Cast your lead upon the waters

Cast your bread upon the waters: for you will find it after many days.

- Ecclesiastes 11:1

The awakening of Saga from its COVID-induced hibernation has had the interesting phenomenon of bringing to light lots of forgotten projects that might otherwise have languished in the Garage of Despond indefinitely. Back in 2018 until (very) early 2020, Saga had been a going concern for me and a group of players at The Panzer Depot. I had warbands for Welsh (Age of Vikings), Spanish (Age of Crusades), and Lords of the Wild (Age of Magic). I also had several warbands in the works and more planned. 

Last year, Kevin Smyth reconnected with a couple friends from when he gamed at Escape Velocity in Tacoma in the 80s. They had been mostly disconnected from wargaming for decades, but with retirement they resumed their old hobby. They were enthusiasts of Saga and managed to lure Kevin into it. They started a Wednesday Saga game day once a month, which has grown to twice monthly now, at Silver Kings Games & Hobby in Tacoma. What started with a handful of players has blossomed into a veritable troupe filling the ample gaming space at Silver Kings.

As a working stiff (albeit from home), I was never able to make it to the Wednesday games, which start at 11:00 am and last till the last game is over, the wee men are back in their boxes, and the last game mat has been rolled up and put in its carrying case. However, being laid off in May (alas) has given me the time to make the 55-mile trek down to Tacoma twice a month (huzzah). Sadly, that won't last, but while it does, I'm making the most of it.

I sold my Spanish, which I built as a Lion Rampant retinue, but was able to do double-duty with it as a Saga warband. (My Lords of the Wild for Age of Magic were originally painted for Dragon Rampant.) I still had my Welsh and resumed my Saga career with them in games against Kevin and his Norse-Gaels, Mark Waddington and his Normans, and Bill Stewart and his enervating Anglo-Danes. 

As new Saga universes appeared, I started thinking about my garage of wonder and all the treasures of darkness therein. I had a lot of Crusader Miniatures Carthaginians, Iberians, and Celtiberians from an earlier aborted Punic Wars project that Age of Hannibal was calling out to. With a lot already painted or half painted, it didn't take much time to get a warband together. I also benefited from a serendipitous find at our Enfilade! convention in May that netted me more Carthaginians and two Aventine elephants (whose story will be told in another post). I've been able to get a few games in with them as well. First with a single pachyderm:

And later with both:

I've also started dragging out the near-forgotten Wargames Foundry Macedonians I started in the 00s. There's more to do with them than with the Carthaginians, but they're in the works and I hope to field a Macedonian warband before the end of the year.

However, it's not just old figures. Last year, I bought some Curtey's Miniatures from 1st Corps for a Romano-British warband for Age of Invasions. They sat around for a long time before I started working on them last month. Also last month, I ordered some more Curtey's Miniatures recently to make a Pict warband for Age of Invasions. Curtey's are nice figures and I'm enjoying working on the Romano-Britons.

I also bought some Crusader minis for an Anglo-Dane warband for Age of Vikings. I've always liked the drama of 1066 and Harold Godwinson. Getting fatigued to death by Bill's A-Ds, spurred me to get some of my own. Their not really my style of play, which is more aggressively minded, but Bill put some hurt on me with his skillful repostes after I'd worm myself out bashing up against his shield wall.

However, just last week, I was browsing in a closet and found a box of painted and partially-painted Old Glory Picts that go way back to the 90s. I started a project back then for painting 28mm DBA armies for Dark Ages Britain. I bought several packs of Old Glory Picts, Romano-Britons, Irish, and Saxons. That project sort of morphed into wanting to make them for Dan Mersey's first (as far as I know) set of wargame rules, A Glutter of Ravens, that came out in 1998. Somewhere around 2000 (maybe), the minis I actually painted wound up mounted on single stands for playing Pig Wars. 

At some point in the last decade (or so), there was some interest in playing Dux Britanniarum by Too Fat Lardies. My interest was piqued when they released a supplement in 2014 for Picts, Scotti, and Irish. I accordingly started rebasing my Picts from their 3/4" x 1" plastic bases and put them on 25mm x 30mm Litko bases.

And then they sat. I had them tucked into a corner of my hallway closet in one of the cardboard flats that came with Bogart's UR food. I'd had the Old Glory figs in the back of my mind when I embarked on doing some warbands for Age of Invasions, but I went ahead and ordered the aforementioned Curtey's minis.

Running into them on one of the rare occasions that I open my hallway closet (it's scary), I was struck by the notion that right in front of me was an instant warband of Picts—Insta-Picts!

They just needed a bit of TLC and I'd have a goodly force.

Since pulling them out from the darkness into the light, I've been working away at them. Looking into various places where I'd stored partially painted Picts (PPPs) from years gone by. I also had to dig through my box of unpainted Old Glory Dark Age Britain minis to find another four crossbowmen to build out the unit of 12.

It turns out that exactly 12 were all the Pictish crossbowmen I even had in any state of completion. They were part of a pack of skirmishers that were a mix of javelins and crossbowmen. Out of 30 in the bag, only 12 had crossbows. I used some of the javelins for my Attacotti. 

Most of the figures only needed the basing completed. However, there were eight crossbowmen that needed to be painted from raw lead (after they were found, of course) and four Attacotti who were primed only. Moreover, I had to go old school with them.

My painting style has evolved since I painted the first batch of picts 20+ years ago. Now, I use a dip method with Minwax wood stain. Then, I did straight-up painting with shading, washes, and highlights. I also painted eyes—eyes! I hadn't painted eyes in years.

It didn't really take much effort to ease back into my older style, though I won't be going back to it except for painting out more Old Glory Picts (and some other Age of Arthur minis that I started).

Waiting in the wings are some Old Glory Irish, which I'll augment for Saga with some Crusader Irish slingers. Old Glory's Dark Ages Irish were pretty simple: Upper class warriors and lower class warriors. That divides well between hearthguard and warriors, but they didn't make missile troops. Hence the Crusaders minis.

I have fewer Irish completed for Pig Wars and many of them are the later Norse-Gael types with big axes. In the Arthurian age, the Irish were spearmen/javelinmen with lots of slings.

Also amongst the treasures of darkness is a Byzantine warband (The Last Romans for Age of Vikings) that I started pre-COVID and never got back to. Those are Crusader minis and, given time, I'll get to them as well.

It's been a great adventure resurrecting dead legions and getting them back on the tabletop. I'll post again about the Insta-Picts after I play my first Saga game with them...