Journey to my first tournament – Mortem et Gloriam – 2023-04-01/02 Roll Call 2023 – 28mm Magna – VIKINGS on TOUR!!!

Rob ‘suggested’ we go to a Mortem et Gloriam tournament, have the rules but haven’t had a go of it yet, thanks Covid!!!

Have a 6 point Viking Saga (Gripping Beast plastic) force that I was in the process of updating/replacing with a 60 man set of Vikings from Victrix to re-do my Saga army. Cue the purchase of two more Victrix Viking sets, Dark Age Archers (need archers) and Ancient Gallic Cavalry to convert to Vikings (Norman Milites) on horses.

Hmmm what started off as a conversion project has really taken off.

The force needed to attend is 8000 pts (Magna), which roughly equates to 8 Cavalry, 72 Huscarls, 72 Hird and 42 Archers give or take.

Also needed to source sabots bases to base the forces, went back to the Legend John Banks on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/JbWargamming). John does amazing work with MDF and he sorted me out with bases, lots and lots of bases – 60mm x 6omm – mix of 4, 3 and 2 man bases. MeG uses bases (Unit groups – TUGS, UGs and SUGS (I think :/)) as the method of controlling the armies, the bases are set at specific sites and so you can uses models of any size. In this case the bases are set at 60mm x 60mm. So went with sabots.

And then! Rob said we had to do a camp bases 3 times (frontage) the size of the Unit bases – 180mm x 120. So off to find some minis to build a mini diorama 😐

72 of these, eek

Colours used, contrast paints/speed paints are excellent for quick army building

The Army:

3 Commanders – 2 x Talented and 1x Competent – this gives me a total of 11 command cards.

9 Tactical Unit Groups (TuGs)
Norman milites (in Normandy from 911 to 986 CE) cavalry
3x Huscarls (reg from 900 CE)
4x Hird (reg from 900 CE)
Archers

2 Skirmish Unit Groups (SuGs)
2x Archers

The Army has a breakpoint of 5 Units a Pre battle of 6 Cards and a Scouting rate of 2

Which all works out at 8 Cavalry, 72 Huscarls, 72 Hird and 42 Archers for a 7988pts Magna Army

and some Berserkers

Colours used, same as the Huscarls

Snakebite leather for leather
Ultramarine Blue for Cloth
Skeleton Horde for Cloth and Wood
and Leadbelcher for Metal

Contrast paints are a godsend for doing horses

Skeleton Horde, Black Templar (haven’t tried Black Legion yet), Gore-grunta fur, Wylewood (was a bit too dark) and Snakebite leather and Militarium green for details