First Look: SAGA Northern Fury

I was wandering past Orc's Nest the other day and decided to pop in for a look.  Whilst browsing I spotted the first supplement for Saga and decided to pick it up.

Northern Fury is a 22 page booklet published in a similar style to the main rule book and is accompanied by four cardstock battle boards.  The supplement introduces four new factions - the Anglo Saxons, the Bretons, the Jomsvikings and the Scots - along with an new scenario.  The first three factions utilise the same dice as factions from the original rules but the Scots have their own new dice (assuming you are bothered about the custom dice).

Each faction has a brief introduction, any special rules, new Heroes and the faction's specific abilities which run to around four pages per faction with a few accompanying photographs of appropriate figures.

Superficially, the Anglo Saxons are geared around large levy units, the Bretons javeline armed cavalry, the Jomsvikings have a variable level of "Wrath" which enables/enhances various abilities and the Scots spear armed infantry; however, each faction looks like they have their own playing style and each differ from the others and the original four factions.

The scenario, Wooden Oaths, is designed for two teams of players and looks interesting.

Since I have figures for some of these factions already and am particularly interested in the Anglo Saxons and the Scots I though this would be a useful addition to my Saga collection.

I see another supplement is due out shortly and has some Irish too ....

Wargames Weekend: The Battle of the Fords

Next up was a Dark Ages game, both to get some of my figures, which haven't been out in a while, back to the table and to give Saga another outing. It was also a chance to put the other faction dice and accessories I picked up at Salute some use.

We decided to use the standard 6 point warbands and scenario 2 - the Battle of the Ford from the rules. Lenin chose to be Anglo-Danish whilst I was to be Norman (which we decided placed the engagement nicely in the post-Hastings period). Lenin took a large (8 figure) unit of axe armed Huscarls (Hearthguard), three units of Ceorls (Warriors) and a unit of Geburs (Levy) whilst I opted for two units of mounted Knights (Hearthguard), one unit mounted and three units dismounted Sergeants (Warriors) with one of the foot units armed with crossbows.

Lenin rolled highest and deployed half his force, I then deployed and he finished off. It was clear we had both chose to split our men between the two fords with the Huscarls and Knights concentrated on the ford to my left. Having forgotten how the last game played out I had deployed my Warlord in the centre rather than with one flank or other.

Deciding that I needed to take advantage of my mounted troops I advanced my crossbowmen and fired and then, rather too impetuously, charged one of my units of Knights across the ford and into the approaching Huscarls. As might be expected I had my backside thoroughly kicked and started to remember how much planning needs to go into attacks if they are to be successful!

Lenin then advanced his Geburs, armed with bows and slings, to engage my crossbowmen in the centre. With his Warlord over on his right flank I could see an attack happening there, so I advanced my Warlord and second unit of Knights supported by some dismounted Sergeants to cover that ford.

Lenin also started to organise his Ceorls on his left. Again I got a little impetuous and advanced my mounted Sergeants across the ford and into his leading unit of Ceorls. Once again this didn't quite go as planned and my men were repulsed with quite a few casualties.

Leaving his battered Hurcarl unit (they had taken some damage from my charge and volleys of crossbows), Lenin used the Obey Me command to advance his Warlord and his Ceorls) across the ford and attacked my Warlord. Fortunately I had anticipated the attack and had allocated some dice to my Charge! and Stamping abilities and so was able to throw his assault back - although it did cost me one of my Knights who valiantly threw himself in the way of a killing blow. I then returned the favour and, using the same approach, attacked his Warlord with mine and my remaining mounted Knights. A combination of good dice rolls and the Charge! attribute saw his Warlord trampled into the dust and his Ceorls decimated after defending the Warlord with their lives. But my follow up attack saw my Warlord struck down too. Lenin then attacked my mounted Sergeants at the other ford but luckily I managed to throw him back.

At this point, with dinner approaching, and neither of us successfully made the other bank of the stream we decided to call the game a draw.

As in our previous game it quickly became clear that Saga is all in the planning - something I really need to remember. Working out which attributes to use and when is critical - just rushing in without preparing the ground is likely to get you killed! The Warlord is key, his free activation and Obey Me ability can be enormously valuable but you don't want to lose him - even if this isn't a victory condition - as it hits you where it hurts - in the dice pool!

SAGA: Northern Fury

Gripping Beast have announced the first supplement for Saga, their Dark Ages rules.

The supplement includes four new factions: Anglo-Saxons, Bretons, Jomsvikings and Scots, all with new battleboards.  The first three utilise the existing Anglo-Dane, Norman and Viking dice but the Scots have their own new dice set.

