SAGA v2: Irish vs Welsh

I had my niece up for the day today and she brought her Irish warband with her for a game against my Welsh. After flicking through the new Book of Battles, we settled on the Tale of Challenges scenario.

Pretty cool scenario in my opinion. After set-up but before deployment each player gets to issue challenges to their opponent from the table provided in the book. There are 12 challenges all up and each has a x/x point system (ranging from 3's to 8's) where if you fulfil the challenge you get to add x to your total, but if you fail to fulfil the challenge you deduct x from your total. So you need to think very carefully about which challenges you issue because if you fail them, it can swing the game out of reach, even if you were ahead on massacre points.

A 6 point game with the lists as follows:

Welsh

1x Warlord

1x Priest

3x Mounted Hearthguard

1x Warriors

1x Levy w/bows

Irish

1 Warlord

2x Hearthguard

1x Irish Wolfhounds

3x Warriors

crows eye view

 Irish battle line

 Welsh centre

 gotta have faith...

 CHARGE!  ..after peppering with javelins of course..

yelp!

A fun game finishing up on turn 5 with a decisive victory to my Welsh. Arwen wasn't able to fulfil any of her challenges and I was able to fulfil both of mine adding to an already hefty massacre point score.

I was really impressed with how she went about the game tactically and was even more impressed with how neat her painting has become. A formidable Warlord in the making that will only get even more fierce with more games under the belt. My brother's Vikings better watch out!

Australian SAGA Grand Melee 2018

After frantically painting a few extra Hearthguard models and a Christian Priest, I made the hour long drive down the motorway to take part in the first Australian SAGA Grand Melee using v2 rules, held in Brisbane, Queensland.  A solid day of gaming organised by one of the nicest blokes you'll come across here in the Aussie community, Thomas Hitchen. It was a smoothly run event supported by both War and Peace Games and Gripping Beast.

The day consisted of 4 rounds using 6pt warbands, with a further 2pts in reserve that you could sub in before each round. I've got to say that the new edition is pretty damn awesome!

I took a mainly mounted Welsh warband led by Owain of Strathclyde as follows

1x Owen of Strathclyde

1x Mounted Priest

2x Mounted Hearthguard

1x Warriors

1x Levy w/ bows

reserves

1x Mounted Warriors

1x Warriors

A quick recap of the rounds I played;
Round 1 Battle around the Camp Fire: vs Norse Gaels played by Owen. It was a very close game which I lost in the last turn after he managed to take down Owain of Strathclyde.   -loss

Roud 2 The Frozen River: vs Michael and his Vikings led by Ragnar. I managed to get all my warband onto the other side of the river taking minimal loses.   -win

Round 3 Retreat!: vs Dave and his Vikings, again led by Ragnar. The Welsh manoeuvrability proved too much here and came away with the victory and a spot prize for quickest win of the round.   -win

Round 4 Clash of Warlords: vs Greg using Pagan Rus. On the top table and currently second overall. A bit of a bloody affair this one but notched the victory after a well played battle.  - win

So after going 3-1 across the day and accumulating 19 Tournament points and 91 Victory points, I was dubbed "the Northern Raider" and was crowned 2018's Australian Grand Melee Champion!

 Prizes! Prizes! Prizes!

Australian Grand Champion!

After a fantastic day of gaming I was also extremely proud to accumulate the most points and win the Sportsmanship Award as well. This award is the Henry Parsons Memorial,  which was voted 1-5 after each round by the players to promote fun, gamesmanship and gentlemanly behaviour . It really was a great way to cap off an excellent event with a great bunch of blokes.

Thanks to Tom for sending the photos as I didn't take any on the day.

I look forward to defending the crown next year!

4pts Saga: Welsh vs Pagan Rus

This afternoon I got in a 4 point game of Saga with my eldest son Phoenix. He played the Pagan Rus and I broke out the Welsh! We rolled Clash of the Warlords for the scenario, set up the table and off we went.

The Warbands were as follows;

Welsh

Mounted Warlord

1 Unit of 4 Mounted Hearthguard

1 Unit of 10 Warriors

1 Unit of 6 Warriors

1 Unit of Levy Bowmen

Pagan Rus

Warlord

2 Units of 4 Hearthguard

2 Units of 8 Warriors

Phoenix won initiative so went first, after allocating his Saga dice to the battleboard he rolled his troops up the table their full movement leaving 3 dice in the Combat Pool just in case.

I rolled up next and pushed most of the Welsh forward taking the Mounted Hearthguard up with my Warlord using We Obey. I then activated Answering the Call moving the Warlord the Levy, the smaller unit of Warriors and the Hearthguard again.  This got my Mounted troops within range to hurl javelins at an opposing Hearthguard unit... Due to horrible dice rolling, and the Pagan Rus combat pool being used for defence,  I inflicted no damage, activated them and moved away, gaining fatigue.

He then used the Endless Wastes in his next turn to kill one of my fatigued Hearthguard..

The following few turns had us both advance towards each other. The Welsh hurling javelins and firing arrows where possible but the Pagans kept a few dice in reserve for defence and managed to steadily close on the Welsh forces.

