Koyote

This thread is intended to announce the AdeptiCon SAGA tournaments, but even if you don't play SAGA, with 460 tournaments, event games, and hobby seminars covering all aspects of the miniature war gaming hobby, AdeptiCon likely has something to offer you. Last year, AdeptiCon had over 5,600 attendees! Over the years I've made the pilgrimage to Schauburg Illinois (a suburb of Chicago) a half dozen times, to hang out with friends, eat authentic Chicago-style deep dish pizza, drink copious amounts of mediocre beer (the Midwest has sh*t for beer), and play in Adepticon 40K and SAGA tournaments. I have never been disappointed. https://www.adepticon.org/ Below is the tentative line up for 2020's SAGA tournaments. Each event is a 3-game, one day event. In years past the Singles tournaments were 6 points and the Doubles teams were comprised of teams of two, 4 points warbands. The standard Age of Magic game is 8 points, so I suspect that the AoM tournament will be the same. Thursday, March 26: Age of Magic Singles Friday, March 27: Age of Vikings Doubles Saturday, March 28: Age of Crusades Singles Sunday, March 29: Age of Vikings Singles

My GS cast shields turned out pretty good. Also, I've finally selected a model to use as my Moors' Warlord, Fireforge Games' Saladin. Of course, me being me, I can't leave well enough alone, so I did a head swap and added a shield. The former was done to make the model look a bit less glitzy and the latter was added to cover up the model's upper left arm, which is positioned in an unnatural looking way. The horse is a huge, barrel chested beast that dwarfs the Gripping Beast plastic Arab cavalry horses that I'm using for hearthguards' steeds. I decreased its height slightly by cutting off the bottom half of each of its hooves. As I did for the Warlord of my Britons warband, I'll likely create a 3" DIA magnetized display base that I can insert my Moorish Warlord into.

My order from Brother Vinni's arrive late last week. Included in my order is fun magic carpet mini that may replace the Hell Dorado mini as my Desert Nomad's Sorcerer I haven't decided if my Desert Nomad Sorcerer will be 'mounted' or 'on-foot', but thanks to some very small magnets, the magic carpet model can be used as both. Below is the model painted, attached to his 'on-foot' base via a magnet. Below is the (yet unpainted) magic carpet itself. The carpet is cast a bit too thin, so as expected, parts broke off or were damaged when I removed it from the sprue and trimmed it. I attached the carpet to the 'flight' stand using a magnet attached to the bottom of the carpet. The magnet that you can see in the photo holds the rider's left foot to the carpet. The other little metal thing sticking out of the surface of the carpet is a very small length of metal rod that inserts into a hole on the bottom of the rider's right foot. One would expect that a model on a flying carpet would have the Flight rule, but unfortunately, this option isn't available to the Lords of the Wild Sorcerers, so it will have to serve as a low level flying carpet -more of a 'hover carpet' than an actual flying carpet. Perhaps the Sorcerer suffers from Acrophobia, and can fly higher but doesn't do so out of a paralyzing fear of heights? Sorcerers are a very strange breed, so anything is possible. 😄

My Footsore truncated teardrop shields have arrived. Overall, the casts I quite good. On the back of each shield is a little nub that I assume is intended to rest against the top of the model's shield hand. I've tested the fit with the nub in place and I don't like it, so I've clipped off the nubs and used a pin vice to drill a shallow recess into the back of each shield. The recesses create a ball and socket joint with the shield hand, creating a snugger fit and making it easier to rotate the angle of the shield. Inspired by illustration in Osprey Publishing's The Moors -The Islamic West 7th-15th Centuries AD, I've decided to replace my cavalry models' current shields with small round shields. As such, my Footsore order also included an Arab Round Mixed Shield pack for my cavalry. My favorite shield from this pack is the shield with the four round studs on its surface, but sadly pack included only two of these shields. The studded shields are a simple design and have a simple, flat back, so I used Instant Mold and greenstuff to make 6 more. Below is a photo of the molds and GS shields. Before snapping this photo I only had time to trim one of the GS shields. I'll trim the remaining five when I get home from work tonight. If you're not familiar with Instant Mold, it's a great product for doing simple greenstuff casting. I used in the past to make skull icons for Space Marine should pads and to cast giant demon toads (pictured below) for a Frostgrave project. To use the product you place it hot water until it becomes pliable. Once the product softens, you remove it from the water and press your master into the product and then let it cool. After a few minutes you remove your master from the mold and you are ready to start casting. The product can be used over and over again by reheating, so if your mold doesn't turn out quite right or if you have to destroy the mold to remove the casted model (as pictured below), then you can start over by putting the mold into hot water. Removing the cast from the mold before the greenstuff hardens will deform your cast, so let your greenstuff cure overnight before removing it from the mold. I've found that I get the best results if I create small vents in my molds using the point of an xacto blade. This allows trapped air to escape when you are pressing greenstuff into the mold.

