Moors Overcome Clever Roman General's Trap in Hard-fought Battle of Heroes

    My Moorish spearmen close ranks atop a hill, ready for an enemy charge

I was lucky and got a chance to play two rounds of games with my Moors at our first "reboot" of our monthly Saga game days at the Guardtower East in Columbus, OH. My first matchup was against Jason Stelzer, who I have tagged as the "Next Generation," He and his cousins Daniel and Thomas are all in their late 20s, compared to many of the rest of us in our 50s or 60s! Jason has tried a number of armies over the year-plus that we have been playing Saga, locally. Lately, he's decided to stick with his Roman warband from Age of Invasions, and has steadily improved with them in both skill and craftiness.

    My Moorish lines deployed in this Battle of Heroes against Romans from Age of Invasions

He wanted to play Battle of Heroes in the "Chaos" version, which gave me a chance to whip out my cards for that scenario that I had downloaded from the Studio Tomahawk website. I had Jason randomly draw one from each of the five piles covering Scenery, Deployment, Game Length, Special Rule, and Victory Conditions. He drew Uplands, so I chose tucked the requisite rocky ground in my corner, then placed  a large gentle hill  in the center to give some open ground for my Moorish cavalry. Jason chose a forest, which he placed in the left center, and a ruins piece on the right flank. He was attempting to cut down on my maneuver room and give his infantry cover from my missile fire.

    Jason's Romans deploy in a tight mass, ready to react to the maneuvers of the faster Moors

After we had placed our terrain, I used the "Meeting Encounter" deployment to essentially rotate the board 90 degrees. I selected my deployment spot as the short edge on my left, which would contain both the rocky area and ruins, denying him that cover. He chose the short edge opposite, which gave him the woods to guard most of his right flank. I deployed half of my army first. I placed my levy archers in the rocky ground, flanked on either side in the open by a unit of warrior spearmen. Jason placed his Romans in a compact mass with the woods guarding their right and the large hill to their front.

    Moorish cavalry's opening gambit - darting along the left flank towards the waiting enemy

Jason had drawn "Cautious" for our game length, meaning it would last only five turns. "A Good Day to Die" meant there were no special rules, and "Show of Force" would grant 3 bonus points to a player who got a unit of 4+ to within Medium of the opponent's board edge. Players would also receive 1 bonus point for each melee that they won. As it turned out, those bonus points became HUGE, and would be the key to me sneaking victory out of this closely-fought game.

    A dozen javelins tossed & only one Roman cavalry trooper has fallen. Time to charge?

I opened the game moving all of my troops with Maneuver, as we were way more than one Long distance away from each other. The infantry moved forward, drifting to the right to seize the hill as a vantage point to shoot at the advancing Romans. My two units of Moorish cavalry (6-man mounted hearthguards with javelins) galloped ahead along the left flank. Their goal would be to find Romans to rain down javelin fire upon, and then withdraw out of their charge range. On his first turn, Jason's foot levy spear and one of his warrior units began a cautious advance forward. The rest of the army moved to their right. One warrior unit entered the woods, with his big, 8-man foot hearthguard elite legionary unit close on its heels. His small mounted hearthguard cavalry unit guarded the gap between the woods and his base edge.

    One unit of Moorish cavalry is frozen out of place, victim of hubris and a clever Roman gambit

Little did I know that clever Jason had actually put them there as bait, not to guard the gap. I took the bait and sent both of my cavalry units forward to hurl javelins at the Roman cavalry. I thought I had a decent chance of eliminating them with javelins alone, since their armor vs. missile fire was only a 4. Unfortunately, 12 attack dice later, I had killed only one trooper. No biggie, I thought. I had my deadliest battle board ability, Torrent of Iron queued up. I activated it, and for the first time, actually used the missile attack option prior to the charge. 

    The Moorish bows finally have the Roman infantry in their sights, prompting the legions to charge

As Short Round warned Indiana Jones, "Big Mistake, Indy!" Although this second shot caused a fatigue, I was sure Jason would use it to affect the ensuing melee. My shot was twice as effective as previously, and only one Roman remained when we crashed into them. I immediately used the fatigue my charge generated on his unit (a key component of Torrent of Iron) to raise my armor to 5. Clever Jason chose NOT to use my fatigue, which meant that I had two fatigue at the end of the melee. I had lost no casualties and his unit was eliminated. Things were off to a great start, or so I thought. When I played "Perseverance" to pull back both cavalry, he cancelled the activation of my victorious unit. Uh-oh. This would leave them within easy range of his elite legionary unit.

