SAGA at the White Hart

I popped along to the White Hart last night to join in the SAGA shenanigans that James had organised.
I was a bit late as I first had to man the barricades at school to oppose the adoption of Academy status (and the continued dismantling of our excellent state education service in pursuit of a neo-con agenda). I was as successful in that endeavour as I am in my wargaming.

Anyway I arrived to find six SAGA tables laid out with lovely scenery and a bunch of games in progress. There was also the usual mix of Napoleonic and Darkest Africa gaming under way as well. And even some Warhammer Fantasy World War Two (or FoW as you may refer to it).

A table came free and I settled in to play against Georgi (apologies if I've got the name wrong) who was on only his second game using Normans that he'd borrowed form WI editor Dan. What with it being roasting hot, helping Georgi with the rules and continually knocking my battleboard flying I forgot to take many pictures. Which, given how I played is perhaps just as well...

We join the battle just as my newly painted Huscarls launch themselves at an already exhausted unit of Serjeants. Eight Dane Axe attacks! Seven wounds!

Six saves.

Six. Saves.

In return with four attacks they killed a huscarl and forced them to retreat in ignominy.

Once more the truism about newly painted models performing badly was shown to full effect.

 Georgi used the knight effectively, making careful use of the Pursuit ability to keep them out of range of my troops.

 My Ceorls did a good job of holding up supporting serjeants and levies.

However the unkillable serjeants, despite being continually exhausted managed to repel frequent attacks and at the end of the game a single model remained alive.

At the end of six turns both our warlords remained unharmed, but the Normans had clearly taken a greater toll on the Saxons, so a win for Georgi.

It was a fun game, and after my recent game with Scrivs I think I made better use of the SAGA board, and kept the Normans pinned and struggling with clever use of fatigue. However I did have truly terrible dice (and Georgi some rather good ones) meaning my carefully laid plans often came to naught.

I then took a couple of pictures of a pair of other games

James' Welsh against John's Vikings

Historians believe that this was a result of a Welsh warband coming across a Viking holiday cottage.

And some Saxon on Viking action

It was a good evening with a dozen or so players getting in two or three games each. There was talk of doing it again, or even possibly a SAGA Saturday campaign afternoon at the pub.