Been looking at these rules for a while now and would love to give them a go, sadly 28mm is a bit outside my price range at the minute, and I think it might look pretty cool in 10mm, has anyone tried the rules yet before I make a final decison
SAGA?
Do you mean the Saga version of the 'Medieval Warfare' rules (as opposed to the Foundry version)?
I think Fenton means the Gripping Beast rules, Dark Age skirmish set.
From a (very) quick look I dont think 28mm is out of your price range mate, about a dozen or so a side, call it 1 box of plastic Vikings and another of plastic Saxons and you'd have more than enough.
Edit : Ooops, from a slightly longer look its about 40 figures a side, but I still think you'd get a decent game from 2 boxes of Gripping Beast plastics.
A bit more about the rules can be found here : http://tasmancave.blogspot.com/2011/06/saga-review.html
Gordon
No, he means the ones just produced by Gripping Beast specifically for the period 410 - 1066 AD (Stuff CE, western civilisation created AD and BC for our time reckoning based on the predominant culture of western civilisation i.e. Christianity. I see no reason to change this as the rest of the world has adopted the western calendar system. Incidentally, I'm an aetheist.
DP
Ah, right.
Clarity in your posts please people... :-B
And since CE/BCE has been in use since about 1615CE/AD (delete as apporpriate), i don't really see the problem. :D Hehe...
Personally i use BC/AD in 'real life', but BCE/CE when i was producing academic work...
SAGA looks interesting though. Dark Age skirmishing has always appealed, especially since an early Anglo-Saxon 'army' could be as little as 30-40 men!
Hmm - links to the other thread about expensive rules, doesn't it? £25 for 76 pages in softback? Presumably with postage on top?
Nah...I'll use LotR for Dark Age skirmishing if I ever want to...or Mordheim for that matter :)
Oh look - it gets worse...you also "need...special Saga dice" at £12 [for 8 d6 with runes on]...my emphasis. Now I really don't think so!
I saw the SAGA rules being demonstrated at Partizan and they look quite good. They may appear to be expensive on first inspection but they are quite innovative in the use of the SAGA dice to create strategic and tactical advantage against your opponent which adds a bit more depth to the game. Originality in the rules are what you pay 33 1/3 pence a page for. You don't actually need the expensive dice if you're prepared to make do and improvise.
Generally, with a few exceptions like Foundry and GW, I think suppliers tend to under value wargaming products which is why it's a hobby for a lot of people rather than a living.
'Undervalue'?
That's an interesting perspective...why do you say that?
Quote from: Luddite on 09 October 2011, 10:43:41 PM
'Undervalue'?
That's an interesting perspective...why do you say that?
To be commercially successful ie to make a living and have enough profit left to reinvest in the business, figure prices should be around those charged by GW/Foundry. The cost charged by small manufacturers does not fully compensate them for the time and effort taken to produce their figures.
Looking at the charts in the latest WI it is perfectly possible to use normal dice rather than runes (in fact both options are quite clearly shown) and all this is coming from someone who hates non standard dice (i.e. anything that is not a normal D6)
i also watched these being played at Partizan and they did look good fun - unfortunately i didnt have time to play myself but i am quite tempted
Just to repeat some posts above - special dice are not needed at all. Basically for each nation you get one symbol on a 1-3, another symbol on a 4-5 and a 3rd symbol on a 6. The basic rulebook has a table which shows the distribution for each nation. The guy demonstrating at Partizan had himself just stuck sticky dots on normal D6s
Quote from: Gandalf on 10 October 2011, 01:03:58 AM
To be commercially successful ie to make a living and have enough profit left to reinvest in the business, figure prices should be around those charged by GW/Foundry. The cost charged by small manufacturers does not fully compensate them for the time and effort taken to produce their figures.
Fair enough but i don't agree.
GW's figure prices are HUGELY overinflated, because they are now a global business with a large asset base to maintain (shops etc.) - that's why they charge £12 for a single figure worth £2.
Smaller companies (presumably) make money or they wouldn't continue in business. Even the most committed hobby-caster isn't going to run at a loss, nor presumably at 'break-even' for too long.
Ultimately, our toys are worth what the market will bear and what people are willing to pay.
I just don't accept that 'figure prices should be around those charged by GW/Foundry'. They
shouldn't be, they don't
need to be, and i suspect that large parts of the hobby would die off fairly sharply if they
were.
Just had a look at the saga forum (which is linked from the Gripping Beast website) and a couple of posters have asked about 15mm with the rules, the suggestion being that yes it does work with halved measurements.
I suppose it wouldn't be that different for 10mm, my only worry with doing this in 10mm would be representing hero figures?
You're going to tell me next that these rules are only for the over-fifties. :D
Quote from: Nosher on 10 October 2011, 12:52:25 PM
I suppose it wouldn't be that different for 10mm, my only worry with doing this in 10mm would be representing hero figures?
They're the ones with the eyebrows painted on? :D
I would have thought that the command pack figures would work well as heroes and be distinguishable even in 10mm. Maybe brighter colours to make them stand out as well?
