By Troy A. Hill

The wait is over. The designers at have released their latest revamp of a first edition book, rewritten and re-powered into second edition. The Saga Age of Invasions is upon us.

The podcasts and online forums are all buzzing as players discuss the new Battle Boards, strategies and what has changed. But, for a player new to Saga, like me, the new book and Battle Boards aren’t about what has changed.

Instead, it’s what are the flavors of the various factions. So, let’s take a dive into the book from a fresh noob’s point of view.

If you’re looking for a good breakdown on what is new compared to the old, I suggest Rodge and Monty over on Saga Thorsday Vlog. Their

By Troy A. Hill

A couple of weekends ago, I had the pleasure of returning to the world of gaming conventions. After a year and a half of avoiding people that weren’t in my family’s inner circle, returning to events was sure to be a shock to the system.

Fortunately, the shock was minor, with some growing pains (return pains?), Events look to be back in most of the world. Here in the USA, we’re facing challenges of Freedom v. Responsibility, as our medical/scientific communities try to move our population from Pandemic stage to Endemic stage. We’ll get there. Maybe a few hiccups, but we are well on the way now.

However, one thing I noticed at the Advance The Colors (ATC) event near Springfield Ohio in early October is that Covid has left its imprint on the gaming event industry.

By Troy Hill

One of the joys of moving to a new city, and finding a new group to game with is diving into the games they play locally. Here in North-East Indiana, the game that is second most popular in the group I game with is .

When I first encountered Saga, back in California, I was warned that I wouldn’t like it, for the same reasons I left another game behind. Too low of a point system, too many special powers and abilities. So I avoided it.

But then, after moving back to the midwest (of the USA), I found myself in a When in Rome, do as the Romans do… situation.

By Troy Hill

I didn’t realize how much I missed other gamers until I had to go about 18 months without seeing them.

True, we stayed connected on social media. And a lot of us used TableTop Simulator, or Roll20 to get in virtual games.

But there is nothing like being back in person. Seeing friends (for me, new friends that I barely got to know last winter. I forget if we had a March game day (maybe?)

This technically wasn’t my first game back from the great distancing. We had one of those in June. Back then we had four players at our North-east Indiana Bolt Action day. Our group gets together once a month for Bolt Action on the second Saturday of the month, and again on the fourth (occasionally the fifth weekend if there is one). This Saturday we had five players for Bolt Action. Not bad. We’d had a few drift off to other games, or still ensconced in catching up with family. Five is a good number. Except someone has to take on two opponents…

Yep. That someone was me. And mistakes were made.

By Troy Hill

Many years ago, when I was a wee university gamer lad, I witnessed a spectacle I’d never seen before. The student union’s grand ballroom taken over by fleets of model ships, model planes on stands, torpedos, and gents with reams and notebooks full of charts and graphs, and even several pocket protectors full of colored pencils.

They were playing Fletcher Pratt’s Naval Wargame in large scale in a game that took almost two and a half days. It was a daunting first exposure to naval wargaming. One that kept me out of that genre of the hobby until John Stallard and his crew at released .

Warlord’s newest addition to their WWII line up premiered in the midst of the world’s lock-down during the pandemic. Our own local gaming scene was mostly socially distanced games in people’s garages or basements, so I didn’t worry about investing the time nor fund in the game. Until now.

Now I’m interested in , and just received my hardcover rulebook.

Before I decided whether to invest in yet another game (Warlord keeps putting out good ones, and my mountain of minis keeps growing) I wanted to read the rules, see the various fleets.

By Troy A Hill

One of the joys and pitfalls of moving into a new area, and joining a new gaming group is that many of the local players in the new area already have their army builds done. When I lived in Southern California, there were a mix of players and armies. In my regular gaming group, no one was playing British, so I picked it up to compliment my US and my German Armies.

But, when I returned to North East Indiana in the States, and looked up the local crew, the most popular nation to play in the new local gaming group is… yep, British of one flavour or another.

What was I to do? Americans are the vanilla “easy mode” according to the Juggernauts. In my 15mm WWII wargaming days, I began with Americans and soon tired of them. Germans are definitely challenging. And with my grandmothers coming from lineages of Kaiser and Sigsbee surnames on one side, and Bechtel on the other side of the family, the German army seems like a good fit for me. So far, though, my interest in all things German seems limited to the DAK.

Well, when I played Warhammer Fantasy, I loved the horde armies of the goblins. Guess I should look at… The Soviets?

By: Ron Winkler

Although game rooms in other areas of the country may be open, California game rooms are still under lockdown. Consequently, I felt it was time for another solo game just to keep my wrists loose for rolling dice. The choice this time was the Battle of Quatre Bras using Snappy Nappy rules.

Although the rules recommend an infantry stand represents 2000 men, cavalry 750, and a single gun 24 guns a player is allowed to vary from these recommendations. Since my 15mm figures are mounted on a 40mmx30mm stand with eight infantry in double rank and 3 Cavalry in single rank, I decided to have a stand represent 1000 infantry, 375 cavalry, and 12 guns but kept the unit size as recommended at 2-3 stands for infantry, 2 for cavalry and 1 for artillery. Overall, it made the forces a bit larger in appearance.

by Troy Hill

In 2015 I sold off four fantasy armies from my time playing Warhammer Fantasy (up to ver 8). Fantasy just didn’t compete with the uber-meta mentality of the 40K crowd in my local area. And I was downsizing, drastically, in living space. Something had to go.

So, with my move to California, and the downsizing that accompanied it, reducing my miniature inventory to fit into a tiny Los Angeles apartment made sense. I wasn’t playing fantasy, and the latest GW fantasy just didn’t interest me. So I stuck with historical minis.

Then Rick Priestley screwed up my plans.

By Ron Winkler

With the continued COVID 19 restrictions on gaming opportunities, I decided to try another solo game. This time it would be a modification of Team Yankee to represent a rescue operation in Somalia. For purposes of the game, I selected units and concepts from both Team Yankee and ‘Nam gamebooks. The scenario would be based on Hot LZ with US forces attempting to rescue Western newsmen held captive in a Somalia prison compound.

by Troy A. Hill

The Covid-19 pandemic is having both deleterious and beneficial effects on the Table Top Miniatures hobby. From missed conventions and abrupt halts, then sputtering starts to in-person gaming at Friendly Local Gaming Stores (FLGSs), the pandemic has really rocked the table-top gaming industry back on its heels.

But, I’m seeing a trend on many of the social media platforms: either new gamers are entering the hobby, or existing gamers are picking up new armies, or new games to try. One area is in the Napoleonic gaming world. I’ve seen several “New to the hobby, where do I begin?” posts just in the forums and pages with Warlord Games.

I’m in that same boat, and I’m happy to share my trials and tribulations, so any gamers jumping into the great unknown of Napoleonics can learn from my mistakes.

In this piece, I’ll share what I learned about researching, and the models I’ve begun with. I’ll also include images of the Warlord British Line Infantry models, and the process I went through assembling and painting them. You might want to read the image captions separately from the text of the main piece.