First SAGA game.

This was our first game of SAGA and we played it with 6 points war bands. As we both have Foundry Vikings but did not want to play Vikings vs. Vikings, my buddy chose to play with Anglo-Danish.
I chose two groups of twelve Bondi each, one group of eight Hirdmen, one group of four Berserkers and the leader. My opponent picked up two units of twelve Ceorls each, one unit of six Huscarls and another of six Huscarls with two handed axes and the leader.

We decided to play the first scenario which consisted in trying to kill the opponent's leader. So we deployed the terrain and the miniatures according to the instructions of the game and started to push miniatures.

All pictures are clickable.

Leaders were mounted on rounded bases to easily distinguish them from the rest. This is the battlefield after the first turn. As we did not want to accumulate fatigue markers so soon, neither of us moved more than once.

The two war band leaders with their respective bodyguards met just in the middle of the battlefield but only clashed the Huscarls and Hirdmen as their leaders were too far.

I attacked first and tried Heimdal + Thor but he received me with Hard as Iron. My horrible dice roll made the rest and I lost four Huscarls to three of them.

In the next turn I attacked his leader with mine using Heimdal + Ullr, which allowed me to re-roll all failed Attack Dice. My opponent did not have any dice left on abilities and had to sacrifice two of his Huscarls to save his leader's life! Thus balancing the situation in the middle.

On the left flank one unit of Ceorls charged my unit of Bondi. They used the Push and won the melee. On the right flank my Berserkers took the tower and from there waited for a good occasion to charge the enemy. Regretfully, my opponent used Intimidation on them for several turns and they could do nothing for most of the game.

When they finally were able to move, they charged the closest unit of twelve of Ceorls who used their dice in defence and managed to resist the Berserker's charge. Then they killed three of the four and suddenly the dreaded Berserkers were not so. It seems that Berserkers are one shot weapon so I think I should have used my Berserkers with Heimdal + Ullr + Valhalla, thus getting 32 Attack Dice and the possibility to re-roll the failed ones! Next time baby.

I was losing the battle as my opponent had already destroyed one full unit of twelve Bondi, all my Hirdmen but one, the Berserkers and half of the Bondi of the last unit of warriors. But then my leader charged again the Anglo-Danish warlord and killed him outright as this time he had not any more expendables bodyguards near him. Victory for me although I did not have many men left to celebrate it.

SAGA resulted to be a very fast, intuitive and fun game and we will keep playing it in the following weeks. Now I am thinking about buying some Perry's Crusaders to make a Norman retinue.