Last Game of the Year- SAGA AoC-Show of Force

 

Myself and Luis got together at the L'Abyss for what I presume will be my last game of the year. I was pretty tired as I had driven up to Montreal that day, I really did not have much time to get things together so I decided to go with the same warband as my last SAGA AoC, namely the Moors. Luis went with the Levantine Crusaders. As I was packing up my stuff before taking the metro to Le Petit Maghreb quartier (is that not an unusual coincidence for an AoC game) where L'Abyss is located, I found that I did not have my rulebook or Book of Battles book, just the Age of Crusades sourcebook. Opps....it seems that I am going to have to rely on my poor French or Luis's English transaltion for any rules questions that might arise during our game!

Game Set-up (BoB Chaos)

Scenery-Uplands

Deployment-Vanguard

Special Rule-Night Fight

Victory Conditions-Show of Force

Game Length-Until Dusk

The Levantine Crusaders (6 SAGA Dice)

Warlord
3 units of Mounted Hearthguard in 2 groups
1 unit of crossbow armed Warriors
1 unit of spear-armed Warriors
1 unit of Pilgrims

Moors (7 SAGA Dice)

Yusuf ibn Tashfin (2 saga dice)
The Black Guard (2 saga dice)
1 unit of javelin armed Mounted Hearthguard
1 unit of  javelin armed Mounted Warriors
1 unit of Bow armed Levy

Some Photos (unfortunately we were at turn 3 before I remembered to take any photos)........

Luis started the game by sweeping in on my left flank and essentially taking out my mounted Warriors. I responded by taking out a unit of his mounted Hearthguard but losing 3 of my mounted Hearthguard. At this point my left flank was decimated with only my Warlord, 1 Hearthguard and 1 Warrior left. Luis still had 5 mounted Hearthguard and his Warlord on this flank. In the centre, Luis was advancing his Foot Warriors and his Pilgrims while his Crossbowmen were shooting away at my bowmen. The Black Guard were a bit out of position...at this point things were not looking good.

Luis's Fanatical Pilgrims, I think these figures look great...but it is best to stay away from them as each pilgrim is killed a SAGA dice is generated which is immediately placed on the Crusader Battleboard!

I started to swing the game back though my using my Warlord with an accompanying Hearthguard to take down the Crusader Haerth Guard. I also had some useful BB abilities as well as some good dice throwing.

Turn 6,...Luis decided to send his Warlord at Yusuf ibn Tashfin in a final titanic battle, no Hearthguards left. They of course both die! The game was decided by Survival points + 1 point for each vivtorious melee. I had accumulated 5 points during the game while Luis had 3. Left on the table (the basis for survival points) for the Crusaders were 9 levy and 8 warriors. For the Moors, there were 8 Hearthguard, 1 warrior and 6 levy. If I have my calculations correct it was a 14-7 point game with a Moorish victory.

I have to say that  I enjoy playing at L'Abyss, it is quite a distance from our apartment but very easy to get to via the Metro system. I also quite like playing with Luis, he has an excellent sense of humour and is a great gamer.

Well it has been a great year for gaming, 38 games.....wow! It has been a lot of work to set up games near to Salem, the CoC campaigns have been slow to progress so I am quite pleased at the number of games I have got in. Montreal has been great for gaming this year, mostly because I am meeting new gamers who are quite keen to play.

For 2020, hopefully myself and Adam will get the year started with our Pickett's Charge campaign. Myself and P-Y are planning a new CoC campaign and I am sure myself and Luis will get in some more SAGA, maybe some Congo and we are talking about having a go at the BattleGroup ruleset. Hopefully, I will get to finish the 3 CoC campaigns I have going with Tom, Mike and Greg. I am sure some Black Seas will be played and myself and Iannick are think about getting a game of Epic in for our next encounter. Also need to get in some Général d'Armée, can not let all those beautiful AB figures wither away in the dark!

SAGA-AoC-Subjugation

 

Had another game of SAGA set in the Age of Crusades a L'Abyss last Saturday in Montreal. My opponent was again Luis F. This time he played the Spanish BB while I played the Moors. These are both shooting factions which benefit from being mounted. We again decided to go with the Book of Battles. Luis had printed out the downloadble card set from the Studio Tomahawk forum, so we randomily picked a card from each of the 5 criteria. This turned out to be a bit of a challenge as the cards where in French in which I am extremely limited and while Luis's English is very good a lot of the words used were quite technical so somewhat difficult for him to translate into English. After a bit of back and forth though we came up with the below setup.

