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Much earlier than I expected, I got a chance to command a Mongol army in Saga recently!
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Part of the reason that I chose to paint up a Mongol army and play it in Saga was because I felt it would be a difficult challenge. An all-mounted army is going to face serious issues on a tabletop battle board that includes significant amounts of terrain. In a standard "Clash of Warlords" game, the opponent will be able to place at least three pieces of terrain. They can also likely make them large and either "Uneven" or "Dangerous" terrain, which disadvantage mounted troops. On top of that, the composite bow (which more than half of my troops will use) is not exactly a world-beater in Saga. So, I was expecting some losses early on in my games.
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My own miniature Mongols have 21 completed of the 40+ figures I need to paint
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Since I was less than halfway through the painting of my Mongol army, I figured the challenge was still a a ways off. Much to my surprise, it actually occurred on my birthday last month (Feb. 21). Graham of Graham's Wargame Vault invited me to play a game against him on Zoom. He's in the U.K., and I had interviewed him recently for
Saga Ohio about one of his favorite armies, the
Norse-Gaels. We had talked about doing a Zoom game then, and he reached out to me a few weeks ago to set it up. We picked Monday, Feb. 21, which I had off from school for President's Day.
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A screenshot of Graham's and my deployment from his YouTube video (Mongols at top)
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Joining Graham was his friend and boon Saga companion Wayne. He would roll my dice, move my troops, and offer tactical advice. The banter between Wayne and Graham in their YouTube recordings of their games always keeps me chuckling, so I was looking forward to joining in the razzing back and forth. They both have a great sense of humor, so I was sure it would be a lot of fun.
The game lived up to my expectations on all levels. Controlling the Mongols was difficult. There are so many "moving parts" with learning a new army's battle board. The advanced Saga abilities interact in many unique ways and even simply the sequencing of which abilities you want to use when and in what order can take awhile to master. So much more so in my first game! I did have the advantage of recently interviewing Chicago Saga player Terry Doner about his Mongols, and we had talked about this sequencing quite a bit in my podcast. In addition, I had the challenge of seeing the board in two dimensions on a laptop screen. I know I asked Wayne a number of times to measure things for me during our game.
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Graham sets up a tray so that viewers can watch the dice rolls and cheer or groan along with him
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The game was a blast, of course, with groans and cheers for the die rolls. Graham's rolling started out hot but was eclipsed partway through by Wayne's run of a number of great rolls. There was a turning point when a 4-man unit of Graham's Baltic crusader mounted hearthguard charged a unit of my mounted warriors. Wayne saved above average against their attacks then proceeded to kill 3 of the 4 on my counter-strike. From that point on, Genghis Mike and Kettle Drummer Wayne took over the battle. We even eschewed my final turn of the game, as it was obvious the Mongols were going to come out on top.
Apparently, Graham enjoyed the banter and tactical discussion enough to not edit it down to fit one episode. He uploaded our game in two parts. I encourage everyone to check it out. Graham does a nice job on his YouTube uploads of his Saga games. See if you can spot when the momentum shifted in my favor! Thanks Graham and Wayne for a great birthday present of the transatlantic Saga game!!
Here are the links to watch the game:
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