Snakebit at Another Saga Tournament!

    Saga Tournament at DayCon 2021 - 10 participants waging war across forests and steep hill slopes

Okay, so I see how it is. I win at Saga more than my share on our game days. Tournaments, though, it appears that I am snake-bit. I am 2-3-1 in tourneys (Cincycon 2021 and this weekend, DayCon 2021). Both tournaments started out the same way. In round 1, I make a good battle plan, execute it, and pull off a pretty good win. Then, my dice take an absolute dump. Of course, I think I was pretty much doomed from the start with this tournament. My matchups were pretty poor for my Moors. The preset terrain averaged four to five pieces of very large uneven/dangerous terrain on every board. My army's strength is its mounted arm. When I razzed the tourney director about this, he essentially laughed it off and said something to the effect of, "Screw mounted armies!"

    Round 1's Desecration scenario against Joe D's Mongols after my first move (Moors at bottom)

As long as I am making excuses, I also feel that I faced armies that were not good matchups, either. In the first round -- which was the scenario "Desecration" -- I was up against Mongols who could both outmaneuver and out-shoot me. Maneuvering and shooting is what the Moors do. I felt fortunate to pull off a win in that game. Joe D is a great player (3rd place out of 16 at Advance the Colors 2021), but admittedly had only a few games with the Mongols under his belt. I have a lot of experience with the Moors -- after the tourney I still have a 13-4-4 record with them. Plus, the dense forests and steep hills we were battling over didn't do him any favors, either. 

    Moorish noble cavalry prepare to charge into Mongol horse archers in Round 1

In addition, I won the dubious honor of being "Player 1" in all three of my games. In Desecration, I didn't get the usual jinx of only 3 Saga dice. Instead, I was not allowed to charge or shoot in my first turn. Grrreeeaatt! What do the Moors like to do? Shoot. What do you need to do to take Objective Markers in Desecration? Charge. Some people feel the creators of the scenarios are very inventive in the ways they screw Player 1. Of course, in this tournament with pre-set terrain, Player 1 got to choose which side of the terrain-heavy symmetrical board you could have as your baseline. That makes up for it, doesn't it? Doesn't it??

    Joe's khan urges his mounted heavy cavalry to charge into the Moorish javelin men

Still, I chose my side carefully, picking the one where I thought I could hide the objective markers from a direct-line, enemy mounted charge. I must have done a good job as the Mongols did not attempt a charge against enemy of them during the game. Shooting against them is worthless in this scenario from Saga's Book of Battles. I was able to move my heavy cavalry into position and end up charging and destroying two objective markers. That pretty much won me the game, as objective markers destroyed determines a cap on the number of victory points you can score for destroying enemy figures. My cap was 24 points worth, and Joe's was 10. I ended up winning 20-10. It was good to play the Mongols, though, as I am s-l-o-w-l-y painting this army for Saga, too. I had played them only once before. That appeared to be another common theme for this tournament. In my previous 58 games of Saga, I had played those three lists a grand total of three times.

    Oh, look! Another terrain-clogged terrain board...this time my least-favorite 'Claiming Territory'

Round 2 is where the wheels fell off what I thought was my finely-tuned, Moorish battle machine. The scenario was "Claiming Territory" and the clogged the tabletop again. I can now honestly say that Claiming Territory is my least favorite scenario on Book of Battles. I have played it three times and hated it three times. Why? You get no points for destroying enemy troops (or preserving your own). The only way to score points is to squat on one of the four objective markers on the board (you place two on the opponent's half of the board, they place two on your half). There is a chart that says how many points you get per turn of squatting - HEAVILY weighted in favor of bigger units. So, if you have an army that is mostly warrior foot, you're golden. This is your scenario and you should win it every time. With at least 3-4 points of warriors, you can min-max your unit sizes to outscore your opponent every turn. What's more, there is a cap on how much players can score each turn. So, once your opponent gets ahead, it becomes very difficult to catch up. Even if you manage to destroy the enemy's army in the end, it doesn't matter. They have those "banked" points. You lose.

In this game, I played Bob B's Byzantine army -- an army that I had never faced before. He deployed on top of the objective markers I placed, as he was 2nd player. I had to march up to the ones he placed. His 12-man Levy units could shoot the snot out of my troops that marched up to those markers. The Byzantine battle board has a Saga ability that lets him juice up his 6 shooting dice to 10+ dice with very little effort. Half of my army's points are in mounted hearthguard with javelins, who are only armor 4 against shooting. If I left them sitting in the open, squatting on the objective (which all have to be in open terrain), he would shoot them to pieces. Still, I had a battle plan. 

    Two participants, Joe M (left) and Bob B - whose Byzantines I faced in Round 2

However, the wheels fell off when it came to my dice. On the first turn, Bob's 12-man levy shot at my 8 warrior foot squatting on the objective in the middle of the board. He rolled 10 dice and got 7 hits (needing 4+ on 1d6). Ouch. Still, I should save 3-4 of those, right? Nope. I rolled 1 out of 7 saves (also 4+ on 1d6) and lost six of one of my warrior unit's eight figures on his first activation. 

He followed that up by charging in his warrior horse archers into the two survivors and slaughtering them. On my next turn, I went in with my hearthguard and a "Torrent of Iron" charge to take out the impertinent horse archers. I used their fatigue to raise my armor to 6 and yet the five remaining figures (I'd softened them up with shooting beforehand) still rolled three sixes. How many of those hits did I save (5+ on 1d6)? None. My dice were in a death spiral and kept getting worse. 

