First Game of Epic Saga!

    Normans, Vikings & Romans clash in our first-ever game of Epic Saga at our game days

We had 13 Saga players invade the Guardtower East on the anniversary of D-Day in Columbus, Ohio. Six of those players were involved in a colossal clash in our first game of "Epic Saga" -- three armies per side. Andy S headed up a faction composed of two Norman warbands and one Roman, while Mike S took charge of a coalition of three Viking armies. Andy explained the way "big battle" Saga worked and then each side deployed, with Andy's Normans facing Joe M's Vikings, Dave E's Romans in the center holding off Daniel M's Norse, and Jason S's Normans taking on his Dad's Vikings.

    Dave (red) checks the range to Daniel's advancing Vikings, while Jason watches the slaughter begin

The Norman players decided to hang back and make the Vikings come across the field to them. What with their Volley ability allowing shooting out to two longs (24"), and the Roman's manuballista, they hoped to take out as many Vikings as possible before the two battlelines closed. The Vikings were more than willing and were soon streaming towards their foes all across the table. A spoiling charge on the Norman left by Jason's Normans shattered his father's Viking command, though. This demoralized the first Viking command. The Vikings struck back, though. Joe's newly-painted Vikings slammed into Andy's Normans and broke his command, too.

    Joe's newly-painted Vikings charge Andy's Normans and would eventually break his command

With each side wounded, the two traded blows for nearly four hours of game time. Both sides began to be whittled down. Victory or defeat would come down to which commander failed his roll first and became demoralized from the losses. Eventually, a counter-strike by Dave's Romans was enough to kill enough Vikings to break Daniel's command. It was a long, bloody slog that all six players said was tense and enjoyable. They had fun with the new rules and new abilities that Epic Saga gives players. 

    All six players said they really enjoyed Epic Saga - lots of new abilities to use and tactics to try

One feature that they all enjoyed was for allied commands to be able to leave dice on a shared battle board to boost the potency of an allied player. The Vikings could utilize this the easiest, of course, with all three commands sharing the same board. The Normans had one Roman ally command that hampered their ability to cooperate more fully, but that did not hold them back from victory in the end. The increased playing time for a game of Epic Saga will limit how often we can do it, of course. Essentially, while one player is taking his turn, the other five players are all watching. They can react with Activation/Reaction abilities and roll dice in combat, of course. However, the sequential nature of play means games will take significantly longer than standard 1-on-1 games. All enjoyed it, though. So, I am sure we will see more games of Epic Saga at future meetings!

    Tom send his Welsh cavalry on a flanking action in his first game of Saga against Jenny's Vikings

We also introduced a new player to Saga. Tom G was able to attend and borrowed my Welsh army. Jenny T patiently put him through the paces of playing a game of Saga against her Vikings. The two traded blows throughout the game in a close struggle of Clash of Warlords. Hesitant at first two use his troop's javelins ability, he caught on as the game went on and became an enthusiastic user of them as the game progressed. He learned to fear the "Odin" anti-shooting ability of the Vikings battle board, though. An unwise shooting activation left his warlord exhausted. Jenny made him pay and charged in and slew the warlord. Still, Tom kept fighting to a bitter draw, being ahead 15-13 in points at the close of the game. He said he really enjoyed the system, and would be back for more Saga action.

    Jim B (left) coaches Shane on his return to Saga in a matchup of against Vikings vs. Byzantines

Meanwhile, another new player was getting in a couple games. A former player of Saga Version 1, Shane was finally able to attend one of our game days. He brought his Byzantine army, and bolstered by some figures from my loaner armies, was able to field six points of troops. In his first game, he was arrayed against Adrian J's Pagan Rus in the "Desecration" scenario from Book of Battles. He quickly learned the frustration of facing the Pagan Rus abilities on their potent battle board.  Adrian narrowly edged out a victory against the equally deadly Byzantine battle board, 10-7.

    Shane's Byzantines close in on Adrian's elusive and frustrating Pagan Rus from the far cold north

In Shane's second match, he played Jim B's Vikings in Clash of Warlords. The two were trading blows back and forth until Jim decided to unleash the Ragnorak ability on his battle board. This ended up being a bad call, as the Byzantines could withstand the ensuing big losses in troops with their levy and warrior-heavy warband. Jim's army of mostly hearthguard could ill afford to suffer huge losses. He ended up losing his 8-man hearthguard strike force on that turn. His warlord bravely charged in and tried to remedy his mistake. He survived numerous shots and melees, but was unable to pull out victory. Shane won comfortably, 20-10.

