First Go At Saga

Jamie has spent the last year or so building up a nice collection of 28mm Dark Ages figures with a view to trying out Saga.  As the title suggests, we finally got to give the rules a try this evening.  Sadly I only had my iPhone to hand so the pictures are rather poor.

I chose to play Anglo-Saxons (i.e. 7th century English) leaving Jamie with the Welsh.  I had a Warlord, unit of four Hearthguard, a unit of eight warriors and two units each of twelve levy.  Jamie also had the obligatory Warlord but then had two units of twelve figures, one of Hearthguard and one of Levy.  I think the Warlord was called Theakston (but I may have misheard).

Saga is, by repute, a game that you only learn to play properly after several goes.  Neither of us had played before and I'd seen neither rules nor battle board previously so this was very much a learning experience.

The English race for the woods

As Jamie's army were all armed with missile weapons and I had none, I decided to hide my Levy in the two woods and put my Warriors and Warlord in the centre.  The Hearthguard would stay at the back and redeploy as required depending on what Jamie did.

What he did was to move forward with his Levy on the right and his Teulu (Hearthguards) on the left.

He then taunted my Warriors into dashing forward (using a special ability on the Welsh battle board) and into javelin range causing me to take the first casualty of the game.

I was rather flummoxed by the fact that I had nothing that could take on his huge unit of hearthguard in close combat and he could shoot at distance whilst I couldn't.

As time was running out, I launched an all-or-nothing attack by my Warlord (backed up by his hearthguard) against his opposite number.  Sadly I wasn't able to take out the big man.

On the last turn Jamie launched his Hearthguard forward and wiped out my Warriors.  The three Hearthguard I killed in the process meant that Jamie one by four victory points to three.

We've decided to have another go with the same forces so we can get a better feel for what works and what doesn't.  Better photos next time.