Saga on the super cheap!

So I am skint at the moment and I mean really skint!

Summer is a crappy time for toy sales at the shop before the Christmas rush, we have had a MASSIVE amount of building work done on the house and the summer was spent at several holiday camps due to the profusion of dust, builders and disruption at the house.

All this comes at a time when Jesus George introduces us all to Saga. Typical!

I want in but as you can see from this post I cannot excuse buying another load of miniatures! This has to be cheap and I mean SUPER CHEAP.

SAGA DICE

First things first SAGA dice.

I would love to support Gripping beast on this one but there is no way I can excuse £12 for some die.

I quick trip to ebay and thats 10 blank die for £2.10 !

The Gripping Beast forums provide printable sheets where you can cut and stick the symbols on but I found these tend to fall off mid - game ("of course I rolled 6 rares! Honest Guv."), which is far from ideal.

In the end I pull out the brushes and 15 min later, voila!

thats £2.10 baby!

The hardest thing about this is not painting extra "rare" symbols on to give my self an unfair advantage. One spray of varnish and their all done.

8 Saga die plus two spares for £2.10. RESULT!

FIGURES

Next figures.

The good news is most Dark Age armies looked very simular with regards to equipment and I was not going to beat myself if the style of moustache was slightly the wrong style when I only really get to stare at the back of my figures.

The other good news is there are a multitude of companies producing historical miniatures and due to the facts there is no need to pay for a copyright or licence (like GW, LOTR figures and Priverteer press), you will be able to pick up pleanty of minis for a reasonable price.

Another visit to ebay and I pick up two boxes of Hammer of the Gods vikings for £8 each.

64 figures for £16! Are you kidding me!

I buy two boxes to get a combined postage discount (total £3) and 64 plastic figures are on their way.

The two boxes give me all the Warlord, Huscarls, Bondi and Levy options I need, but I also figure I can build from this lot;

a) a 6 point Viking army

Or

b) two, 4 point armies (vikings and Anglo Danes).

and

c) some archers as missle troops if I expand into Normans. If not I can still mix them into the Bondi to add some variety.

I figure vikings and Anglo Danes is the way to go as they are from a simular cultural background and used very simular (from a visual perspective) equipment. As regards to historical facts I have no idea!

Also I can sell off the spare army to recover some of the initial set up costs if need be.

BASES

Now bases. 

I could pay out for some bases (which are not included in the Hammer of the gods figures) or improvise.

Improvision is cheaper!

I go with an old 80's, pre-slotta trick.............. Coins!

Now a modern 10p coin is exactly the right size BUT thats £6.40 for 64, less then 64 official bases BUT 2p coins are only 1mm too big and only cost (Ahem) 2p each.

Thats 64 bases for £1.28!

see a milimetre, whats that between friends?

The 2p coins give the figures some much needed weight.

much more stable.

and they can still be PVAed and flocked like normal bases.

Can you tell the difference?

To summerise

Dice         £2.10 + 2 spare
Figures   £19.00 (inc p&p)
Bases     £  1.28        
TOTAL £22.38

Now divide that by two (Armies) and thats £11.19 for this lot !!!!!!!!!!

£11.19. Cheap at twice the price!

RESULT !!!!!!!!