Game Set-up (BoB Chaos)

Scenery-Bleak Moor

Deployment-Vanguard

Special Rule-Forced March

Victory Conditions-Subjugation

Game Length-Pitched Battle

The Spanish (6 SAGA Dice)

Mounted Warlord
2 units of Mounted Hearthguard
1 unit of javelin armed Mounted Warriors
1 unit of javelin armed Mounted Warriors
1 unit of javelin armed Warriors
1 unit of Bow armed Levy

Moors (7 SAGA Dice)

Mounted Hero (2)
The Black Guard (2)
1 unit of javelin armed Mounted Hearthguard
1 unit of  javelin armed Mounted Warriors
1 unit of Bow armed Levy

Some photos:

Luis has that determined look!

A double ronged attack by my Warriors and Hearthguard

Quite a bit of attrition, with about equal losses on both sides. Unfortunately I exposed my Hero Warlord who ended up being exhausted going into my last turn. He did not die but he was of little utility in the turn.

Nothing like seeing my Levy being crushed by a double sized unit of Spanish Hearthguard.

It is interesting that both our games have been limited to 5 turns with the first 2 turns having movement limited to short. I was the first player in this game which is a bit of a disadvantage I think as Luis had the last move. The fact that most of our troops were mounted made the last 2 turns particularily bloody as we had muliple melees. I thought I was done for after I finished my 5th turn but as it turned out it ended up being a 18-18 tie! 

Another really enjoyable game with Luis who is great to game with, I will be back in Montreal in 3 weeks so I hope to get in another game then.

L'Abyss is a good gaming space. Has a lot of Fantasy figures, as well as a lot of Warlord and GW product. Well supplied with modelling and painting supplies.

As you can see there are plenty of tables and a great selection of boards, mats and terrain for the players to utilize. There was a large Age of Sigmar tournament going on Saturday but I took the photo during the break.

SAGA: Age of Crusades

 

I played my first game of Age of Crusades last night at L'Abyss in Montreal. Had a great time and met a new gamer Luis F. who has a great sense of humour and was a lot of fun with whom to game. He appears to be quite an experienced gamer and had some great looking figures. L'Abyss is quite a gaming shop with a lot of fantasy figures but also some Bolt Action, Flames of War, Gripping Beast SAGA books, dice and figures and an enormous selection of multiple brands of Fantasy miniatures. They also have a lot of terrain and gaming supplies available including paints from Vallejo (superb Model Air collection), Citadel, Army Painter as well as Scale75. They also had a lot of mdf terrain from a Quebec company called XOLK, which I will have to explore further.

The gaming area was quite impressive with I think 20-25 tables, all sit down with an enormous selection of terrain tiles, mats and terrain to use. The place was blocked (this was a Tuesday night) with all tables in operation. They even had specialised 4x3' SAGA boards. Very nice.

We set up using the Book of Battles Chaos method, Luis was not familar with this game setup as the  French version of the BoB has not yet arrived in Montreal.

Game Set-up (BoB Chaos)

Scenery-Rough Ground

Deployment-March Column

Special Rule-Forced March

Victory Conditions-Targe

Game Length-Cautious

The Levantine Crusaders (6 SAGA Dice)

Mounted Warlord
3 units of Mounted Hearthguard in 2 groups
1 unit of Crossbow armed Warriors
1 unit of Bow armed Archers
1 unit of Fanatical Pilgrims

Saracens (6 SAGA Dice)

Mounted Warlord
1 unit of Mounted Hearthguard
1 unit of Mounted Warriors
1 unit of Composite Bow armed Mounted Warriors
2 units of Warriors
1 unit of Bow armed Levy

I could tell pretty quickly that this was going to be a challenging game, I was quite unfamilar with the Saracen BB and seldom play mounted warbands. I was helped though by the fact that the special rule Forced March limits movement to half of normal in the first 2 turns, and we had a 5 turn game because of Cautious.  So on to some photos......

