Saga: Battle of Stamford Bridge

 

Last Thursday Korrigan put on a Saga Extraganza for our monthly tThursday Saga Night. We had 3 simultaneous games, two of which featured the final 2 battles of King Harold Godwinson, the last Anglo-Saxon king of England.

I played in the Battle of Stanford Bridge and commanded the king's Anglo-Saxon forces, I was assisted by William who commanded the Earl of Mercia's Anglo-Saxon forces and Michel who commanded the Earl of Northhumberland's Anglo-Danes. We faced off against Luis who commanded Harald Hardrada's Viking force assisted by Eric and François commanding Tostig's and Eystein Orre's Vikings. 

We played the Saga Epic rules at 16 points aside. The main Warlord had 6 point warbands and the ancilliary Commanders had 4 point warbands. The game was 8 turns, and at the same time while we were playing the Battle of Hastings took place with 6 other players. 

Harold Godwinson in the foreground with the Earl of Mercia on his left and the Earl of Northumberland on his right. Harald Haradada in the centre with Tostig on his left and Orre on his right.

I was quite confident that Luis would send in his Viking Hearthguard first. Mercia waited for Hardrada to attack and caused some damage with his Saxon levies...never underestimate the Saxon shieldwall. Harold's warriors were sent in and drove the Viking Hearthguard back.

The Viking made another attack but without much success, by turn 6 Tostig's force was demoralised and the Anglo-Saxon defence of the bridge remained solid.

The Earl of Northumberland's Anglo-Danes had a lot of back and forth at the ford of the River Derwent but was able to keep the Vikings on the far side of the river, news of Hardrada's defeat reached them and at turn 7 the Vikings withdrew.....an Anglo-Saxon victory.

This was a quite a lot of fun, It was actually the best game of Saga I have had for some time. I find Saga pretty gamey at times but this seemed like a true historical event. I should note that Harold Godwinson was able to defeat the Normans at Hastings so remained the King of England.......history was defied.

Battle of Hastings

SAGA-AoV

 

I had my first game of SAGA in 18 months last night at the Abyss with my friend Luis. We decided to play Age of Vikings and I knew that Luis expected me to bring my Skraelings. I decided to play the Anglo-Saxons, a warband that I believed I have never played. As usual we went with 6 point war bands.

Game Set-up (BoB Chaos)

Scenery-Uplands

Deployment-Meeting Encounter

Special Rule-A Good day to Die

Victory Conditions-Target

Game Length-Pitched Battle

Anglo-Saxons (6 SAGA Dice)

Alfred

2 Hearthguard

2 Spear-armed Levy 
1 Bow-armed Levy

Vikings (6 SAGA Dice)

Warlord

3 Hearthguard

2 Warriors

1 Bow-armed Levy 

It took a bit of time to set-up, but once we got going the game went quite quickly. There is a few photos below, but generally Luis's initial set up favoured his left flank, so rather than opposing him I decided to set up on my left flank. There was a large central hill, that blocked Line of Sight. As noted above, I never played Anglo-Saxon before and I wanted to get a sense of them before I got too aggressive. I also wanted to get my bowmen into the forest on my left flank. I put another group of Levy there, while keeping Alfred and his Hearthguard behind the hill, with my 3rd group of Levy on my right flank (see first photo). Alfred has a L range "We Obey" ability.

Luis sent his group of 12 Warriors to his right as well as a group of 6 Hearthguard. He had put his Levy bowmen in the rocky ground, while sending his another 6 man Hearthguard to his left with his Warlord. He kept back a small group of 4 Warriors.

Luis then sent in his 12 man Warrior unit, they were taken down by the levy (see photo 2)

I continued to hold back until Luis sent in his Hearthguard to take out my 2 units of levy on my left flank. I carefully prepared my Battleboard at the start of turn 4. I fired with my bowmen and then charged with my levy, and although I ended up with more dice and was able to remove several of Luis's attack dice. I failed to cause significant damage (Luis had some incredible dicing saving almost every hit).

On to turn 4, by now as you can see below (photo 3), Luis was able to crush my left flank my throwing back my levy as well as taking down my bowmen to 2 men after a very successful double set of charges. We now had quite a few loses on each side and it appeared to be quite close in massacre points.

Now on to Turn 5, I had made a mistake in turn 4 by not moving by 8 man Hearthguard to my left flank to take on the the 3 man Viking Hearthguard unit. I was too far away to do even double charge, so I decide to move back my remaining troops, so they were out of range of the Vikings in their last turn.

We tallied up the Victory points and I did manage to eke out a very marginal victory (11 vs 10), but I believe that Luis managed his troops and battleboard better than I did. So a game well played.

Initial Setup with Vikings to the right

The beauty of the Anglo-Saxon warband, here we have a a group of Levy taking on the Viking Warriors and crushing them with their Saga abilities, I had weakened them first with my bowmen.

Around Turn 3, with me having lost the functionality of 2 groups of Levy (but still 5 Saga dice), Luis was also down to 5 Saga dice after his large group of Warriors was taken down.

Awesome Viking painted by Graham.

I have to say that I miss playing SAGA, it is a lot of fun. There are a few SAGA players in Montreal so hopefully more games to get in soon, but Luis is always a challenge! One thing is for sure though, I really enjoyed playing the Anglo-Saxons and I am sure they will see the table again.