Welcome to Game Hacks! Normally you’d be using your SAGA dice to roll on the battle board, activate units, abilities, and generally make sure that your opponent has a very bad time of things. However, how about you try something different and put your fate in the luck of the gods?

At the beginning of the game and then each cycle of player turns (once both players have taken a turn activating units etc) you draw up a ‘boon’ from the Gods for that turn. Simply place the Boons and Busts inside a bag, container, or something else, written down on a bit of paper and draw one out at the beginning of each turn. This might be something as simple as a re-roll of a SAGA dice, a boost to your warlords for the turn, or maybe you’re even betting to stop the fate of the Gods from striking you down?

Example Boons & Busts

• Loki’s Luck - Gain A Re-Roll of a SAGA Dice This Turn
• Voice Of The Gods - Your Warlord May Call Two ‘We Obey!’ Actions This Turn
• Champion of the Small Folk - Levies Gain +1 Armour & 1 Attack Each This Turn
• Doomed By The Gods - Your Opponent May Re-Roll Failed Wounds Against You This Turn
• Bad Omens - Nominate One Enemy Unit - It May Not Charge This Turn
• “He’s On The Mead Again…” - Nominate One Enemy Unit - It Moves as Normal but in a Random Direction!

Some of these might be quite powerful but we leave it to your discretion to come up with some neat boons and busts to level at your armies. The main idea behind this is to have a bit of fun and mess around with the amount of SAGA dice you have each turn. Simply take the number of SAGA dice you wish to bet for the turn and hold them in your closed fist. Reveal both yours and your opponents dice at the same time and see who wins!

Most importantly of all we think you should keep any spent SAGA dice on ‘betting’ to the side so they cannot be used to roll for activation and other powers. Even if you lose the bet, your dice still sit aside. This means there is an added risk/reward factor to putting your fate in the hands of Loki and the other Gods.

Of course you can expand this to the terrain and such around your board as well. Maybe you have some swampland or forests that you think could benefit being haunted by some fel spirits or the like. There’s also the chance to do the same with the likes of the Crusades and Crescent & The Cross! The desert can be a dangerous place for your zealous armies.

Give this one a go, try out some cool combinations and drop a few interesting ideas for Boons & Busts below to help compile quite the archive. Then give this one a go on the tabletop yourself and report back with how it worked.

Images by HVM Workbench

I’m quite a fan of “He’s On The Mead Again!”

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