Quote from: Nosher on 10 October 2011, 12:52:25 PM
I suppose it wouldn't be that different for 10mm, my only worry with doing this in 10mm would be representing hero figures?
You can add scratchbuild mantles to commander figures.
Quote from: Luddite on 10 October 2011, 12:06:35 PM
Fair enough but i don't agree...
Fine. We'll leave it at that then :D
I bought SAGA yesterday. The warlord could be mounted on bigger base than followers so no identification problem I think.
I paid for a set of Saga rules from Maelstrom six weeks ago but they've only just posted them to me. Until they arrive I'll just read this thread rather than join in :(
Played yesterday, first scenario (a simple "kill the boss.. or how many enemies you can") with 4 points warband. Great ruleset for me. My friends and me had a lots of fun. We used 25mm mnis but, in my opinion is quite easy use 10mm soldiers in game, the simple rules about LoS, area terrain and base to base contacts in melee helps.
http://nosherswargames.blogspot.com/
My Anglo-Danish warband which has been distracting me from two things:
1. The One True Wargaming Scale
2. My Lead Mountain - where I promised not to be distracted by any new shinys...
SAGA is definately worth a go - could easily be done in 10mm and the dice issue can easily be got around. There's also a new supplement coming out including 4 new factions which will improve things dramatically giving more options in terms of game play.
And no I'm not on commission... :)
Down at Burton for Badcon (Burton FoG Doubles) tournament a week or two ago i popped into Spirit Games (highly recommended if you ever find yourself in the otherwise pretty grim city of Burton).
Aside from nearly pushing over a rather attractive young lady in a wheelchair, and then purchasing SG's only shelf copy of the game she was after 5 minutes before she got to it ( :-[ ) i did find myself with the SAGA rules in my hand. I've heard good things, but just couldn't bring myself to shell out £25...not sure why...
I think i just sort of instinctively objected to the GW-style marketing ploy of 'needing' all the peripherals like dice etc.
The *dice* are genuinely not an issue. And they are always out of stock anyway which would be frustrating if I ever felt the need to pay £12 for 8d6.
I kitbashed 8 dice I had with the stickers available on the website and they work perfectly well.
I have also bought some very cheap blank dice off ebay which when I have time I will hand paint the symbols on.
£25 notes is steep for what is an awful lot of fluff, but it seems to be the going rate for most rulesets nowadays.
I noticed that actually Nosher.
£25-30 seems about the going rate whether its a 350 page epic ruleset (like the recent Waterloo rules i bought), or something evidently 'bashed out on a photocopier' like SAGA.
Wierd.
Personally i get very annoyed with 'padded' rules. Most rulesets can be distilled down to about 15-20 pages of actual rules (crunch) when you take out all the fluff and 'wargames pr0n' pictures...
I also think that most i've bought recently have been exceptionally poorly written, imprecise, under-developed, dreadfully indexed, and generally overstuffed. >:(
IF you're going to include fluff, fine, but sidebar it, or put it in an appendix. I'm waiting for the hallowed day when i read a clear, concise, well written ruleset in a format that's usable at the table. Floppy A4 comb-bound, or 4lb of thermal-bound foolscap cardboard are neither.
>:(
I don't think you can really accuse Gripping Beast of GW style marketing - while the Saga dice are very nicely produced, they are expensive, but, and it is a significant but, GB have made several PDFs of the dice symbols available on their website, which can be downloaded to make your own dice. And in the rule book it explains how to use standard d6 to represent the symbols. Blank dice are available for less than £3, putting the stickers on is a bit of a faff - for the Viking dice its much easier just to paint the rune symbols on.
The Saga rules are pretty much just rules, with examples, there is little if any filler in the book - as part of the price you get the 4 heavy cardboard battle boards, which I'm sure will have pushed up the production costs.
The different battle boards for each faction are what makes Saga, the basic rules are quite straight forward.
I've been considering the Pendraken range for a set of 10mm Saga figures - you could probably do all 4 factions at 6pts for not too much. The Welsh are the only tricky ones, and Late Romans will probably fill most of the requirements.
Just picked up the rules and they really do look fun.
The price of £25 is indeed steep so it comes down to whether they will have durability and I think the answer looks to be yes.
I am going the 28mm route and will just pick up a pack a month (anything from £2.50 for a warlord figure to £12 for a 12 man unit) until I have them all painted and ready. I think you need about 3 units and a Warlord for the smallest games so only about 3 months for me to play. As I intend to paint up a unit alongside my usual stuff it will be a nice diversion and give me time to prepare for a game.
You could easily do it in 10mm and halve the distances or use cm. It only requires a 3x4 foot table in 28mm so you are talking a DBA sized board or smaller at half distances or substituting cm for inches.
I don't think they are a serious set for recreating dark ages games (although TooFatLardies are working on an post-roman set that should fit that bill) but look to be a great skirmish game taking about an hour or so in a nice compact space.