    Jenny's Vikings slowly herd Adrian's Normans who (evaded away all game) to the table's far side

Meanwhile, Jenny and Adrian were each getting in a second round of games. They rolled up the various special rules for Battle of Heroes in their matchup of Normans vs. Vikings. However, their game in no way mirrored the slaughter going on in the Epic Saga game two tables away. Jenny cagily deployed the terrain to limit the maneuver room of the mostly-mounted Normans. She advanced steadily across the table, hoping to force them into battle. However, Adrian's Normans danced away in response to every Viking advance. He refused to commit his forces to battle. In the end, only four Norman levy and two Viking hearthguard died. However, due to the victory conditions this gave Adrian a 3-2 victory in likely our lowest scoring game of Saga ever!

    Jenny's berserkers hurl taunts and epithets at the "cowardly" Normans as they refuse to engage

In the other matchup of the day, Tyler P and I were finally getting a chance to play each other. We had been wanting to square off since before Covid shut things down, but never could make it happen. I am often the odd man out our Columbus game days, and Tyler has not been able to make any of the Dayton meetings, yet. In another first, it would be my first time ever playing against the Irish battle board. I had never faced them with any of my other armies I've played -- Welsh, Anglo-Danes, Norse-Irish, Scots, Carolingians, nor my Moors, of course. From my interview with Tyler in episode 5 of the Saga Ohio podcast, I knew to expect lots of javelin volleys from him. I had looked at the board the night before and thought I had seen some vulnerabilities in the Irish.

    My Moors deploy to face a strange new opponent - Tyler's Irish - in our first matchup ever

We were playing Clash of Warlords because this was Tyler's first game back since the Covid layoff. He wanted to minimize the re-learning curve in case he was rusty on rules. I was First player and placed a large, gentle hill in the center. He countered with a woods. I placed a rocky area on my right towards my baseline. Tyler followed with another woods in an attempt to clutter up the battlefield for my cavalry. I moved one of his woods towards his baseline, and he responded with the final piece of terrain -- another woods towards the center (where I had just moved the other piece away from!). I rolled for deployment and had a choice between the standard method or the diagonal one. I noticed that if I chose the diagonal, it would place most of the terrain on my side of the battlefield. I chose that to give him less cover from my shooting.

    Tyler's Irish advance, confident of their ability to outshoot the Moors and repel this Muslim invasion

Tyler's forces consist of three units of 8 javelin-armed warriors, one levy sling, one "warrior dog" unit, and the two Curaidh champions. As I scanned his ranks, it seemed to me that nearly his entire army was vulnerable to shooting. My plan was to concentrate my shots on his champions and take them out first. Although they have "Resilience 1" -- meaning they can trade casualties for fatigue markers until Exhausted -- my Moors have Wholehearted, which gives extra attack dice for enemy fatigues in shooting or melee. As it would turn out, the damp Irish weather must have fouled the bowstrings of my levy and warped the shafts of my cavalry's javelins. I had my worst shooting dice of any of my games, which wasn't helped in that Tyler's saving rolls were phenomenal!

    So eager to get to grips are the Irish, they inflict fatigue on themselves to close within range

Our opening shots were against his war dogs, whose armor is 3. I miscalculated the distance and wasn't able to unleash my full 18+ dice against him on turn one. Still, we killed three of the Irish wolfhounds -- enough to make him withdraw them on his turn. Tyler began to shift his battleline away from my levy archers, though, moving to my left while he advanced. On turn 2, we targeted one of his champions with my two mounted units. As he took fatigue from the first unit firing, I used Wholehearted on the second shot. In the first of Tyler's great saving rolls, he saved the exhausted champion from death by one roll!

    The frustrated Moors pull back their cavalry units, unable to inflict significant casualties on the Irish

Tyler got a bit of revenge when I pulled back my cavalry units. One unit got within a Short of the rocky area in our rear and he used "Sons of Dana," killing one of my noblemen. I quickly learned to stop my fall backs short of his targeting range with that ability! Tyler then showed me the power of the Irish shooting on his next turn. He brought a champion forward to throw javelins at my Warrior spear unit on the left. He then played "Sidhe," which allows him to discard all of his attack dice (only two) in return for a +1 for all subsequent units shooting at that same unit. That is an amazing ability for an Uncommon dice, and he exploited with with three units throwing javelins, bolstered with bonus attack dice by "Firbolg." I always joke that it is not a good thing to be hired on as a foot warrior in my Moorish army. They are the wall that I use to hold off the enemy, and often suffer major losses. However, Tyler's shooting attacks definitely seemed more potent, at this point, than the Moors'.

    The Irish, though, were having no trouble whittling down the Moorish ranks with their javelins

I decided to concentrate all of my shooting the next turn on one of his javelin units. The levy archers fired twice (12 dice), and each mounted unit once (11 dice). So, 23 attack dice against an armor class 4 unit should cause 11-12 hits, likely causing 5-6 kills with a saving roll of 4+. What did we get? One. One lone Irish warrior died in this massive outpouring of shooting, due to my poor rolling and his exceptional saves! On his turn, Tyler repeated his nasty combination of shooting abilities. My saves were decidedly lackluster and I was suffering way more casualties than him in this skirmishing.