    Moorish infantry is victorious! Archers repulse the Roman levy and warriors beat their counterparts

Jason rolled his Saga dice and loaded up his battle board for the kill. The 8-man hearthguard unit crashed into my 6-man mounted unit. Although we were both fresh with no fatigue, he had a full battle board of offensive abilities. He also loaded up on defensive abilities, as he knew he'd be facing 12 dice in return. His legionaries cut down all but one of my troopers, while losing none of his own. In all my games playing my Moors, I honestly think this was my cavalry's greatest defeat in a melee!

On the next turn, I tried to exact some revenge with shooting attacks on the battle-fatigued legionaries. My attack rolls were poor and his save rolls were above average. Nine attack dice caused zero casualties on the Romans again. I pulled my full strength and remnant cavalry back to mid-board. At least I was ahead on victory points with the 3 point bonus for coming within Medium of his base edge! We reasoned, correctly or not I am not sure, that our "base edge" for the Show of Force rules was the edge we deployed near.

    Archers and mounted javelinmen poured fire into the Romans, who simply would not fall!

After a furious beginning, the game set into a lull in the middle turns. I slowly advanced my levy and spear, trying to get a shot at his warriors. He kept them screened either by the hill or the 12-man levy spear unit. It wasn't until we advanced up the hill, that Jason became more aggressive. I had queued up my loan defensive ability, Forest of Spears, to protect the infantry. The levy were going to rely on their numbers to save them, I figured. Jason charged in, levy spear vs. my levy archers and 8-man spear unit against my spearmen. To both of our surprise, my archers hurled back his levies. Not to my surprise, my warriors, who had closed ranks and played Forest of Spears, took no casualties from his charge. The fact that the Roman warriors took 3 casualties WAS a big surprise. 

In addition to the casualties, this helped me with the bonus points for winning melees. In addition, Show of Force uses Survival Points for victory conditions. That means bonus points for units that are large enough to still generate a Saga die. That gave me an objective for my fifth and final turn: bring the warriors down to 3 or less. I needed to kill two Romans, and had my cavalry's javelins and my levy's arrows to do it with. Three attacks later, Jason had saved every hit. I pulled my troopers back behind my lines in disgust. Our point lead would have to be enough to survive whatever he gained on his last turn.

    The situation at the end of a close, hard-fought battle: Moors hung on to a 1-point victory!

He brought forward his elite legionaries to charge my spearmen who had shrugged off the warrior's charge. We closed ranks and played Forest of Spears, again. However, 16 dice is a lot harder to weather than 8 attack dice. With the offensive abilities the Romans have on their board, he killed all but one of the spearmen, who gladly retreated to the warlord's side -- happy to be alive. His invulnerable legionaries took no casualties. Jason followed that up with a charge by the arrow-proof warriors against my archers. This time, luck was more on his side and he brought them down to 6 figures -- which luckily, meant they'd still give me the bonus victory point for generating a Saga dice. Once again, Jason took no casualties.

This was going to be close. My continued failures at missile fire and his late success was going to make this a nail-biter. We counted up the points and were dead even until we got to the last line, where the player subtracts one point for each completely eliminated unit. I still had all six of my units, but his Roman cavalry, the "bait," had been destroyed to a man. That single point gave my Moors the game. Battle of Heroes is not one of the scenarios that require a 3-point margin, like Clash of Warlords, so we s-q-u-e-a-k-e-d out this victory.

    Majik Ibn Battuta al-Waqaa and his pet cheetah Scirocco narrowly escape defeat by the Romans

Initially, I felt I got very lucky to win this game. Later, when I recounted all my shooting woes, I think the dice balanced themselves out. Still, I learned a lesson this game. Think through all possible outcomes before committing my cavalry to melee. With an Armor of 4, they are simply too vulnerable to counterattack. I love my gallop forward, hurl javelins, then pull them back with Perseverance tactic. I like how Torrent of Iron means they can charge and deal death in melee just as easily. However, my hubris in this game at their ability to escape retribution nearly cost me the victory. Jason played an excellent game, and I look forward to matching up against him again in future Saga clashes!

Note: I will cover my second round game with Thomas in another blog entry.