The OTHER game I've gotten into recently (with Maria, believe it or not), has been SAGA. It's a Dark Age Skirmish game, with warbands number between 2 dozen (ish) and 50 (ish) combatants. I am collecting an Anglo-Saxon force, attempting valiantly to defend my homeland against the unprovoked depredations of Maria's filthy pagan Vikings. Yeah, Maria (the Dane) is playing Vikings. A shock.
SAGA is a pretty nifty game, focuses largely on "command dice" that, given certain patterns of results, allow you to use a Battleboard for your force (each faction has their own) to do crazy combo stuff, or just be generally effective. Each Command Die has 3 different results (3 faces of "Helm", 2 facings of "Axe", 1 facing of "Horse", for example), and factions generally roll 5-6 Command dice at the start of the game, diminishing as you take casualties. So, for example, if I roll 2 Helms and a Horse on my 6 dice, I can spend those dice on an ability that increases my warriors defensive prowess by 50% if they have 10+ guys in their unit. My other 3 dice might have come up Axe, Helm, Axe. I use one Helm result to activate a unit of my elite troops - they can move and fight this turn; spend my second Axe to remove the fatigue token cause by their fighting, and them use my Axe to activate a unit of my basic troops (they're harder to activate; you're more likely to get a Helm than an Axe) and they move in front of my elite troops so they can take the Viking countercharge...which they'll be really good at since I used that ability that boosted their defense score.
Anyway, here's some miniature pics. Again, if you're interested and would like to try it out, let me know.
Anglo-Saxon Warband (A-S are a horde army, insofar as it's still a skirmish game)
My A-S Warlord. Yes, that's exactly who you think it is.
A-S Hearthguard. These are Elite troops. So elite that one guy managed to dive out of the picture
A-S Warriors
MORE A-S Warriors
FILTHY PAGANS and their detestable, godforsaken village
Maria's Hearthguard up front and Warriors in the back (she's still working on the Warrior shields)
More Hearthguard and more Viking Warrors. Maria has no Warlord yet; she's still looking for a suitable mini to represent Lagertha from the History Channel "Vikings" show (which is where the Hearthguard shield design comes from)