A new multi-player scenario is also included.

The supplement is 22 pages long, £12 and Gripping Beast are taking pre-orders for the book, the Scots dice and some appropriate figure packs on their website.

First Play: Saga

Our second game of the week was our first chance to try out the new Dark Ages rules from Gripping Beast, Saga.  We decided on the first scenario and Lenin took command of the Welsh with me taking the Vikings.

The rules suggest starting with a 4 point force rather than the typical 6, so that's what we did.  We took slightly differing approaches to the construction of our warbands with Lenin deciding to include some levy, something I decided to avoid.

It took a little while to learn the different abilities on each of the faction battle boards and I am sure it will take a few games to really master any one faction.  But we managed to get into the game fairly quickly nonetheless.

The Welsh decided to take the hill in the centre straight away and I, somewhat unwisely, decided to rush in a push them off it.  The fatigue I gained from the multiple actions really gave the Welsh the edge in the fight and my Vikings were thrown back with some serious casualties.

I decided to regroup and attack again.

This time the combination of a couple of abilities and some lucky dice rolling carried the day.

The melding of modern boardgame mechanisms and traditional wargame rules might seem a little odd at first but we found it provided a fun game with the right feel for the period.  As a result I can see these rules coming out again!

First Look: Saga

I happened by Orcs Nest the other day and noticed that they had Saga the new Gripping Beast / Studio Tomahawk Dark Ages rules in stock.  I was wondering whether to pick up a copy, and hesitating at the £25 price tag, but having heard good things about them I decided to take the plunge.

The rules are softback, in full colour and run to 75 pages.  You also get four battle boards, one for each of the four factions within the rules - Vikings, Normans, Anglo-Danes and Welsh - which are single sided colour card.  There are special sets of dice you can also buy for each of the factions which look nice but at £12 a set could make the total package a little pricey; however, you don't need the special dice to play the rules as they do provide a translation table for standard d6.

After a brief introduction there is an overview of the basics and then the rules are covered in sections.  This is followed by a complete turn example which takes you to about 35 pages in total.  The remainder of the book covers mustering your warband, an overview of each of the factions and abilities.  Then there are 6 generic scenarios plus a section on how to play with four players as opposed to the usual two, often overlooked rules and sections for you to photocopy with the measuring sticks, fatigue markers and the QRS.

The rules are clear, explained well and accompanied by diagrams and summaries.  There are a sprinkling of photos of some nicely painted miniatures and I only spotted a couple of typos and the inclusion of some designer's notes is always a nice touch.

Saga is clearly aimed more at the game rather than simulation end of the spectrum.  The dice and battle boards provide what feels like a modern boardgame approach with combinations of dice allowing you to take various actions or gain certain advantages in the turn.  Movement has been simplified with everything being referred to in Very Short, Short, Medium and Long terminology which allows easy conversion to different scales/table sizes if needs be.

Troops are of four types (although each faction refers to these by different thematic names) - the warlord, the hearthguards, the warriors and the levies or peasants.  Obviously the warlord is your leader and the others represent the different levels of capability of the fighting men combined with their experience.

My first impression of these is they look like they should give a good, thematic game.  I am hoping to try them on the table next week and will report back.

Wargames Weekend: Scavanger Hunt

The first game on our final day was yet another playtest, this time Chain Reaction 3.0 - Swordplay. On the whole have been pretty pleased with the reaction system based games from Two Hour Wargames for modern periods and even as far back as Black Powder Battles but less happy with the only medieval rules we tried (Montjoie). But having rather a lot of 28mm pointy stick figures I was keen to see whether Swordplay might be better.

The scenario involved some Crusaders out foraging encountering some, perhaps unsurprisingly, hostile locals when trying to take their supplies. I used my 28mm Gripping Beast figures along with my desert hamlet from the Colonial Steamboat Company.

The small force of Crusaders consisted of five mounted armoured knights (Rep 5) with shields and lance along with five unarmoured warriors (Rep 3) with spears and shields. The Saracens consisted of one armoured noble (Rep 5) with sword and shield, 10 unarmoured warriors (Rep 3) with spears and shields and 5 unarmoured archers (Rep 3). The relative sizes were based on the points system from the rules. I took command of the Crusaders and Lenin the Saracens.

With the classic Two Hour Wargames Rep based initiative system my knights activated on most turns but my foot troops were a little less enthusiastic. As the knights approached the village they triggers a crisis test for the Saracen archers who opened fire (There is no equivalent of the In Sight test from the more modern CR rule sets but rather one based on approaching within 12 inches). The arrows merely bounced off my knights' armour and their reaction was to charge!