    Another photo from my first game against the Mongols - the "snow board" proved best for photos!

His 6-man mounted hearthguard charged my other warrior foot squatting on the other objective. We closed ranks to increase our save to 4+. He got 7 hits. We saved just one of those seven 50% chances, once again dropping from eight to two figures in one attack. Remember when I said the chart is HEAVILY weighted towards bigger units? I have one warrior unit gone, and another reduced to two warriors left to squat. My archers' ranks were being riddled by his shooting, too, despite the fact were were in solid cover. What's left to send out to squat on the objectives? My mounted javelinmen? So, I steadily fell behind on the squatting points, er "Conquest Points" as they are called.

So, maybe you're sensing my futility here. The game was over by turn 3 when I scored 0 Conquest points, and had no legitimate means to get more. I did my best to attack and destroy his units, though. I destroyed one of his 6-man hearthguard units, his warrior horse archers, and 10 of his 24 levy. Half of his force were casualties by the end of the game. Yet, he won handily, 30-something to 9 points. Saga buffs can argue all they like, but in my opinion, Claiming Territory is a stupid scenario. It simulates NOTHING. Feasting & Pillaging simulates a Raid. Old Feud simulates two rival forces intervening in a civil war. Desecration simulates destroying enemy supplies. The Crossing simulates separate contingents attempting to rejoin in the face of an enemy advance. What does this simulate? A mathematician's idea of a fun scenario?

    Close up of Joe D's newly-painted Mongols, who also struggled with the terrain and went 1-2

It is essentially possible to design your force numerically to make it next to impossible for your opponent to win. In all the games I play, I feel you should win with tactics on the tabletop -- not at the recruiting depot! That's why I avoid Warhammer-esque games where you min-max an army list to take out an opponent in two turns. Give the players the bread and butter troops and let their tabletop tactics win, I have always felt. With Saga, your army's battle board will dictate what troops you should recruit, and perhaps even unit sizes. It shouldn't be the scenario doing that, though. Not all armies are able to do that kind of unit size min-maxing that Claiming Territory requires. So, I will never use that scenario as a tourney director. And if someone suggests it in a friendly game, I'll smile and say, "pick another."

My final game was The Crossing, which features a river running from right to left across the center of the board, with a bridge in the middle. Your army is divided into two halves in opposite corners. The tourney director was able to stuff only three large pieces on this tabletop, but it would be enough to once again disadvantage mounted armies. The river itself as a fourth piece was a huge disadvantage -- foot would have been able to cross it slowly anywhere, but mounted need to use the bridge to avoid extreme penalties. I was matched up against one of the nastiest armies in Saga -- the Normans, run by Jim Randall who loves this list.

    Moorish cavalry approach the bridge, desperately hoping to reunite with its infantry screen

The problem with Normans is that they are, once again, more maneuverable than my Moors. They also have a Levy Bow unit which can shoot two feet across the 3'x4' board. I call it the Norman Levy Bow Artillery Battery. Jim parked them along the edge of a massive forest which let them cover about three quarters of the tabletop. Still, I had a plan. I would deploy my heavy cavalry and warlord together and they would use our speed and Perseverance to dash across the bridge and behind the wall of my warrior foot and levy bow. To accomplish this, I needed to roll at least one common die (three of the six faces on the die) to play Horse of the Maghreb, boosting my movement. And I would need to roll at least one Uncommon (two of the six faces) to play Perseverance. Based on how my dice rolling was going, what do you think the chances are of that happening with my three Saga dice as 1st Player? Yep, you're right. Didn't happen.

Jim shot my foot to pieces, just as Bob had done in the previous game. His double-size, 8-man mounted hearthguard unit charged in with the vicious Norman battle board abilities and destroyed all of my archers. I hammered back at him, tossing javelins with both cavalry units as they crossed the bridge. The last unit charged in and wiped out the survivors. Maybe this game would turn out all right, after all! Jim's counter-attack was devastating, though. His warlord took out my victorious mounted javelinmen and then his mounted warriors charged in and eliminated my own warlord. 

    Close up of Bob's Byzantines shooting Moors to pieces as we attempt to "out-squat" the Byzantines

At that point, I knew the game was over. I kept hammering, though. I made a mistake late in the game and forgot to block off his warlord's path to escape to the other side of the river. On his next-to-last turn, he skedaddled it across the river to join his two warrior foot units and his artillery park, who'd remained motionless all game. For the fun of it, we figured out Survival Points, and he barely edged me 18-15. Adding in his bonus points for units within Medium of his warlord, he beat me eight katrillion to 15, of course.

And so ended another frustrating Saga tournament. Another snake-bitten day of playing Saga and having wild dice swings handicap my chances. This time, we threw in unfavorable terrain and matchups, too, for the fun of it...ha, ha! But hey -- we have game days coming up later in the month. I am sure things will be back to normal and my treacherous dice will act kind to me again. If this report is a bit short on blow-by-blow details of my battles, I apologize. It is hard to keep all the details of three back-to-back games of Saga clear in my head. Plus, the pickle of figuring out the unfamiliar enemy boards and what they might throw at me across the terrain-heavy battle boards sapped the time I would normally use to take photos and document the games. Hopefully, this experience will hone my Saga skills, though. What is the famous Conan the Barbarian quote? That which doesn't kill us makes us stronger!