SAGA - Norman warband

From a boatload of vikings, to a somewhat smaller band of french farmers and viking settlers; my Norman warband for SAGA (and other Dark Age historical miniature wargames)

Now, while my Vikings could be classified as an army, the Normans are not nearly as many, and the SAGA term of Warband seems fitting. They might be expanded in the future (especially if some of the SAGA v2 rumours are true, but for now they seem fixed)

First up, Levies. Norman Peasants armed with bows. Normans is one of the factions that have significiant use of levies, with several abilities to enhance these, both in hitting power and range (a very nice trick to play when the opponent thinks himself safely out of range). A few coats of maille might occur, but they're generally unarmoured and armed with nothing heavier than daggers and hatchets. Well, aside from their bows of course.

The first unit of Warriors, and the one Normans never should leave home without: crossbowmen. Crossbows act like bows, but better (specifically, they have an easier time by lowering the armour/to-hit-number of the target). However, while a Norman warband can have as many units of levies as they want, they're limited to a single unit of crossbowmen, of no more than 8 models. One might notice a kind of theme for the Normans so far with ranged units. That is in fact half the theme of the Normans.

Distinguishing between different Warrior units is generally easy, but as an added help, their sheilds follow a theme. The first unit have red shields with a single white line (straight or crooked), the second have two white lines on their red shields, and the third and fourth have three and four lines. It gives a nice look, and somewhat more regimented than the wild vikings. Of course, since the first unit is crossbowmen who are generally unarmed, there aren't that many shields with a single white line.

The second and third unit of Warriors showcase the other half of the Norman theme: cavalry. Horses are faster than infantry, but a bigger target (and thus easier to hit) for arrows and bolts. These two units are each 4 figures strong, but can be fielded together for an 8 strong unit. If/when the Normans gets expanded, these will be increased to a pair of 8 strong units. But that would require me to paint more horses...

Finally, the fourth unit of Warriors, foot spearmen this time. They're rarely fielded because they do very few things that can't be accomplished just as well with mounted Warriors. Still, since I had the figures for it (bought to convert some to crossbowmen), it was just as easy to paint up a unit, just in case.

The Hearthguards of the warband, Norman Knights, are also mounted and provides a fast, hard-hitting force. Currently, I have two units of 6, my preferred way of fielding Hearthguards, but these will be expanded to units of 8 at the same time as my mounted Warriors for more versatility.

Differentiating between the two units of hearthguards are easy. The first have red shields with straight white crosses, while the second instead have more crooked crosses. Once again, keeping it regimented with the same colours and similar shapes, but with noticeable differences both between individuals and units.

Finally, the Warlord himself. Since mounted Warlords get a slightly larger base /up to 60mm diameter), it can look a bit empty with just the single model on it, even if horses take up a larger space. The solution is obviously to have a second horse and rider as a bannerman (he is ignored in all interactions with rules, serving only as an extra marker for the Warlord).

All models are plastics from Conquest Games, their Medieval Archers, Norman Infantry and Norman Knights box sets. The crossbowmen are converted from the archers (and a few infantry) bit metal crossbows from somewhere (I've forgotten where exactly). The Norman Infantry contain 44 bodies. I have so far used 10 or so, leaving me with many more. Well, Normans surprisingly often used mercenaries, so why not use a few bodies for that?

8 generic Mercenary Warriors, for use by any faction when I need more foot troops. Also, since I had no theme for their shields, and in fact wanted it to be a random assortment of everything, I could throw in some "special" symbols in there. Highly amusing, at least for me.

Also, 8 Flemsih Mercenaries. These can either be used as generic warriors, if one ignores that they're all carrying maille, generic-ish hearthguards, since they're well armoured, or special Flemish Mercenaries that Stuido Tomahawk (the creators of SAGA) has put out rules for (let's hope the rules for those carry over to SAGA v2). If acting as Flemish, they would work essentially as a somewhat mobile house full of warriors. They fight as warriors, but have better armour and a shield wall that provides further protection. However, due to all this armour, they're slowed down and can only advance slowly.

/Fool out