SAGA Feast for Crows

The bell was ringing persistently from the church, it's peals echoing around the valley. Getwin Weffanson urged his men on. "That damned Carretier again! Will he never leave us in peace?"
As they ran toward the sound of the bells a small figure suddenly appeared from the bushes at the side of the road.
"My Lord!" the boy called out "Raiders, they're coming toward the village"
"We know lad!" roared the warlord, "Damned Normans again - we'll soon see them off!"
"No my Lord, they're coming from the sea, in huge monster prowed ships!"
Weffanson paused for a moment, staring hard at the young figure before him. Then, gripping his dane axe with both hands he once more called forth his men. 
"Vikings, lads, wolves of the sea - we'll send them and Charretier back where they came from!"


Last night John, Scrivs and myself got together at Maelstrom for a game of SAGA. We were hoping for a fourth player but he didn't make it, so for variety we thought we'd try out the Feast for Crows scenario from the back of the book.
We were all using four point warbands, I was taking my Saxons, Scrivs had Vikings and John had his usual Normans.
I deployed in the bottom left of the board, the Normans in the bottom right and Scrivs took the top right corner, leaving top left empty. A large village occupied the centre right of the board, with broken woodland on the left hand side.

The action was fast and furious, and I forgot to take lots of pictures, but a few follow.

 The Norman deployment

 The Vikings

 Getwin's Saxons

 The village 

 Jarl Scrivs urges his hersir forward

 The Saxons take to the woods

 Beastly crossbows

 The hird surge forward...

 ...whilst the Thegns skirt the wood

 Normans and norse close on each other by the village

 Twaaaangg!

 Onward by Thor's beard!

 If we stay very still no-one will notice

 Birdseye view of the board

 Vikings and Normans clash

 Twaaanggg again!

 Nearer, ever nearer, creep the hairy plunderers

 Chargez Vous!

 Form shieldwall!!!!

 Come on then!

Ouch!

The initial turns saw steady advances across most of the board. I sent my Ceorls forward to face the Normans whilst my thegns moved around the wood to meet the Vikings. Over on the right a single unit of Bondi pushed toward the Norman lines where they were met by a unit of serjeants and the Norman warlord. Scrivs proceeded to demonstrate the offensive power of the Viking board by killing all the Normans (including Jean himself!) sent against him, though sacrificing the Bondi in the process. Meanwhile the crossbows were taking a steady toll on my Ceorls as I threw the wrong dice to move them forward.

In the centre of the board the Vikings faced off against the Saxon hearthguards, before some hirdmen finally broke ranks and mauled some thegns. Getwin launched himself and the remaining thegns at the norse lines but again the offensive power of the Viking board saw Getwin isolated and Jarl Scrivs and his bodyguard moved up and cut him down.

Meanwhile the Norman knights finished the work started by their crossbowmen and all but one of Getwin's Ceorls found themselves in Jean's Dead Pile. Skillful (I use the term loosely) use of Exhaustion meant I was able to claim the last knights for myself, but I was running out of bodies and my opponents were racking up the kills.

The final turn saw the power of the Norman crossbows turned against Jarl Scrivs men whilst the vikings wiped out my last remaining thegns.

In the count-up of casualties I was a clear loser, amassing a mere 16, however the late surge by the Vikings, taking out my more valuable troops meant that Jarl Scrivs and Jean Charretier were tied on 26 casualties apiece!

This scenario was great fun and gave an exciting game. None of us had played it before and the random order combined with allocating dice before you know when you'll be acting makes for an exciting game. As usual Scrivs displayed better mastery of his SAGA board, using Viking hit and run tactics to good effect. Poor deployment and some unlucky SAGA dice rolls meant my attack never really materialised and I was always on the defensive.

On the other hand, seeing how many attack dice the Vikings get mean I'm more enthused to finish mine off!


As the light began to dim Scand peered from beneath the pile of wood and leaves where he had cowered since fleeing the Norman knights. Over in the distance, illuiminated by the burning village he could make out Norsemen leading captives back to their boats whilst Normans withdrew in the opposite direction, heaving valuable supplies from the burning buildings. Not far from the fringes of the wood Scand could see the corpse of Getwin Weffanson, surrounded by the bodies of his thegns and slaughtered vikings. Sprinting from cover he crouched over the body of his lord and began to pull at one of his rings, thinking to take it back to his village as sad evidence of Weffansons demise.
"Get off my bloody finger you theiving little git!" roared the Warlord. "Help me back to my feet, this isn't over yet..."