Unfortunately for the knights, access to the village was limited on their size of approach and so only one could charge through the archway (ducking theatrically to avoid being swept from horseback!) but facing two spear armed Saracens. The charge ended up with one of the Saracens becoming intimately familiar with the knight's lance but the other managed to unhorse him. This started a lengthy fight in the archway with my knight besting the Saracen warriors but meeting his match with their Noble. Even with assistance from another knight the Crusaders just couldn't get the edge over the Saracen.

Meanwhile three of the other knights became bored watching the fight but not being able to join in and went in search of another way in. They found another archway and, having dismounted, advanced into the village. Spotting the remainder of the Saracen force defending the main village gate the Crusaders charged! Fortunately for the Saracens they reacted in time and most of them turned to face off the Crusader attack. Unfortunately the unarmoured Rep 3 warriors didn't do too well against the armoured Rep 5 knights even though outnumbering them and the fight was soon over.

Eventually the Saracen Noble, after putting up a spirited resistance even though outnumbered, was overcome. The Crusaders discovered the Saracen archers cowering in a nearby building and captured them.

We thought the rules worked pretty well and will be using them again. Although for le=arger games the combat mechanism would begin to slow matters down as it works on rolling groups of d6, looking for successes and then rerolling them until one side doesn't get any.

However, it was clear that the points system wasn't a good basis for trying to balance the game. The Crusader infantry didn't actually take part at all and the Rep 5 knights were a lot more capable and hardy than the Rep 3 Saracen warriors. So we'll need to give that some thought for next time.

The rules are available as a free download from the Two Hour Wargames website.

Gaming Weekend - March 08

Lenin paid a visit this weekend and we managed to get plenty of gaming in. It might not have gone quite as planned (no change there!) but it was excellent fun none the less!

Before "discovering" the benefits of the .45 Adventure system we had tried one or two of the scenarios from the Dragon Bones supplement using Savage Worlds (another of our favourite rule sets). We decided to try them using the rules they were made for and the two games went very well. Strangely enough the results were the same as when we played using Savage Worlds!

We also gave my eBay copy of Quebec 1759 a go. It was the first of the Columbia Games block games and certainly has a pretty simple set of rules; however, the game gives you plenty of things to think about. I took command of the French and was utterly trounced by Lenin playing the British - obviously my usual dice luck had some effect but it was more down to some poor deployment on my part and a well co-ordinated two fronted attack on his! Now that I have some idea what I'm doing I'd certainly like to give it another go.

Next we improvised a Back of Beyond game using Lenin's superbly painted Copplestone figures (along with a couple of Pulp Figures) using Savage Worlds as the rules. More than anything it was a test to see if Savage Worlds could be used for a game of this type and size. Lenin has a very sizeable collection of figures for this period and we have tried a few other sets of rules but haven't been happy with them. The result was a Russian victory - having repulsed the Chinese attack on the Russian dig site - and a decision to use Savage Worlds for future games of this type.

Having majored on 28mm we swapped down to 20mm for the next game, a WW2 scenario using Nuts! A simple take the bridge and hold until reinforced for a small Para jeep mounted unit facing a unit of German engineers (who had been ordered to destroy the bridge) - with a few pesky refugees to get in the way! It was an object example of taking and holding the initiative taking the day with the Paras having it pretty much their own way (it also demonstrated the power of automatic weapons to keep people's heads down under Nuts! - the "outgunned" rules).

Our final tabletop game was another improved Savage Worlds game - this time using 28mm Gripping Beast Normans/Crusaders/El Cid figures. Having seen that Savage Worlds could handle a large 20th Century game, we really wanted to see if Savage Worlds could cope with a melee heavy scenario. We probably didn't have enough variety in the troop qualities and so melee did tend to bog down a little (but this wasn't entirely unexpected or a-historical) but overall SW proved that it could manage to cope. With properly prepared unit cards and a little more unit variety I think we're on to a winner again.

We finished the weekend off with a couple of board games - the Crimissos River (341BC) scenario for Commands and Colors: Ancients and the first two player scenario for Friedrich (The War in the West - France vs Hanover with a little help from Prussia). The C&C:A game was a pretty close run thing but finally going to Syracruse (though not by anything like the margin they enjoyed historically). Friedrich turned out to be a lot of fun with plenty of challenging decisions for both sides. The French were doing well but the Hanoverians managed to cut their supply lines; however the French recovered and went on to capture their objectives just in time. An excellent game that I can't wait to play 3 or 4 player.

I've posted a few photos from the weekend below:

Gaming Weekend - Mar 08