HAHA SAGA Escalation League - 4

Introduction

<== View part 3 here

We've now reached the fourth session for our SAGA Escalation league at the HAHA games club.  This is the bonus round and here's how it was described in the original manifesto:

Each participant will bring 1 extra item, to be judged on theme and painting quality.  This could be any of the following, or indeed anything else that fits:

• a piece of scenery (Celtic cross, Viking longboat, Dark Age house, wood, marsh…)

• extra – but not “regular” - figures for the warband (a bard, champion, mercenary group…)

• game accessories (objective or fatigue markers: ox carts, groups of civilians, broken shields & wounded warriors, livestock, sacks/chests of loot…)

On the night, only 3 participants were able to enter an item, though all the members of the club (including the non-SAGA gamers) were encouraged to vote.  Let's see how they did:

Skraelings

The Skraelings chose to bring some civilians (though this might be hard to define in a tribal society!): a couple of fishermen in a canoe.  This piece is probably best thought of as a scenic accent, though I suppose it could be used as an objective or game marker.

Anglo Saxons

The Anglo Saxons brought a hut, along with the blacksmith who lives in it.  Seems like a very useful piece of scenery to me.

Crusaders

For the Crusaders, a warrior priest was added to their ranks.  A minor hero is surely going to help them in their fights against all the infidels!

Conclusion

As you can see from the votes cast (attached to each picture), the club members liked the Anglo Saxon hut a great deal; it scored more votes than the other two entries put together!  So we award a further 3 points to them for this excellent entry, 2 points to the runner up and 1 point for all other submissions.

After that, the standings now look like this:

	January 2020 Starter for ten	February 2020 Powers of two	March 2020 October 2021 Long live the peasants!	April 2020 November 2021 Bonus round	May 2020 December 2021 Armageddon	TOTAL
Byzantines	1	1	(damaged)	(absent)		2
Anglo Saxons	3	3	1	3		10
Normans	1	2	1	(absent)		4
Jomsvikings	1	2	(retired)	(retired)		3
Anglo Danes	3	(absent)	(retired)	(retired)		3
Skraelings	1	2	3	2		8
Crusaders	2	2	1	1		6

So, onward!  There's only 1 one more round to go, after which all finishers should have a 4 point SAGA army and a bonus "extra" item.

On to the final round ==>

6mm: Irregular vs Heroics & Ros

Introduction

I have a fair-sized collection of 6mm Napoleonic figures.  However, there are never quite enough to form the truly grand armies I'd like for a large game.  In particular, I don't have too many French.

Virtually all of my 6mm forces are made up of models from Heroics & Ros.  However, I don't believe that H&R Napoleonics are currently available, though hopefully they will be re-issued sometime soon.

So if I wish to extend my army, what are the options?  There are other "6mm" manufacturers such as Bacchus and Adler, but I've always understood that these were rather larger (perhaps more like 8mm tall?) and stylistically rather different.  Please note that this last opinion is based on hearsay and rumour rather than personal experience; if it is in any way incorrect then I apologise profusely!

The other maker of "true" 6mm figures of which I am aware is Irregular Miniatures.  They've been around forever and have a reputation for cheap, but possibly less well-detailed models.  But at least their 6mm Napoleonics are still in production!

I thought it worth buying a battalion of infantry from Irregular to find out whether or not they are compatible with my H&R.  Here we go...

Irregular Miniatures

My standard Napoleonic line infantry "battalions" are 4 bases, each with 3 ranks of 10 figures.  Models from Irregular Miniatures are available in a number of different form factors - including blocks of 3 ranks of infantry.  However, I went for the standard 6-man strips for my unit.

This battalion is therefore composed of 19 x French Line infantry strips, plus 1 x French Line infantry command.  Because I only wanted 10 figures per rank on each base, I needed to cut apart some of the 6-figure strips into 2-man and 4-man parts.  This wasn't too hard, though it was a minor nuisance.

 

From the rear, it is clear that these French are not wearing backpacks.  That's slightly odd, but probably not too important.

Painting the Irregular figures was a little more difficult than I remember being the case for H&R.  Maybe I'm just older, more tired or have less good eyesight than before? Or maybe these models haven't got the fairly-obvious detail of the H&R ones.  Still, I think they turned out all right.

Heroics & Ros

As this is a comparison article, here are some of my existing Heroics & Ros figures.  The only real differences I can spot are that the H&R have shouldered their muskets on the left, whereas the Irregular are using their right shoulders for this and that the Irregular command figures have a moulded, semi-furled standard; the H&R just have a small square of flat metal.  Also, as mentioned above, the H&R are wearing backpacks; the Irregular are not.

From the back, you can also see that I've changed the style of the unit's nameplate for my newest models.  The 93rd Line have my older, all-white nameplates, without any specific battalion identifier.

Conclusion

OK, can you guess which unit is Irregular and which is H&R in this picture?  At first glance, without peering too closely at the image?

If you thought that the Irregular were on the right and the H&R on the left then you were correct.  But my view is that there isn't a lot of difference between them and I'll be very happy to mix units from these two manufacturers together in the same army.  In the end it comes down to which models are easier to obtain.

Of course, I've only tested infantry here.  The cavalry models might well vary rather more between the two producers.