    Frustrated, the Moors charge the Irish, killing all but one warrior in a unit

On the next turn, I made my first major mistake. I decided to take advantage of the Irish warrior's armor of 3 in melee and switched gears. I queued up a "Torrent of Iron" charge. I had rolled only one Uncommon, though, and forgot to put it on Perseverance. That meant after my charge, my mounted hearthguard would be left exposed. We crashed in and killed seven of the eight warriors in the unit. Finally! Some real casualties!! Tyler patiently lined up his shots as a counterattack and even took fatigue for extra shooting activations to completely eliminate my six mounted hearthguard.

    Huge mistake - I did not have an activation to pull the troopers back, who are eliminated by missiles

In Las Vegas, gamblers are cautioned not to throw "good money after bad." In other words, don't keep raising the stakes when you're losing in attempt to win it all back on one roll. So, what did I do? Doubled down! I saw a way that I could potentially destroy two units, creating two "fatigue bombs" in the middle of his forces (units within Short distance of an eliminated unit take a fatigue). My warlord charged into the single, lone warrior. This would be followed up by my remaining mounted cavalry unit charging his (by this time hopefully Exhausted) levy slingers. Remember what I said about dice rolling? Not only did my warlord somehow manage NOT to kill a lone warrior, the hearthguard equally failed to wipe out the 12 levy.

    Moorish warlord & hearthguard risk all on dual charges to break the Irish's fighting ability

This left my warlord and his remaining hearthguard sitting atop a hill amidst a sea of Irish. Tyler knew he was ahead on points, and would likely stay that way as he shot down more of my cavalry. So, he resisted the temptation to charge in with either his warlord or champions. Instead, it was all hands on deck chucking every rock, javelin, stick, or clod of earth they could find. One by one, the fatigue piled up until the warlord was Exhausted. Then, one by one, the hearthguard died to protect the warlord. It was masterfully handled by Tyler as he used every unit activation he could to pile on the shooting attacks. 

    Irish hearts were unbroken, and the Moorish warlord & cavalry about to be encircled & shot down

In the end, the warlord remained standing, but all of his horsemen lay dead around him. At this point, I pulled him back to my far right. My levy fired shots at the war dogs who were prowling forward, and the foot warriors moved in to protect the levy from charges. Tyler was merciless, though, and until the final action of the final turn, piled on every shot he could. My saves were as abysmal as his were fantastic. In the end, the Moors slunk from the field, routed 27-11.

    Another look at the opening stages of the first Epic Saga game, Vikings vs. Normans/Romans

I had known a day of reckoning had to be coming in Saga, and as it turned out on this day of numerous firsts, it was today! My Moors lost their first battle. I admitted that I had a LOT of good fortune in my winning streak, so certainly don't begrudge Tyler his "luck of the Irish" with the dice. It was bound to happen sooner or later! 

    Closeup of Adrian's surprisingly un-aggressive Norman cavalry in their matchup against the Vikings

I had studied his battle board, but I think I underestimated the sheer volume of fire his warband could put out. I was looking for weaknesses, rather than his strengths. Counting it up, his fresh army with only a single activation, can put out 26 shooting attack dice per turn. If he ditches two of those dice with Sidhe, those can potentially all be at +1 against the target. And that is before you add in Firbolg's bonus 3 attack dice (which also make 6's rolled additional hits) and second shooting activations. I had thought MY army had a lot of firepower, but I can see I did not have a plan to deal with his. No one in my army has an armor against shooting of greater than 4, so I can see that as vulnerable as I thought he was, my forces were much more vulnerable.

    Jim's warlord (with two, very cool new fatigue markers) charges Shane's Byzantine levy

 I could easily dismiss all of this and chalk this up to his great saves and my lousy shooting. However, that would be unwise and ignore the lessons that the day taught me. So, a tip of the tam o shanter to Tyler -- congratulations on stopping the Moors victory streak. Now, you can lay claim to History as Charles "The Shillelagh" O'Martell for saving Europe from the Moorish invasion!!

    Jenny's Vikings and Adrian's Normans play a chess game of a matchup in Battle of Heroes

       

Results from today's 1-on-1 games of Saga:

• Tom G's Welsh tied Jenny's Vikings, 15-13, in Clash of Warlords
• Adrian J's Pagan Rus defeated Shane's Byzantines, 10-7, in Desecration
• Tyler P's Irish defeated Mike D's Moors, 27-11, in Clash of Warlords
• Shane's Byzantines defeated Jim B's Vikings, 20-10, in Clash of Warlords
• Adrian J's Normans defeated Jenny T's Vikings, 3-2, in Battle of Heroes