Something wicked this way comes.
Recommendations: 18
About the Project
Several years ago, I got into Saga... I created a Scottish Warband. Now several years later having never used my warband in a game of Saga, it has just been gathering dust. Then recently it was announced that in early April 2023 there would be a Mortem et Gloriam tournament using the Magna variant of MeG using 25/28mm miniatures. The perfect opportunity to reuse my Saga figures for a game that I actually play. This is the story of this conversation. Will it work or will it be a tragedy?
Related Game: Mortem Et Gloriam
Related Genre: Historical
This Project is Active
ACT II
Scene I - The Existing Miniatures
It was only after I started this project that I decided to create this project so I don’t have as many images of the original army as I would like.
King Macbeth - he has been repaired as originally, he had an axe rather than a sword, but in the intervening years his hand broke off and got lost. 
These figures are Gripping Beast metals part of the Scottish 6 Point Warband for Saga.
The Commander was painted up and based using traditional painting methods, The main figures were painted using the Army Painter Method of Base colours then dipped followed by a matt varnish. They were then left at like that. The entire warband did not take a long time to paint.
Scene II - Rebasing
The first thing I needed to do was to figure out how to use them in MeG. The Saga figures were all individually based. In 25/28mm MeG the basing convention is as follows:
- Base width is 6cm (60mm)
- Infantry bases are 3cm (30mm) deep
- Cavalry bases are 4.5cm (45mm) deep
- Command bases are 6cm x 6 cm (60mm x 60mm)
- Close Troops are four figures to a base
- Loose Troops are 3 figures to a base
- Cavalry are usually 3 figures to a base
- Skirmish troops are 2 figures to a base
As all the figures were based on 25mm round bases they were not going to all fit onto the MeG bases, yes, I could have gone for sabots, but I am not a big fan of these types of bases.
First unit of archers based up on new MDF bases ordered from Lasercraft Arts.Scene III - Refreshing the painting
So as previously mentioned the paint scheme used on the figures was following the army painter method. However, I stopped at the point of adding the matt varnish. There is a further step that can be done and that is highlighting the figures. So as I am in the process of rebasing, I thought I would also give the figures some highlights just to make them pop a bit.
This is the start of the process i have added a few highlights which involves going back to the original base colour and using this to add highlights, i have also added a further highlight by lightening up the base colour. The fortunate thing is that when painting these up originally the base colours were very limited and army painter spray cans for which i have the paints, mostly Red, Yellow, Leather Brown, Plate mail, ultramarine blue and goblin green so easy to do quickly. These figures still have their eyes to be sorted out.In addition to refurbishing the figures I also had to replace some lost weapons and shields and some bows on the archers. Fortunately, I had a few spares knocking around. the hardest was Macbeth himself as his hand had dissapeared along with the weapon. this was fixed by taking a sword arm from a spare plastic sprue and cutting it down to fit.
ACT I
Scene I - The Army Choice
The first step of any army build is to delve into the army lists and develop the army.
As this is for a tournament, I need to create an army to the correct specification. Thus use the Magna rules with a maximum of 8000 points.
As I am looking to convert my Saga Scottish army, it was only natural that I look at the options around early Medieval (Dark Age) Scottish forces. The beauty of MeG is there are over 650 different Army lists, so I knew it was not going to be a problem.
I went to the Early Medieval – Britain this covers “British” armies that were active in the British Isles from around 407 CE (or AD if you prefer) Post Roman through to 1167 CE with the end of the Norse Irish. (Note the Normans are covered in the Frankia list.)
https://lurkio.co.uk/meg/meg/wp-content/uploads/MEG2022/MeG-Army-Lists-32-Britain-2022-01.pdf
In this set of lists there is an option for Early Scots which covers the period 850-1128 CE. Perfect for my Army.
Scene II - Creating the Army
Now I have chosen the Army, I have to decide on the date of the army and give it some character. Given the title of this Project I am sure that some of you have guessed that I decided to chose Macbeth as my theme.
Macbeth (or Mac Bethad mac Findlaich) was the King of of Alba (the pre cursor of Scotland) from 14 August 1040 – 15 August 1057. most people will know him from the play by William Shakespeare, although this play is not exactly accurate and could be said to be a complete hachet job on him. Anyway its nothing worse than Hollywood does today (Braveheart being such an example of swapping reality for fiction in the name of entertainment).
That said I have decided to use a bit of Shakespear in Theming my army as you will hopefully see later in the project.
The Army I decided on has:
- 4 Commanders – 2 x Talented and 2x Competent – this gives me a total of 14 command cards which is a good number.
- 11 Tactical Unit Groups (TuGs)
- Knights
- Mounted Warriors
- 3x Units of Scottish Thegns
- 3x Units of Galwegians
- 3x Units of Spearmen
- 6 Skirmish Unit Groups (SuGs)
- 2x Light Horse
- 2x Archers
- 2 Javelinmen
The Army has a breakpoint of 6 Units a Pre battle of 7 Cards and a Scouting rate of 4 – which is pretty balanced.
The full army list is here
