SAGA

[Dînadan]

So, been playing a couple of games of SAGA recently and found it an very enjoyable game. Anyone else here play, and if so, what do you think of it?

[Coën]

Not yet (nor will I anytime soon, if only because the dice and rulebook are out of stock!) but it certainly does sound interesting. Not that I've got any clue on the way it works, but simply because everybody is rather enthusiastic from what I've read!
Now starting yet another new game is probably not a good idea anyway, but what is especially tempting is the small forces needed to play.
Care to share the way it works a bit, comparison with SBG for example?

[hithero]

I do and will be working on a LOTR variant

It's nothing like SBG and although its touted as a skirmish game, it is only in the fact that you don't use many models. For example, there is no individual movement of models and all must move and fight as a unit, more like 40K I guess. The rules are simple and probably to simple, again for example, cavalry can attack a unit in a house just the same as if they were on an open plain.

[Eldarion Telcontar]

I may be starting it soon. I'm going to be selling my least used Space Marine and LotR models at Smoggycon in Middlesbrough this coming sunday. I've been told that 3rd party retailers of Gripping Beast and Wargames Factory will be be present, so hopefully I'll be able to come away with a bunch of plastic Anglo Saxons and a copy of SAGA and still make a profit.

I've watched one game in progress and it looks a lot of fun and easy to learn. As Hitherto says, its a little on the simplistic side (the rulebook is only about 50 pages I think), but it is just a first Edition. If it sells well, we can expect to see expansions and maybe a 2nd edition.

Also, check out Age of Blood 2.0. Its a FREE ruleset for Dark Age skirmishes. It includes campaign rules as well, though this is entirely from the Vikings perspective i.e. one player controls a Viking warband, raiding Anglo Saxon, Welsh, Irish, Norman etc villages for loot, and the other player controls the opponents. Its a little like Battle Companies in that you can capture loot, trade it, hire new warriors and your characters gain experience.

[Dînadan]

Not yet (nor will I anytime soon, if only because the dice and rulebook are out of stock!) but it certainly does sound interesting. Not that I've got any clue on the way it works, but simply because everybody is rather enthusiastic from what I've read!
Now starting yet another new game is probably not a good idea anyway, but what is especially tempting is the small forces needed to play.
Care to share the way it works a bit, comparison with SBG for example?

Like SBG, its one of those 'easy to learn, difficult to master' type games. The core rules are nice and simple, and the skill lies in knowing your battleboard.

At the start of your turn, your army generates SAGA dice, and the number it generates depends on the army composion (armies that are levy heavy will generate few dice, while hearthgaurd heavy armies will generate more). You then roll these dice and the scores you get effect what you can do. Each faction has it's own unique battleboard, which allows it to use faction specific actions. Each ability on the board has a 'cost' and you spend SAGA dice to activate these abilities. SAGA dice are also used to activate units (i.e. if you don't invest dice in a unit type, then that turn you can't use that unit), and what dice are needed to activate a unit are based on the unit's quality - e.g. levy only activate on the rarest scores (correspond to 4-5s and 6s on a D6), while hearthguard can be activated with any score (this reflects the fact that hearthguard are the proffessional troops and ready to fight whereas levy are joe farmer called up for millitia duty).

Unlike SBG, there's no Move Phase, Shoot Phase, Fight Phase. Instead you can just activate a unit and decide on how to use it. And you can even use the same unit multiple times (although doing so generates 'fatigue' which can be used by your opponant to reduce the units effectiveness in combat, and if a unit gains enough fatigue it can't do anything until you declare it's taing a 'rest' action). This can be very effective - in my last game, my Anglo-Dane levy pincusioned a unit of Welsh warriors, taking 8 out in three rounds of shooting in the same turn (which is ludicrously good luck because as I said before, it's hard to get levy to activate, levy can only gain fatigue twice before becoming useless, my opponant used the fatigue that the levy got for multiple actions to make it harder to wound his men, you save against shooting on a 4+, and you can only fire 1 shot for every 2 levy (rounding up) per shooting action).

