SAGA Battle Report Moors (Umayyads) versus Normans

At the recent OMG club day I played a game of SAGA with my Moors in the form of the Umayyad list from the Old Friends, New Enemies list in the Age of Vikings book. I was playing against John Cowen's Normans.

I should probably start with an apology as when I looked up the spelling of Umayyad in the rulebook, I realized that I was not allowed to take the Crossbow unit as all levy needs to be equipped with bow (I had my doubts when I put my list together since they are Spanish mercenaries and don't really make sense for the time of the Umayyads but I wanted to do an all foot force so pushed ahead anyway)

As I was packing up to go to the club Canada Post dropped of a package with my new Mats by Mars 3X4 mat that I had bought especially for SAGA. Naturally, I brought that along with me. I am quite pleased with it, the price was good and it seems durable and it rolls up again neatly and it is lightweight. My only real complaint is that it is a bit glossy -- though not as much in person as it seems in the photos.

John got to pick the terrain and put down the 4 forests that I had out on the table -- A bit of disappointment since I had made all the different terrain pieces (and it turns out, not actually allowed under the rules since they permit 3 woods one of which can be large -- I can't imagine this really having any affect on the game)

We got the pincer setup where we each setup half our force in one of our corners and can set up right at the halfway line on the table. It was also a night game which meant if any unit started a turn more than S from a friendly unit it would gain a fatigue

I got the first turn and even though I was restricted to 3 dice I made good use of the Perserverance ability to shoot both my bow and crossbow at the Norman Knights killing a few figures and to charge my foot Hearthguard into the Norman crossbow killing all but one of them.

On the Norman turn the knights charged my crossbow unit but only managed to kill 7 of the Levy (enough that they lose their SAGA dice but leaving enough to still be a bit of a threat) and managed to kill another knight. A Norman foot warrior charged my Hearthguard and were driven back but we both took some losses.

The following turn I used the Discord ability to add some fatigue to the Knights and the Norman Warlord. The Bow then shot them using the Wholehearted ability (which gives me 2 extra attack dice for each fatigue) and got lucky and wiped them out (adding another fatigue to the warlord). The remaining crossbow fired at the Warlord and due to all his fatigue he was killed as well.

 Another attack on my Hearthguard by Norman warriors was set back running but I was down to just one figure in the unit now. Continued use of Discord had most of the remaining Normans exhausted or close to it and the Hearthguard wiped out a warrior unit (dieing himself in the process).

There were a few more fights but by this point it was obviously going to be a Moorish victory.

I had some good luck and John wasn't as familiar with the Norman board as I was with the Moorish one. I do think that with the Perserverance ability it makes sense to make the Moors mostly foot or mostly mounted rather than the more even split I have used in the past. I will have to try a mostly mounted force next time.

Saga: Moors vs Rus

So Mike was over this weekend and we played a game of Saga and then we had a game of Frostrgrave. This is the battle report of the Saga game.

We played a 7 point game so that I could use the Moorish army that I have been painting up. I had bin Yusuf, a hearthguard unit of 8 African Horse, a hearthguard unit of 8 Black Guard and a warrior unit of 8 mounted on camels. I did have an Imam painted as well but I felt I already had enough special rules to deal with this time around.

Mike had a Rus army (I think it was Christian Rus rather than Pagan Rus, but really, they are all infidels anyway!).  He had a unit of 8 mounted hearthguard (much like the Black Guard, they cost an extra point and have several special powers), a unit of 12 Levy bow and 2 units of 12 Warriors. We decided to play the river crossing scenario from the original Saga book.

My plan, such as it was, was to have the Black Guard move on to the right ford and have the mounted units sweep across the left ford and crush all in their path.

I started out sensibly by moving slowly up and using some of my board abilities to slow down the Rus.

The Rus were also being sedate in their advance.

By the second or third turn my instinct to immediately get stuck in took over and the Black Guard crossed over the ford with Ben Yusuf.

And the horsemen charged across the ford into the Rus horse (who had killed one of my horse on the previous turn with bow fire). It was at this point that I realized that several of the battle board abilities I was counting on for this attack wouldn't work because they are armed with javelins and the abilities specify that they only work for troops not armed with missile weapons.

