out until my birthday in September. Sounds like a great game.

Oh, and I've just finished reading Bernard Cornwell's series of novel set in the 9th century. Utterly utterly brilliant. If he doesn't play Saga he should do. I enjoy them even more than Sharpe, and now aspire to live my life according to the precept 'What Would Uhtred of Bebbanburg Do?'

4 comments:

  1. The Rosbifs are in the grip of the lurgi, too, so I feel your pain!

    Gee, I wish I had you as a teacher when I was younger. History was always my favourite subject despite a string of decidedly lacklustre teachers and fellow students who considered it an opportunity to bludge. A quick game of Saga sounds like it'd do the world of good in generating a bit of interest all round!

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  2. Sorry to hear you and the family are ill Dux - hope you all get well soon.

    I look forward to seeing reports of the school Saga fest and the one with the teachers. I'm not sure about using a hall burning scenario though - pretty gruesome stuff by all accounts.

    I'm re-reading the Uhtred series at the moment - almost at the end of Sword Song, then just 2 more to go.

    What would Uhtred do? Be tempted to join forces with the Danes/Norse but reluctantly follow his oaths to Alfred. Oh, and kill lots of people :)

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  3. Have you by chance read his Arthurian series? It just SCREAMS for your late roman/early dark age SAGA boards. At least it does to me.

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    1. Hi - for some reason your comment went into my junk folder, so only just seen it, sorry! Thanks Blogger. I'm just reading the Arthurian series at the moment - great stuff.

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