Who slew the mounted ravagers with the keenest blade *

Its been a busy month but I finally got an actual game in, the first since the last Saga group gathering last month.  I ran the same Lombard warband with a unit Bulgars mercenaries.  Nellie, who I have not seen since we played Oathmark last summer, fielded Normans.  I was kind of in a hurry because I had errands to run so probably chose my terrain poorly (I should have thrown more LOS blocking stuff out there to limit the 2x long range of the Norman archers).  We also agreed to a four turn game instead of six. Nellie went first and punished me for that oversight - killing an impressive four out of six Lombard mounted hearthguard on one shooting attack in the first turn. Ouch!

This spurred me to move rather than stand around and get horses shot full of arrows.  I sent 10 warriors against the Norman mounted hearthguard and both lost about half their figs. this started a pretty devastating series of charges on one side of the field.  By turn four all 20 Lombard mounted warriors were out as were all ten Norman mounted hearthguard.  Nellie sent his warlord in to try and knock out my last two hearthguard (getting one), and then on the last turn my warlord slew his.  Final score on points was Nellie by 3 (24 to 21). 

My main takeaway is that the Bulgar mercenaries are not working super great. A unit of levy with spears might be of more use as they could be stacked with the Lombard melee board bonuses and could clear out groups of archers.  Anyway, good to see people, lots of painted figures, and roll some dice.

Game start. Normans at bottom and Lombards at top. 

Ineffectual Bulgars.

Lombard mounted warriors.

These Lombard warriors just lost five to knock out three Norman hearthguard.

Vagrant Warrior mercs in Norman service. Like the rest of the infantry in the game, they did not move at all.

Norman archers that I foolish gave sweet board position to.

Norman hearthguard.

Bulgars after riding across the board. 

Lombard warlord and his last two hearthguard companions.

*Y Gododin. LVII 

Alan Horse Archers

I purchased these 20 Alan Horse Archers last August to bolster my Late Roman (i.e. Barbarian West) armies, which seemed to be sorely lacking any horse archer contingents.  The Alans (or Alani) were an Iranian nomadic peoples (the name may refer to an amalgamation of several tribes from that region), who were notably settled by Aetius in the vicinity of Orleans in Gaul in 442 CE.  The Alani fought alongside Aetius against the Huns, and other groups of Alani were also subjects of the Huns, so they will make great additions to a Roman or Barbarian army.

Old Glory Alan Horse Archers.

These use the same two-part casting for the rider as the Bulgars, with the legs and torso as separate pieces that you can then join so that the rider is shooting his bow forward, to the side, or even over his back. However, some of the torsos have too slim of a waist to match up with the legs half. You can disguise this a bit by painting as part of the belt and it is not really noticeable.

These were easy to paint but I am not satisfied with how the brown jackets came out - I was hoping for a sort of leathery-look but instead it blends with the horse and the brown fur trim too much, I think.

French Line Infantry

Another thirteen (only ten of which are lined up here) Third Republic French infantry for games in the Little Wars style.  These firing poses will really help break up the uniformity of the marching pose the rest of this army relies on...

The bases are 1mm MDF from Litko.