The first thing I did when I decided to start playing the Irish in Saga was purchase one of the speciality units that the Irish can field, war dogs. Initially they went on the table with my welsh forces, who were now, temporarily, subbed as the Irish, whist I built up and painted my new troops. The dogs replaced my mounted half guard in my new war band. War dogs are played as Bonnachts (Warriors) with some differences in movement and armour.

With the long movement of mounted troops, they are able to move through uneven terrain with out penalty, they do have a lower armour but if you load them up with the right dice and abilitys and the dice gods are on your side they can be devastating !

They are NOT armed with javelins! There some debate about this in saga forums. My view on this is in a proper game of saga which is a historical war game, of course the dogs should not have javelins. At most the handler could throw one once the dogs are released. However, it would be fun in a fantasy based game like Dragon Rampant to make the dogs anthropomorphic beserker warriors armed to the bloody teeth! 😀

I picked these miniatures  up from Northstar  Military Figures who kindly put a package together of the right number I needed for Saga.