Initial Set up from the Saracen end

Beautifully done Crusader Warriors. Luis has the cavalrymen attached to the horses using tiny magnets so he can change out the riders, but more amazingly so the shields are also magnetised to the figures so he can change them out!

Crusader Bowmen, the unit I targeted for my bonus.

Fanatical Pilgrims, they are quite interesting as every time I killed one Luis can to add a SAGA dice to his BB. This is a very interesting ability as he really does not have to set up his BB defensively for the next turn.

My Mounted Warriors, Luis targeted this unit as his bonus.

My Levy Bowmen

This is about half way through the game. My targeted unit was the Bowarmed Warriors so I moved my Levy bowmen as well as my composite bow armed Warriors to take them out as well as the Fanatical Pilgrims on my right flank. At the same time Luis focused on my left flank and took out my Blackrobed warriors. He also forced my mounted Warriors back and threatened my Bluerobed warriors.

Luis moved in for the kill on Turn 4, it was looking bad for the Saracens

I was down to 3 SAGA dice, so I sent my mounted Hearthguard in against 1 unit of Crusading Hearthguard, I was able to kill 4 of them, I then followed up with Warlord attacking the other Crusader Hearthguard unit, I had only 1 of my Hearthguard in S of the Warlord but I was able to survive with 2 fatigues taking out 3 more Hearthguard. In turn 5 Luis sent his Hearthguard into take out my Warlord, he just succeded he wanted to follow up with his Warlord to take out my my 2 remaining Hearthguard but he had fatigue so I was able to slow him. End of turn 5, game over!

So we totaled up the Massacre Points and it was 25 to 23 for the Saracens, a very close game. It was a fun game and I look forward to the next. It was the first outing for my Moorish figures since I painted them several years ago, it was nice to see that they won their first battle. More importantly of course, I have met a new gamer in Montreal who was a fun and engaging player.

Warbands under the Crescent Banner for SAGA

In anticipation of imminent release of the 2nd SAGA source book: Age of the Crusades (which I have just received an email that it has been dispatched), I have been finalising my Moorish warbands. I wanted to have a combination of figures so that I could field any of the 3 eastern warbands. I do understand that the number of warbands detailed will be 12!

I felt I was a little weak on infantry armed with spears/javelins so I recently painted up a unit of 8 infantry. These are the Daylami Mercenaries (or Auxiliaries as they are now called) from Gripping Beast. They were nice figures to paint and as has been my approach, been painted so they are similarly dressed.

I recently also made a terrain mat from an old piece of mat for SAGA, I tried to terrain it in such a way that it would work for Europe or the Middle East. We have found it a bit of a struggle to lay out a 3x4' terrain as required for most SAGA Scenarios. I was quite pleased how it came out, so I took the opportunity to pull out my moorish figures and photographed them.

An overview

The latest addition

A Generic Warlord.

Camel mounted Hearthguard

Naffatan

Foot Hearthguard

Horse mounted Hearthguard

More Spear/Javelin Infantry

These Warriors are my favourite

Bow-armed Infantry

Horse mounted Warriors

Bow mounted Warriors (Turcomen Auxiliaries)

A Hero........maybe Saladin

And finally some organised Warbands

Mutatawii'a Warband (6 points: 2 units of Mounted Elite, 1 unit of Foot Elite, 2 units of Javelin armed Foot Warriors and 1 unit of Bow Armed Foot warriors)

Moorish Warband (5 points: 1 unit of Mounted Elite, 1 unit of Mounted Warriors with Javelins, 1 unit of Foot Warriors with Spears, 1 unit of Levy with bowes and 1 unit of Levy with Javelins)

Saracen Warband (6 points: 1 unit of Mounted Elite with Javelins, 1 unit of Mounted Warriors with Javelins, 1 unit  of Mounted Warriors with Bows, 2 units of Foot Warriors with Javelins and 1 unit of Levy with Bows)

Some Camels for SAGA

I have been recently building up my Moorish warbands for SAGA in anticipation of SAGA2 Age of the Crusades release at Salute. One unit that I did not have which I felt was necessary if I fielded a Mutatawwi Warband was some Hearthguard Fanatics on camels. They were easy enough to paint up, I decided to go with a very subdued colour scheme as is fitting for these soldiers of god.