First off, a recap of the initial pitch for the project.:
It seems like this project can actually be pretty versatile if we try. If people are amenable to using single-base minis on movement trays (See below), we can get games of Saga and Hail Caesar out of this project. Most of the minis could be used for other skirmish games such as Frostgrave and Dragon Rampant as well. I have not actually played Saga, but it seems to be a fairly popular system with several expansions and a broad selection of minis.Primarch wrote:The Battle of Fulford
Part of the Viking Invasion of England
Wiki: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Fulford
Armies:
Vikings under Harald Hardrada
Vs.
Saxons under the Earls of Northumbria and Mercia
In Mid-September 1066 a large Viking army landed on the North East Coast of England and proceeded to advance on the city of York. The Anglo-saxon army left the city and engaged them at Fulford. While the Vikings had the advantage of numbers, they were not able to deploy their full strength during the battle, feeding troops into the combat as they arrived, so the forces were fairly evenly matched. Historians put the numbers at around 5000 Saxons and 6000 Vikings. The battlefield was open with a river on one side, a marsh on the other and some high ground in the Viking deployment area. The asymmetrical nature of the battle (Saxons begin with a greater force while the Vikings got a steady stream of reinforcements during the fight) should make it interesting.
Using a figure ratio of 1:25, we would need about 200 Saxons and 240 Vikings. In terms of units that's 10 Vs. 12 using 20 model units. Gripping Beast have readily available plastics for both of these armies, with 40+ minis for roughly 20GBP. The boxes also come with extra command figures, so you could get 2 units and a brigade commander for about 3000 yen at current exchange rates if you shop around. I'd recommend getting one box of Saxons/Vikings and one box of the generic Dark Age Warriors for a total of 1 unit of heavy infantry, 2 units of medium infantry and 1 unit of light infantry plus your brigade commander. The Dark Age Warriors set comes with options for skirmishers armed with javelins or slings. If you want archers, they are currently only available in metal. GB do a large range of Dark Age figures in metal as do Foundry and Crusader I believe, so you can add some variety to your force if you want to. I have seen some Warlord Celts being given a simple head and weapon swap and mixed in with Viking units for additional poses. 4ground do a range of Saxon style buildings (I already have a couple) which should help to populate the table.
Ring-tail stock GB minis and 4ground if you don't want to order from the UK.
Painting wise, Dark Age figures are fairly simple with none of the elaborate straps and harnesses of Napoleonics or tiny lacework of Samurai. Chainmail and plain tunics are the order of the day. Shields can be done in a variety of styles, so you can make them as simple or as complex as you like, or just use transfers if you want to spend a little extra cash.
Possible follow-ups would include the Battle of Stamford Bridge and the Battle of Hastings. Neither the Vikings nor the Saxons were particularly unified, so Blue-on-Blue style battles are fine as well. With sabot style basing, you could also use the force for Saga if you were so inclined.
To sum up, Fulford is a nice, compact battle to recreate. It shouldn't break the bank nor take years to achieve. There is potential for expanding the armies in the future and the forces involved are versatile enough to allow for other scenarios. Don't be a bunch of Raven Starvers. Grab your axe and go pillaging!
For those of you unfamiliar with Hail Caesar, the exact number of models per unit is somewhat flexible, what matters most is the width of the unit on the table-top. The usual trend is to base multiple minis together to make movement easier. It is important that units all have the same width (or close to it), so ideally everyone should conform to the same manner of basing.
Meanwhile Saga uses individually based figures as it represents a smaller scale of battles. It's possible to do both by being somewhat creative with our basing.
For example
This is what 20 minis look like when based together:
And here are 16 minis put on movement trays:
A third option would be to base all the minis on 20mm squares and rank them up into units in a similar fashion to Warhammer Fantasy.
To my mind, the multi-base looks more densely packed, making for a better aesthetic appearance. The movement trays are much more convenient for storing minis and more flexible than the multi-base option. 20mm squares are ok, providing a dense formation and flexibility, but ranking up minis is a pain in the backside IMHO.
So, if people want the option for Saga (and I can't see why you wouldn't really), I think the round bases and movement trays would be the best choice overall. 4Ground do reasonably priced movement trays that come with bases and which fit the plastic Renedra bases that come with some (but not all) of the Saga minis. The Saga plastic ranges come with a mixed pack of bases sizes, but not enough of any one type to equip every model the same way.
Any thoughts or opinions on this? I'm going to start going over army lists, model options and shopping around for the best prices, so I'd like to know what I am looking for and how many bases and minis will be needed.
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