I finally got around to adding a tattoo to my Celtic giant, Cribwr Gawr. This model is Shield Maiden Astrid, made by Brother Vinni Miniatures. She, along with the 3 tattooed Curaidh models that I previously painted for my Dark Age Irish warband, will form a unit of 4 Beserkers for my Age of Magic Celtic Horde warband.

The scarves turned out pretty good. I think they add a lot to the models.

I've started work 'gussying up' my Moors' bases. I've added rocks, skulls, bones, and some scorpions from Black Cat Bases' Small Animal model line. Of course, I still need to add sand. I've read that the Moors used drums for their psychological effect, so along with a standard and a unit leader, I've included a drummer in each of my units of spearmen. Black Cat Bases' scorpion sprue. I'm having second thoughts on my choice of shields. The Artizan Design hide shields are quite nice, but they are rather large and kind of bland. I ordered Footsore Miniatures' Arab Truncated Teardrop Shield pack, along with the accompanying Little Big Men Studio's decals. I like proportions of the Footsore shields better and the decals that I selected aren't too flashy, so they fit my Tuareg/Berber theme well enough. GB's Arab Spearmen kit doesn't include enough heads wrapped in a tagelmust (the long scarf used as a turban and veil) for both units of spearmen, so for the unit of spearmen pictured on the left, I'm going to use greenstuff to sculpt a length of scarf that hangs from the sides of their helmets, similar to model pictured below. I'll likely do the same with my cavalry models that aren't wearing a tagelmust.

I'm much happier with this recipe. The blue is Army Painter's Deep Blue, highlighted with a mixture of Deep Blue and Army Painter's Griffon Blue. I added a light drybrush of GW's Tallarn Sand around the bottom of the robes to made the robe edges look dusty and a bit worn.

I want my Moors to represent the Berber/Tuareg elements that invaded and occupied Iberia. As such, they will wear the distinctive Tuareg blue/indigo garments. And while I do dearly love the Little Big Men Studio's shield transfers, I'm going to pass on them this time around in favor simple leather shields of the desert nomads. With this same principle in mind, I'm going to pass on the decorative and sometimes very ornate aljubas (robes) and stick to solid colors, at least for my rank and file. I've also decided to take some liberties with my Berber's skin color, and paint it a bit darker to represent Tuareg's with more Sub-Saharan blood. I am really struggling to find just the right recipe for blue. The dark blue paints that I've used thus far all seem to dry with a semi-gloss finish. If I can't find the right paint or combinations of paint and wash, I may end up hand painting blue parts with a matte varnish. Here's my first test model. The photo quality is quite poor, but it gives you the basic idea of what my rank and file troops will look like. I repainted the blue on this model 3 times, and I still don't care for it, so this model (sans the shield) is currently sitting in a jar of Simple Green. Back to the drawing board.

Age of Magic Horde Warlord on Beast

No official announcement yet, but according to Rodge from SAGA Thorsday, the Age of Hannibal will be the next faction book. LINKY And yes, it will include rules for elephants.

A bit more progress. 🙂

Here's some photos of Sherbear from 2010(ish) TSHFT, that was held in the old Magnuson Park hanger.

Below are some of the the entries in the 2010 'Make Sherbert and Emo' contest. Many of the entries were entirely lost when Photobucket got greedy. We started with this photo The entry directly below is mine. The entry with the GUO (based upon actual events) was the winner, as determined by Sherbert.

Progress.

My chariot's base measures roughly 4" x 2", which works fine for the Horde War Chariot because its rules use the base size for Monsters. However, as someone on another forum pointed out, the maximum size for a Beast's base is 80mm x 50mm, which translates to 3.15" x 1.97". In order to use the chariot model to represent my Warlord mounted on a Beast, I'll need to put the model on a smaller base. Doh! SAGA players know that you (almost) always ' round up' so I've taken the liberty to "round up" (nod-nod wink-wink) the dimensions to 3.25" x 2". Fortunately for me, the dimensions appear to work for Victrix Celtic Chariot, which compared to many other 28mm chariots, is a bit on the small side. A fact I attribute to Victrix's decision to remain true to the historical evidence of chariot dimensions and the ponies and small horses employed by the ancient Celts of the British Isles. Disaster averted.

