Game of Thrones – A Song of Ice and Fire continues

As the Song of Ice and Fire continues tonight on HBO, beginning the final chapter of the Game of Thrones, it is a good time, to look into my own tale of Westeros.

There are two incredibly well done projects about A Song of Ice and Fire in 28mm. One is done by the famous Capt. Blood on Lead Adventure and the other one by the magnificent Don Voss on Sweetwater. There is even a list of other SoIaF/GoT themed projects on Lead Adventure.

And thanks to the huge amount of now available plastic kits, there are so many possibilities, that I simply can not withstand starting my own Game of Throne themed warbands. Rulewise I'm going most likely with Saga, as it is very flexible and that will increase with the updated 2nd edition and even more battleboards. With the Age of Magic supplement you have even more options, but as GoT/SoIaF is more of a low-fantasy setting, you could go along with a "regular" historical setting easily. If you're not happy with Saga, you could use Impetus, Lion Rampant or Dragon Rampant for example (I still hate that activation system of rampant...). As there are boards for Saga 1st edition and not everybody is keen on the new way to spread everything across multiple books, you can go for the 1st edition along with some fan-made battle boards.

This project will be supplied by the genious range of Perry Miniatures' War of the Roses and Agincourt range with some conversions. You can, depending on what you're going for, use for example Frostgrave Barbarians for Wildlings, or Gripping Beast and Fireforge Games for bits and pieces.

I'll cover some of the used boxed sets as reviews. It is incredible how you can mix and match the sets, even across the range. I am going for small groups, trying to bring out the character of the units. As these are not entire armies, but lords of minor houses, that gather their folk. So you have elite troops, of the lords themself with their body guard, the eldest son or younger siblings of the lord, along with their men. A bastard with inverted colours, troops of befriended houses or allies, to have a bit of variation with the colours and to explain the differences in the armour.

I am already quite amazed by the infantry, but the cavalry sets, give you such broad options, especially when you mix in spare bits from the infantry kits. Make for great troops of Landed Knights, Knight errants, young nobles or acknowledged bastards, who fight for their (family's) honour and light mounted mercenaries.

The agincourt infantry is taller than the WotR, so these could be well-fed troops of the higher houses or more experienced mercenaries. Better armoured, better equipped. The unit with poleaxes could be the hearthguard of the Lord. Lots of ideas 😉

But other than joining the famous Great Houses of Westeros, I'm developing my own minor houses. With their own concept of lieges, landed knights and conflicts. As I am going for a Border Reiver and maybe a bit larger feel, this will be smaller forces, warbands mustered from different small houses, their (temporary) allies and mercenaries. The yin and yang of this tale, as there is no definite good or bad, as the motivation, betrayal and such are the question of the eye of the beholder. I'll introduce and work the main actors out in separate articles.

I am aware that this is already larger then your regular saga warband, even at 6 points, you end up with around 40-50 miniatures. Easily and cheaply assembled from either the Mercenaries or WotR Infantry kit (40 miniatures each) and either the Mounted Men at Arms or Light Cavalry (12 mounted miniatures each), at just 20 GBP each. This might seem in conflict with my intention to consolidate my other projects. But I own most of these miniatures for 2 or 3 years, with the late addition of the Agincourt boxes, and, as mentioned further above, this is not a hard fantasy setting. The models can easily be used with other rule sets, even as a single force, so that is reason enough for me to give them a green light. Other than that, enjoy the new episode this night!