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..."

Saxon Priest

Painted this fella up.
He was the last one left from the Musketeer Wiglera, Priest and Scop pack.
I've based him to match my Saxons - though as they're avowedly pagan I probably should have based him to match my Late Romans as that way he might see some action at some point...

Lovely model, nice and easy to paint and very characterful face.
Looks like Bill has just finished a few more models...must...resist...

That's a Relief!

Finally got my Dux in a row!

Rim Shot

Another Hail Arthur Game

James and I got together at the White Hart for a game of Hail Caesar set in the "Age of Arthur" with Saxons battling Britons. Back in February we played a huge game that will feature in issue 300 of Wargames Illustrated. We are re-staging the game at Partizan on the 2nd September (please come along and chat) so we needed a warm-up to remind ourselves of the rules. Although Scrivs was in the same room (playing with Napoleonic boats!) James and I agreed we would limit ourselves to a single "phone a friend" option to ask him how the rules worked - the point of this game was for me and James to regain a flimsy hold over how HC works! In the end we managed without asking Scrivs, or anyone else, the rules, though we did spend a lot of time early on flicking back and forth through the book.

The scenario was that Aethelfrith and his Saxons had occupied a defensive position round an ancient standing stone on top of a hill, and the attacking Welsh needed to dislodge them.
I was using the Saxons (mine plus James' and some from the Gripping Beast collection)  and had three commands:
Aethelfrith
3 Spearmen
1 Hearthguard
1 Hearthguard cavalry
1 Skirmishers

Aethelfric
3 Spearmen
1 Hearthguard
2 Skirmishers

Osferth
3 Spearmen
1 Hearthguard
1 Skirmishers

I deployed with Aethelfrith on the right of the with his flank secured on some woods, Aethelfric occupied the left of the hill and Osferth drew up his men off the hill on my left flank

James deployed a command of light cavalry and noble cavalry with skirmishers on each flank and two commands in the centre, one hearthguard and light cavalry commanded by his general and one mixed command of spearmen and cavalry.
All the commanders were leadership 8 with the exception of the Welsh general who was 9.
Most of the welsh cavalry had the marksman skill, the Saxon foot were all impetuous, meaning they had to pass a Ld test to not charge if enemy were within 6". The Welsh spear brigade was Reluctant.
Finally I drew a couple of cards for my sub commanders, giving them some suitably Saxon character traits. Osbert and his command were fired up with Mead and so would charge anything in range on initiative and Aethefric was Reluctant and old, so would only have two attacks in combat and his troops would not move on command roles equal to his Ld.
With that we were off!

Saxons on the hill

All that a Saxon holds dear. A phallic stone, some beer and a dead horse. Worth fighting for I'm sure you agree.

The Welsh

James pushed most of his men forward to the treeline in the centre of the board, though his right flank refused to move. Inevitably skirmishing horsemen pressed forward and unloaded sharp implements into the Saxons faces.

Have some of THAT!

Largely I responded by standing on the hill and asking my skirmishers to lob stuff back.

White shielded Welshmen on the prowl.

However the drunken fool Osferth defied my cunning plan and was lured into attacking the Pictish horsemen in front of him. Surging forward chanting drunkenly they were inevitably counter-charged.

"C'mon you basterdsh I fight the lottavyez!"

Fortunately my left flank held, though there were plentiful shaken units on both sides. Despite the clear danger, Osferth kept right on charging!
Over on the right Aethelfric tried to send his cavalry to see of the light horse but his powers of command were weak.

Meanwhile, back on the Welsh right the Noble cavalry were still refusing to budge, even when their leader joined them and tried a follow me order (James rolled a succession of 9's, 10's and 11's for this brigade).

Eventually, tired of shilly-shallying the Welsh commander ordered a general assault on the hill. At first this went in my favour as the uphill advantage meant the first units of Welsh cavalry were thrown back.

Eventually however the Welsh general threw himself and his commitatus unit at the centre of the Saxon line and punched through to take the heights of the hill.

Despite this cutting the heart out of the Saxon line Aethelfric was able to fling a battered but potent unit of Gedrith around and take revenge on the Welsh general, wiping out his horsemen and killing the general at the same time!
However it was to no avail. The Gedrith were themselves wiped out in the following turn breaking Aethefric's command, and Osferth's drunkenness finally caught up with him as his command was broken too.
With two of my three commands broken the game was up and Aethelfrith conceded the field to his foes.

It was a great game. Took us a while to get going as we flicked back and forth through the rules, but soon speeded up as it all came flooding back. We started in a room full of people, but by the time we finished we were the only two left in the pub!
All-in-all a great evening. The models looked lovely and it's always a good game against James.
I'm really looking forward to Partizan now. Please do come and say hello if you're going.