The next model on my paint bench is the Victrix Celtic chariot. To make painting the various components a bit easier I have divided the model into 5 sub-assemblies and a base. The plan is to include two of these models in my Horde warband. One will represent my Warlord mounted on a Beast and the other will be an actual Horde War Chariot. My plan for distinguishing the two is for the Warlord to be equipped with mail, shield, and cloak (as pictured above), while the warrior in the War Chariot will be more lightly armored and a bit less impressive. Since the War Chariot is equipped with javelins, I'll equip the model with two javelin quivers and the warrior with a javelin in each hand.

This model is Gripping Beast's Mounted Welsh Warlord (previously sold as GB's Strathclyde Warlord). It was originally purchased and converted to serve as the mounted version of my Irish Warlord. I added the beard, axe, and chainmail sleeve to match the model that I use for my foot Irish Warlord. Like many of my side projects I got distracted by another project, and never got around to finishing it. AoM has given me the excuse to finally put some paint on this model. My plan is to use it as a mounted Lieutenant for my Celt Horde warband.

The introduction to the Lords of the Wild faction in SAGA: Ago of Magic reads: "In the most inaccessible parts of the world, there live peoples who have prospered while cut off from the more developed civilizations which surround them. For cultural, spiritual or traditional reasons, these societies have never sought to exploit their environment, instead seeking harmony with the surroundings which provide them with what they need to develop. These peoples, who we call the Lords of the Wild, can be human, but often have traits which differentiate them from their peers. They might be animal hybrids, ancient elves, gnomes or hobgoblins. Their existence gives life to the legends we tell to children, and embodies a mass of superstitions. They are often feared and misunderstood. Entering into their homeland unleashes their fury and has been he cause of numerous wars they have wreaked upon their neighbors. These societies generally organize themselves on tribal or clan lines, beneath the authority of a king or chief. They are rarely geographically spread out, since the difficulty of establishing lines of communications in these hostile environs constitutes a real brake on their development." When I first read this introduction, my mind immediately jumped to the most common Fantasy forest dweller tropes (e.g. wood elves, treefolk, beastmen, etc), but then a couple of weeks ago, while I was working on my SAGA Moors and thinking about ways to fit them into Age of Magic, I got a great idea. The Lords of the Wild description could apply to tribes of desert nomads, like the ancient, pre-Islamic Bedouin tribes of Arabian peninsula. These tribes lived in a desolate wilderness that they could not shape, so instead they adapted. To the people of neighboring civilizations who dwelt in cities or in small agricultural communities, the desert nomads were likely thought of as strange, insular, people whose ability to survive in the desert made them both mysterious and more than a little threatening. Below is a WIP shot of my initial warband. As I play-test the warband, I expect that its composition will change over time. Warlord -flying beast Sorcerer Ranger 4 Shapeshifters 8 Warriors -mounted 10 Warriors -bows 9 Warriors 9 Warriors 12 Levy -javelins The camel cavalry and plastic spearmen are all Gripping Beast minis. The levy are from Perry Miniatures' Sudanese Tribesmen plastic kit. The metal archers are Artizan Design's Berber Bowmen. My Warlord is a converted Wind Rider from Game Zone Miniatures' Sylvan Elf line. The original model's rider is assembled from two pieces. I kept the lower piece, the legs and saddle, and replaced the upper piece with some bits from Gripping Beast's plastic Arab Spearmen kit. The legs were armored, so I covered them up with GS Arab leggings and belt sash. I used GS to add a saddle horn and a harness to hold the saddle in place. For my Sorcerer, I am using the Salah ad-Din model from Cipher Studios (now OOP) Hell Dorado Saracen model line. I've cut down the size of the wave of sand he's perched on to fit the 25mm base. For my Ranger, I am using the Mutatawwi’a Warlord from Stronghold Terrain's SAGA Collectibles model line. The concept that I am most pleased with is how I am going to represent the warband's Shapeshifters. In a Lords of the Wild warband, 1 point will buy you 4 Shapeshifters. These models are "hidden" in units of Warrior foot units -up to 2 models per unit. When that unit fights in its first melee, the Shapeshifters are revealed by replacing normal models in the unit with Shapeshifter models. Each Shapeshifter has an aggression of 5. The basic idea behind this rule mechanic goes WAY back to 3rd Edition's Warhammer Armies Book, which was published in 1988. I'm not familiar enough with pre-Islamic Arab myths to know if it included lycanthropy or human shapeshifters, but I do know that the word 'assassin' comes to the English language from an 11th century Muslim sect who trained and directed operatives to infiltrate enemy strongholds and courts to kill clerics, rulers, and officials. The most commonly-repeated theory holds that the word" Hashshashin" or "Assassin" comes from the Arabic hashishi, meaning "hashish users." Chroniclers including Marco Polo claimed that the followers of this sect committed their political murders while under the influence of drugs, hence the derogatory nickname. The Koran includes a strict injunction against intoxicants, so claims of hashish use by this sect may have been propaganda created by the European Crusaders or the Seljuk Turks -the latter group were the sect's most frequent target. Regardless of how the sect's killers got their nickname, the connection to the Arab history is enough for me to incorporate it into my theme. So, instead of men turning into beasts, my warband's "Shapeshifters" will be represented by deadly assassins, who when battle is joined, toss aside their disguises to reveal infamous killers of legend. And by "legend" I mean my own fantasy version of the sect, not the historical version. These models are Artizan Designs' Black Guard from their Moors model line. I want my assassins to be more fantastic and flamboyant than their namesakes, so I replaced their right hands and original weapons with fancy curved swords from Frostgrave's Cultist plastic kit. To make them clearly stand out from my rank-and-file models, I'll paint them all in black.. Lastly, since my Lords of the Wild warband are nomads, using a static object for my Sacred Ground terrain simply won't due. Instead, I am going to use this tent that I bought from a 3D printer on Etsy, to serve as my warband's Sacred Ground. Presumably, the tent will contain the nomad's most sacred relics. The plan is to mount it on a styrene base, and fancy it up some by adding a couple of resting camels and other interesting thematic bits.