One similarity that SAGA does have with SBG is that it does have a sort of 'Heroic Move' rule. In SAGA, your Warlord can call a special action when he moves which allows another nearby unit to also activate without the need to spend SAGA dice. However, unlike SBG, the hero doesn't have to 'lead' them - it's perfectly legal to send a unit off to charge the enemy front lines while the warlord legs it for the hills

Another difference with SBG and a way in which the rules are simple is that there are no complex armylists as such. Each faction is the same - you spend 1pt to get so many men, with the exact number of men depending on the quality of them; hearthguard are 4 per 1pt, warriors 8 per 1pt and levy 12 per 1pt. Once you've spent all your points, you can then split up/combine groups to form units (must be done before deployment and you can't split up/combine during play), although you can only combine groups of the same type (e.g. you can combine two groups of hearthguard, but you can't combine a group of hearthguard and a group of levy). Each faction then has special rules which effect what equipment each group has to add variety (e.g. Anglo-Dane huscarls can take Dane axes, Normans can have a unit of warriors equiped with crossbows, Welsh can take a lot of mounted men, Vikings can upgrade a unit ofhearthgaurd to Berserkers).


[quote=hithero"]I do and will be working on a LOTR variant [/quote]
Sounds interesting - would definately make a good game for Dunland/Rohan boarder skirmishes.

[Lord Hyper]

What is SAGA?

[Coën]

New skirmish game by http://grippingbeast.com/
At the moment with 4 armies: Vikings, Normans, Anglo-Danish and Welsh.

And it certainly does sound interesting..
Thanks for the writing Dînadan, reminds me a bit of eBobs 'Rebellion' rules (heroes leading a skirmishing unit of certain warriors) with plenty of randomness involved through the use of many dice.
And with a box of GB plastics (combined with a box of http://www.conquest-games.co.uk/informa ... ?info_id=1 Normans) and some archers you could probably do any army. Now if only they would also release a box of unarmoured guys.. (I am aware of WF's, but I reckon GB could do quite a bit better)

[Dînadan]

GB are supposed to be doing an unarmoured box at some point, but I'm not sure when.

In fact, it's easy enough to do an army without any archers - you have flexibility on what goes in, so you can go for a mix, but you can also go hearthgaurd hevy and have nothing but hearthguard. It's also wirht noting that you don't get any SAGA dice for levy, only for warriors, hearthguard and warlords, so you don't want to take too many levy. In the couple of 4pts games I've played, I've only taken hearthguard and warriors and done reasonably well, and at 6pts I've only taken one unit of levy and have won both games (somehow).

[Eldarion Telcontar]

Picked up a couple of boxes and blisters today, I now have a complete Dark Age Anglo Saxon skirmish army!

Gripping Beast plastic Saxon thegns (44)
Wargames Factory plastic Saxon Fyrd (32)
Anglo Danish Warlord (has a Dane axe)
4 Anglo Danish Huscarls (Dane Axes)
King Alfred the Great

Also played a demo game today, I led a Viking warband against Normans. Highlights of the game were an 8 man unit of Bondi rushing the Norman Warlord and his bodyguard of Knights before they were able to charge my flank, killing half of them (about 3) before being driven off. Another BIG unit of Knights rushed through the centre and charged my shieldwall of 8 Bondi, massacring them with only one casualty. My 4 Beserkers then charged the Knights and wiped them out - the combination of abilities and fatigue points I chose gave me 16 ATTACK DICE, wounding/hitting on 3's. Then finally, the Norman Warlord and his last bodyguard charged the beserkers, killing 2 of them instantly using Stomp (similar concept to a Mumaks trample attack). In the fight, the Normans cut down the last two beserkers, but the beserkers also killed the Warlord. Meanwhile, the Norman Infantry stay motionless for the entire game, and the archers took only potshots. The Viking Warlord and his 4 Huscarls got lost in undergrowth, one of them falling to an arrow.

Very fun game, and I picked it up quickly.

[Dînadan]

Picked up a couple of boxes and blisters today, I now have a complete Dark Age Anglo Saxon skirmish army!

Gripping Beast plastic Saxon thegns (44)
Wargames Factory plastic Saxon Fyrd (32)
Anglo Danish Warlord (has a Dane axe)
4 Anglo Danish Huscarls (Dane Axes)
King Alfred the Great

.

That's enough for a 16pts game