My horse were forced back with great loss and managed to inflict no damage on the Rus

The remains of my horse were wiped on the following Rus turn (they weren't so keen to attack the Black Guard though...)

The Black Guard smashed into the Rus warriors driving them back over the hill but they did lose a stand to the levy bow on the hill.

The Rus began to move towards the left ford with only the camels between them and victory.

The Black Guard finished off the warriors and faced off against the levy bow.

The camels charged across the river into the mounted Rus and just disappeared in a mist of tawny fur and blood. I had hoped to do a bit better here due to the penalty of horse fighting camel but it was not to be.

The Rus crossed over the river and the hearthguard took a few bow shots at the Black Guard to no effect.

At the end of the game the Black Guard had not quite wiped out the bow. The Rus won handily with what they had crossed the river with.

I was reasonably happy with how things went given that it was my first time playing with this force. I really didn't take much advantage of Ben Yusuf's special abilities and I think that having 2 big hearthguard units (especially when one costs an extra point) is not really a good strategy (but this list was based on what I had just painted and wanted to play with). I think the next time I play with them I will not take Ben Yusuf but just the Black Guard with foot warriors and maybe levy bow or one unit of mounted warriors. The other way to go is to go with Ben Yusuf and a mostly mounted force and use the abilities to slow down the enemy and then pick of units at the edge.

I have now played with all 3 of the Islamic armies from Crescent and Cross and I like them all, the Moors might be my favourite but they are all close. For the next few games, I want to use more foot (some of which is still being painted but I should be able to finish them off over Christmas) and also try out the 3 varieties of Cleric. I do want to just stick with these three armies to try and learn them a bit better (sticking to one would be better but I don't think I can limit my self to that).

This was the first time I had played at 7 points and I think it worked ok because we had both taken special units or figures. I don't think that there would be much point in going to an even larger point value (though maybe will will try and find the upper limit in the future...)

We also talked about using Lion Rampant with these figures to run a Crusades game at Cangames. I have since read some reviews and it seems it would work well for that .  I will probably get the Kindle version and read it over the holidays.

The State of the Moors

This is the follow on to my post from earlier in the weekend about painting my Moors.

So it didn't turn out to be the non-stop painting marathon I imagined on Friday evening but I got a good few hours in and it is the longest stretch of painting I have done since the summer.

Priming the hoses in light grey and then painting the horse dark grey and bringing it back up to white seems a bit of a waste of time but I think it does give some depth. I am hoping it will look pretty good once the rider and all the tack get painted.

I picked at everything else so they move forward a little bit.

Most importantly, I enjoyed the painting and I am looking forward to getting more done on these guys through the week.

Yusuf ibn Tashin and his merry band of Moors (The Beginning)

I was sure there was another faction that could take the camels and looking through the Crusade and Crescent book I discovered this was the case!

If the Moors take Ben Yousef (Yusuf ibn Tashin) as their Warlord they can do all sorts of interesting things:  They can dismount up to 8 Hearthguard as the Black Guard, they can declare up to 8 Hearthguard as Senegalese on white horses and they can exchange up to 8 mounted warriors for 8 Tuareg on Camels.

As luck would have it, I have 8 camels from my Mutatawwi'a force (though I think the Tuaregs would have less ornate harnesses and would probably be less colourful). I also have some Black Guard that are partly painted from when Ed and I were planning to do an El Cid campaign (originally for WAB and then Hail Caesar) that kept getting pushed aside. From the same project I also have a figure for Yusuf himself partly painted (and currently sharing a base with an Imam who will also come in handy for Saga. I have 4 Hearthguard cavalry from the Mutatawwi'a box and 4 from the Moors box so it looks like I am ready to go.

In an effort to provide some accountability I will post the state of the Warband now and then see how much I can get done in a weekend!

There are 4 Black Guard that are pretty much done so I only need to finish up another 4. Yusuf and the Imam need to be rebased individually and have some details done. (The remaining Black Guard will have to wait a little longer)

The Cavalry has the furthest to go (the ones in front don't even have the riders glued on yet)

The camels need detail work and shading (and everybody needs basing work done).

The first step is to find some spears for the Black Guard...

Stay tuned for more postings (or a shameful silence...)