This model is Arthur from an Arthur & Mordred vignette made by Westwind Productions. It’s part of my project, along with my Briton archers and Hatra ballista, to make my Britons playable as Romans (or AoM Great Kingdoms). It’ll make a great foot-Warlord (or AoM Captain or Paladin).

Now that my Britons are ready to be played as an AoM Great Kingdoms warband, it's time to start work on getting my Irish ready to be played as an AoM Horde warband. I want to equip a max-size unit of Horde Warriors with Heavy Weapons. I already have 10 painted Irish Fianna equipped with dane axes, so I finished off the unit by adding 2 more models from Footsore's Irish with Axes set. For my Horde Sorceress, I am using Hasslefree Miniatures' Azura Halfblood. I love Footsore Miniatures, and over the years I have bought a lot of minis from them, but I have to admit that I've been sorely disappointed by the quality of my last two orders. My order before last, 12 Picts armed with xbows, included 4 crossbows with malformed xbows. In each instance, one of the bow-arm's ends was melted down to little more than a nub. My last order of Irish axemen, 3 of the 4 models arrived were significantly misaligned. For two of the models I had to use GS to rebuild the left side of their faces. The third is essentially missing its entire nose a part of its face, so I ever use it, I'll probably just replace the entire head rather than trying to rebuild the face. Footsore Miniatures' management needs to have a talk with whoever is in charge of quality control.

I've finished my Static War Machine for my AoM Britons Great Kingdom warband. It may also be used as a Manuballista for an Aetius & Arthur Roman warband. It's a Gripping Beast's Hatra Ballista. It is a late Roman ballista named after the ancient city in modern day Iraq where the archeological evidence for this weapon's design was uncovered.

Next up on my painting table is a Static War Machine (Gripping Beast's Hatra Ballista), a Sorceress (Hasslefree Miniatures' Azura Halfblood), and a unit of Levy armed with crossbows (Footsore Miniatures' Pict Hunters). Of all the Domains of Magic, I am the least impressed with Light and Energy, so if the Sorceress, Morgan Le Fay, doesn't find a home in my Great Kingdoms warband, she will serve as the Sorceress for the Horde warband that I am creating using models from my existing Dark Age Irish warband. What convinced me to convert my Irish into a Horde warband was the opportunity to use Victrix's AMAZING new(ish) Celtic Chariot kit. I'm not yet 100% sold on the Horde's War Chariots (a special unit type), but I do like the idea of a Warlord mounted on a beast, and the Horde's Warlord entry just so happens to read: "The Warlord of the Horde can be mounted on an animal or mounted on a beast, which can be represented perfectly by a war-chariot and its team."

Cribwr Gawr (Monster -Behemoth)