Saga Practice Game: Vikings vs. Islemen (Norse-Gaels)

My army of Islemen advance towards their Viking foes, who have invaded to contest control of the Hebrides Islands

As we hopefully inch closer to having in-person Saga game days or tournaments, Jenny wanted another tune up game with her new Viking army. We'd played one a couple weeks backs, with me using my Picts (Viking Age Scots). I offered for her to choose which army I'd play, but she deferred. I decided to give the Norse-Gaels list another try. I had played it only once before at our Saga Game Days, winning one game and losing the other (see Lord of the Isles Wages Battles Worthy of a Saga).

The armies at deployment, spread out across the board because Jenny rolled "Method C"

My list is composed of seven units, but two are never meant to see combat. I take one point of Levy Slaves and break them into two units of six. This is not a cheesy move for the additional Saga die, but for the Norse-Gael list ability for "Expendable" ability on the battleboard. With this, Heathguard, Warriors, and the Warlord can push fatigue they accrue off onto the levy. The units must be within Short distance, though, so I needed at least two to cover enough of the battlefield that they are within range of the units in combat. For the rest of they army I take 3 points of Hearthguard (broken into two units of six figures), two units of 8 Warriors armed with javelins, and the Warlord.

The opening stages of the battle, with Viking hearthguard advance in the center and through the woods against my right

My tactics were to have the hearthguard be the spearpoint of my army and use the warriors to maneuver around and throw javelins at the enemy (aided by the "Gaels!" ability). One major problem we would run into when facing the Vikings is they can counteract our strengths with their "Odin" ability (which exhausts an enemy Shooting unit) and especially "Loki" - which goes against the core design of the Norse-Gael battleboard. Loki awards the Viking player two bonus combat dice each time an enemy triggers a Saga ability in melee. The whole philosophy of the Norse-Gaels is to trigger a bunch of Saga abilities when entering combat to give them a slew of dice to roll. At best, we'd be helping them as much (or possibly even more) than we were helping ourselves! Note that we ruled that Loki would go into effect EACH time I used a bonus combat dice (that I had to use them separately, one by one). I couldn't play four combat bonus dice off my battleboard and have it "count" as one Saga Ability. Perhaps we were wrong on that.

Slaves-eye view as the Vikings come closer - thanking god for the Islemen hearthguard and warriors protecting them!

So, it was going to be a tough fight, made a little more challenging by the deployment (Method C) which spreads our units out at least one Medium distance from each other. The Slaves are supposed to keep close to the Hearthguard and Warriors, but now they'd have to chase after them. The first clash occurred in the center when one of Jenny's 6-figure Hearthguard units clashed with mine. I geared up on the bonus dice, including a rare one which raised my armor class one. Helped by that, the Islemen won the first exchange of blows. Five Vikings were slain while only three Islemen  were lost. Jenny quickly moved up her Shield Maiden unit to finish off my depleted Hearthguard. I decided to make her pay for that by loading up more dice for the matchup. This time, the Norse gods smiled upon her, and my remaining three figures were eliminated (but at the cost of four shield maidens to her).

Islemen hearthguard in the center bait the enemy to the clash, which their Viking counterparts in front of them accept

The next clash would occur near the woods that guarded my right. My warriors' javelins were ineffective against her second unit of Hearthguard. We stayed outside of their charge range, but within our throwing distance (made possible because they were in a woods). I moved up my second hearthguard unit to oppose hers, and soon they were both hewing and cutting, with the Vikings getting the upper hand this time. My unit retreated, down to three figures. On the next turn, the warriors killed one of their hearthguard with javelins, and then the Warlord charged into the finish them off.

My warlord blocks the Viking hearthguard, who go around him to charge the depleted Islemen hearthguard again

By this time, my left was finally getting ready to engage the Vikings. Opposing them was the Viking Levy Bow, the depleted Shield Maidens, and a unit of Warriors in the center within striking distance. We moved forward and used Gaels! with lots of combat bonus dice to decimate the enemy bowmen, killing half of their figures. The Viking warriors moved forward to avenge them and charged into my javelin-armed warriors. Luckily, our losses were not as bad as they could have been, and we wounded their unit deeply, too. So far, the Slaves had done a good job soaking up fatigue from their betters, and avoiding being shot at or charged.

My weary right wing after driving off the attack of the Viking hearthguard

At this point, Jenny took stock of her losses and decided to begin withdrawing her depleted units - which include all of them except her warlord. One unit of hearthguard had been destroyed, while the other was down to a single figure. Both her warrior units were down to a couple figures, and her archers were at half strength. With one unit of warriors full strength, I held a slight edge, and advanced into the center. The Vikings backed off, and retreated.

Time for the Islemen warriors on the left to join the battle!

It was a bitter struggle, but the Islemen were able to triumph and drive off the Vikings. Jenny felt it was a worse defeat than it was, in my opinion. My army was in only slightly better shape. The Slaves soaking up the fatigue helped, certainly, as well as having two full-strength combat units (warlord and warriors) ready to chew up her depleted ones. We certainly took a beating, too, though. I would not relish facing the Viking battleboard again. As suspected, Loki made things very difficult for us. It was only on subsequent turns after it was used that I could truly load up on combat dice and utilize the Norse-Gaels' typical tactics.

And the warriors answer the call, their flurry of javelins whittling the Viking archers down to half their number