Saga: Vikings v. Scots v. Anglo Danes

Tonight I was supposed to be gaming. Stevo and General Ballroom were due to be faced with an unstoppable green tide of Orks.
Instead I am in bed wrestling with an unstoppable green tide of mucus as part of my post Christmas cold.

However in happier times just before Christmas the Sherwood, Hucknall and Ilkeston Team got together in the Ilko Gaming Hut for our annual Christmas game. This year we settled on SAGA and General B duly laid a snow white carpet across the hallowed gaming surface to make it look dead Cristmassy and that.

General B told us that this was the first outing for his Vikings.
So we outed them: "Ooh Ragnar I do love a hairy man with a huge chopper in his hand!" etc.

Then we played the game.
As is traditional I was the Scottish meat in a Viking and Anglo Danish sandwich.

We had all, of course, forgotten most of the rules, but it soon all came flooding back. Some of it even matched what was written in the rulebook.

Anyway it was a few weeks ago and I've had several sleeps and  Christmas since then so in place of my usual expert analysis* here's some low quality pictures with frivolous captions.

 Vikings enjoying their outing

 Dour Anglo Danes trudge toward the peaceful hamlet of Glen Tromnich

 Law abiding Scotsmen going about their business

 "Hey, pal, what yoose doin' near oor wee village?"

 Dour Anglo etc.

 "Is that a seax in your pocket or are you just pleased to see me?"

 The vikings get wood!

 Anglo Danes. Of a dour demeanour

 

 "Come on then ye wee dour sassenach bastids"

 Huscarls versus Thanes. 1-0 to the Huscarls

 The vikings head into Glen Tromnich

 Anglo Danes on top of a hill. Dourly.

 The Scottish warlord seeks strength in numbers

 Boldhal the Bloody enters the village

 

 The vikings are getting weary

 

Boldhal and Ruiseart come to blows

All in all this was splendid fun. The mechanics of SAGA are very easy and the twist of this scenario of having to place your dice before knowing who's moving first makes it entertaining.

However the long gap since any of us played meant we were spending more time looking at the boards and planning the actions than actually pushing soldiers around. To really make SAGA swing you have to play it a lot and yet it's has the feel of a quick pick-up "beer and pretzels" game. I'm not sure it's possible to quite square that circle, so having played it a lot when it first came out I'm not too inclined to play it a lot these days.

That said we had a lot of fun and it was a good way to finish off an entertaining and varied year of gaming.

Oh, and I won.

*Stop tittering at the back.