SAGA Challenge

Turn four – Half way through. (Saga lasts 6 turns after which Victory points are assessed).

This was a limited turn by the Vikings who attacked one of the central Anglo-Saxon Levies with their own full strength levies. I think in retrospect I will keep units, particularly Levies, at full strength to ensure they can contribute a SAGA dice as long as possible.

The melee went well enough for the Vikings but fortunately I only suffered two casualties (due to rolling three 6s on my defense throw) and so the unit held on to a SAGA dice by the skin of its teeth!

Thinking that the Gods were with me I launched my depleted Levies on the left into the Viking warriors. As it turned out not the smartest thing in the world, but the casualties were not too bad for me.  In the centre my Hearthguard decided they’d had enough standing around and charged into the Levies who had been hanging around for far too long.

Frustratingly they only caused one casualty.

So two melees without a really decisive result. It Was Time! My Warlord had whispered a prayer to his God and charged!

The loss of the Warlord was a shock (I think we misinterpreted the rules here, so maybe he could have survived – I’ll check that later) and Anton was as delighted as I was stunned! This wasn’t supposed to go like this!

So with some demoralization we started turn 5.

We were getting fewer dice to play with at this point, but one of the “Activity” options on the top of the SAGA Battle Board allows you to replace a die with TWO others (if you’re lucky enough to roll one) and Anton was lucky, so managed to gain an extra couple of die for the penultimate turn.

He took the opportunity (perhaps as a result of overconfidence?) and attacked with his Warlord into my Hearthguard. The dice Gods were not kind, and his Warlord also fell despite inflicting a casualty on the Hearthguard. Valhalla awaits this Viking hero.

In a demonstration of fealty, the levies charged into the Hearthguard who had cruelly cut down their leader, but to little effect and after taking casualties had to withdraw.

The Anglo-Saxons-Saxons saw the tide turning but with little to achieve with their dice, settled into a defensive position for the final turn.

Turn 6 was a final flurry of little effective action with the Anglo-Saxon Hearthguard in a final indecisive attack on the Levies.

So time to assess the victors.  In SAGA points are awarded for casualties caused depending on unit type (Warlords are worth 4 points, but Levies only 1 point for every three casualties) so as we assessed the points the tension was high.

Result:

Vikings 12 points

Anglo-Saxons 12 points

A worthy draw.

We both enjoyed the game and although I think we might have got a couple of rules wrong, the game itself flows quickly once you become familiar with the basic rules and the way the game plays is quite intuitive. the battle Boards are the key to success I think and further game play and practice with them should prove to be the key to the full enjoyment of this great game.

So, my last post for the Challenge, thanks to those following along and Happy Gaming