Once the Pagan Rus were upon the Welsh things started to get a little shaky for me. Even though the Welsh warband had the accuracy of The Deadly Strike and indeed had Strength in Numbers, The Pagan Rus Hearthguard were Standing Like Bears and fighting with ferocious tenacity For the Khagan!

The tables were starting to lean in the favor of the Pagan Rus. I decided to send my Warlord to hunt for his counterpart as I was falling behind on Victory Points. Smashing through a half strength Militia unit only to have the Pagan Warlord retreat behind some woods.. The battle on the left flank raged on and my Hearthguard charged withering Pagan Rus Varjazi, wiping the last man out but leaving themselves vulnarbel to some (very) well placed Militia to counter-charge on their turn and send my Hearthguard packing. The fresh Pagan Rus Hearthguard then made easy pickings out of my smaller warrior unit before turning their attention to the remaining Priodaur..

I rushed my Warlord back to the left flank to make one last attempt to grab victory via Victory Points. The Welsh just had to last through one last push from the Pagan Rus Hearthguard. (both of us were down to bugger all Saga Dice at this point..)

The Welsh Warriors withstand the final charge by the Pagan Hearthguard losing just two men. 

With one last chance to get ahead in Victory Points the Warlord calls upon his Priodaur to rally Side by Side and charges into the fray! Risking himself against the relentless Varjazi as he goes. The Priodaur bolstered by Strength in Numbers and an extra attack coming from the Combat pool charged in with their Warlord and the contest was fierce!

When the dust finally settled and the fighting drew to a close. The Warlord and what was left of his faithful Priodaur were left standing bloodied amongst the scattered bodies of the Pagans... Victory... Just.

An extremely close and hard fought victory to the Welsh!!

Final VP Tally

Welsh - 11

Pagan Rus - 8 1/2 

A fantastic game of Saga.. One of the closest games I've had to date and we had a blast.

Cheers for looking, happy gaming.

4pts Saga; Vikings vs Welsh vs Pagan Rus

Today I got to put my new Pagan Rus warband on the table to battle it out with my Brother and his tenacious Vikings, as well as my eldest Niece who put my Welsh warband to work. She has a Norse-Gaels warband herself but it was not available at the time. She did however play the Welsh rather nicely.  We set-up outside on the Veranda as it a cracker of a day.

The Warbands were as follows;

Welsh

Mounted Warlord

1 Unit of Mounted Hearthguard 

1 Unit of Hearthguard

2 Units of 8Warriors

Vikings

Warlord

1 Unit of 4 Berserkers

1 Units of Hearthguard

2 Units of 8 Warriors

Pagan Rus

Warlord

2 Units of 4 Varjazi

2 Units of 8 Militia

We set up and played out a victory point scenario that had the Welsh and the Pagan Rus set-up on separate corners of the southern table edge and the Vikings coming down from the centre of the northern edge. The stage was set and the free for all began!


The Welsh coming in from the West

The Viking Menace marches in from the North

                                          The Pagan Rus crossing                  A Raven's Eye view

                                                   from the East

A slow advance from all due to A Great Winter setting in while I tried to get a hang of my new Rus Battleboard.

The Pagan Rus Militia see some shadows in the distance.

The Northmen press on.


My Niece decided to split her forces (as with my Brother) and take the fight to both fronts.
Her mounted Hearthguard charge forwards towards my slow advance,

However as they rode ahead of the rest of the Warband they soon realized they were all of a sudden left all alone.. "Fear of the Dark" crept in causing them to become exhausted...

Once The Exhaustion had set in I followed it up by "Endless Wastes" and that was the end of the poor Welsh Hearthguard..

The Action then heated up to the West as the Vikings made their presence felt and stormed towards the Welsh! This Melee wold go back and forth until the very last turn of the game depleting both warbands..

This However left a Welsh Warriors unit all alone and once again a sudden "Fear of the Dark" set in..followed up by Endless Wastes..and their numbers started to dwindle.. (they would in fact end up being completely consumed by "Endless Wastes".)

On the Eastern side of the battlefield the Pagan Rus formed up to accept the charge of the encroaching Northmen. Using "Standing Like Bears" and "For the Khagan!" together I was able to buff the Militia to take on the Berserkers who had been buffed with "Frigg", "Thor" and "Ullr" which i was rightly afraid of! 

After the crash of shields the Berserkers were done! They did however slay my Militia down to a single man.. He was quickly taken care of when my Brother activated "Loki" in the next orders phase to remove him from the game and securing another victory point.

From here the game pretty much wrapped up on the final turn with the victory points tally being as follows;

Welsh - 6 Points

Vikings - 6 Points

Pagan Rus - 12 points!

So on their first foray on the tabletop the Pagan Rus come away with a convincing Victory! I definitely enjoyed this warband and it plays completely differently to my Welsh, which is exactly what i was looking for; two very different yet rewarding play-styles. As it is with the Saga, on occasion certain scenarios do present better situations for certain factions, and I think this scenario was better suited to the defensive/controlling Battleboard of the Pagan Rus. But, as I'm a humble Warlord I'll be more than happy to admit it was my tactical genius and wit that got me over the line so decisively! 

As the norm when I play against my brother you should treat yourself and check out his battle report over on the Lucid Gaming blog as he is far better at After Action Reports than I am.

Cheers for looking, happy gaming.