SAGA: Goths vs. Romans

A good friend and nice person, one of those who want to have some fun and do not care about winning at all costs, visited me for a game, so we played SAGA after many months of neglecting it.

He told me he will be bringing Goths so I picked up Romans, though I do not like the Impetus thing on the battleboard, that in my opinion it only complicates things unnecessarily. We played at six points.

I forgot to take pictures until turn two, in which I declared "Barritus". First I charged in the centre with a unit of ten warriors to his twelve levies armed with bow who killed one of my mounted hearthguards on the first turn. I killed half of the unit.

Then I fired with my bows in the forest and killed one enemy hearthguard and then I charged them with my seven remaining mounted hearthguards, and killed all but one!

But he also killed most of my cavalry, so it was a mutual slaugther.

Miracously, one of my mounted hearthguard survived and could escape from retaliation, so I could keep that order die. After that, my warriors in the centre used "Plumbatae" and reduced the enemy levy to four men, and then my men fell back and formed with the rest of the army, waiting for the Goths to come at them.

My friend smashed his cavalry againt the Romans in the centre and lost them all but one. He also charged with his still untouched unit of warrios to mine on the hill, and lost most of his men. As we were running out of time we decided to stop here and concede victory to Romans.

 

All in all a pleasant morning that we expect to repeat soon, but this time playing Saxons vs Britons.

Battle at the Ford

This Sunday we played our first game of 2012 and second of SAGA with 6 points armies. Me with Vikings and my buddy with his Foundry Vikings as Anglo Danish in the upper part of the river. We both got victory points per warriors crossing the fords to the other side of the river in seven turns.

The big six sided die is marking the turn number two, and we can see how the forces are approaching to the fords.

On turn three the Danes tried to pass through the right ford but they were rejected by my Vikings though they ended very tired due to the melee and the Danish exhaustion order.

On turn fourth I tried to charge through the left ford but the enemy used my fatigue marker to shorten my moving distance, stopping me before the clash.

On the following turns the Dane Huscarls charged my Hirdmen in the ford and died all my eight men and six of his!; whereas in the right ford his leader charged side by side with his two handed axemen unit and slaughtered my unit of bondi.

My bondi on the left tried to hold the ford but in the last turn they were massacred and the Danes got pass with a second activation. On the right ford it only remained my heroic leader and one following bondi holding the ford, and the Dane leader and half of his ceorls with all the huscarls dead, after both leader being fighting for three consecutive turns.

My opponent managed to squeeze five victory points in the very last turn of the game.

I am liking more and more this game as it is fast, different and very violent. My only minor complaint is that the first game and this second one were too similar and a bit boring as they were just a straight clash of warbands. I hope following scenarios will be more asymmetrical and in case not I will have to look for new scenarios somewhere else. I think Warhammer historical Shieldwall book had a few...

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.