Northern Conspiracy October Saga Game Day

Yesterday, our club got together for a large game day featuring the Saga rule set. Club president 'Dr. Dick' is shown here going over the layout for the day. Crusades Era and Viking Era armies were grouped into teams geographically with each team defending their home region with two armies and invading another region with two armies. Games would be 2 vs 2 with a center 1 vs 1 table to handle odd numbers. Co-hosts Greg and Michael not pictured also did a TON of work to make the day go smoothly.  Below is a YouTube video of the room at the start of the day.

My Eastern Princes Russian Crusader army was teamed up with several Mongol armies commanded by Paul, John C. and Rob as well as a roaming army of Vikings commanded alternately by John M, Dick and Greg. We were defending the steppes board and our team was named the 'Steppenwolves'. So fun! The other teams were the Northern 'Baltic Terror' team with Ordenstadt, Goths and Vikings, the 'Defenders of the Cross' with Last Romans, Byzantines, Crusaders and Vikings, and the southwestern 'Jihadi' with Sarasin, Mutatawwi'a and more Vikings. Photos of each table below.

 

 

 Round 1

Round 1, let the games begin! Lots of photos of the players and tables here. I ended up on the center table playing Greg's Spanish with my Eastern Princes army. Before we started I was able to snap photos of each of the other tables.

For my game against Greg's Spanish, we used 'Clash of Warlords' and I rolled set-up B - diagonal. Considering the terrain and the 'loot' on the table (for game day objectives). I chose lower-left to upper right in the photos for the deployment line. I put my Crossbows closest to the woods in hopes of using them as cover. This didn't happen as quickly as I would have liked, but eventually they became a bulwark for me to withdraw my captured loot to. With an all cavalry opponent, I chose to bring a unit of Black Hood cavalry to increase my mobility.

I used my Saga board to discourage Greg from using his Jinnettes ability.  I was able to give better than I got with the crossbows eliminating two small mounted warrior teams, one in turn two from crossbow fire and one in turn three with a charge from my Black hoods.

After turn three Greg chose to use Jinnettes regardless of my Saga ability use, giving me some extra Saga dice to use. Jinnettes is that good for the Spanish. Greg's shots throughout the game took out a lot of my figures. And some charges from his Hearthguards killed all but one of my warrior figures. His large warrior unit using Jinnettes did at least half of the damage his army caused. The other half came from his large hearthguard unit.

In the end I used the 'Drug' Saga ability with my warlord supporting him with a nearly exhausted three-figure hearthguard unit. My warlord was able to finish off Greg's heavily wounded hearthguards. I then began to withdraw to my crossbows in their oasis of palms with my 'treasure'. Greg's army harassed me with Jinnettes fire, but I was able to weather the storm. Elsewhere in turn one, the Steppenwolves did fairly average putting us in the run. One upside, our invaders and I had brought back a lot of loot to our home region which we now had to defend in round two.

The standings after round one. Note the 'loot' numbers are numbers of loot items, worth a yet to be revealed amount of massacre points. Loot values were only revealed and added to the overall totals at the end of the day.

 

 

Round Two 

Photos of the tables and opponents for round two. We had some people who could only stay for the morning, so the center table wasn't used.

Unfortunately for the 'Steppenwolves' we lost two players for the afternoon, so Dick stepped in and commanded the Vikings in for our team. We chose to defend with the all-foot vikings and my force of Eastern princes using a mostly foot composition including two crossbow units. The all-cavalry double Mongol force went invading into the southwestern Jihadi board. Horses in the desert....more on that later.

Ralph's beautiful Ordenstadt were opposite my Eastern Princes on our board. The game day rules don't require players opposite each other fight exclusively, but this worked out that way. My crossbows were denied benefit of cover courtesy of Kevin's heroic commander. Dick countered with a unit of Viking bezerkers in his army. Ralph and I played a chess-like game, both not wanting to make too many mistakes. In the end losses were minimal for both of us. Kevin and Dick were having none of that and their side of the table was a slug fest! In the end across our table I believe Kevin and Ralph bested us on massacre points and ran off with three of our treasure. Our invading Mongol allies, were repulsed from the Jihadi's homeland without any loot for their wounds.  The Steppenwolves finished middle of the pack for the day in score, but I think everyone scored first place in having fun.

Single most aggressive army went to Charlie's Byzantines who totaled something like 57 massacre points in two games.

Thanks again to the hosts and organizers of the event, and everyone who showed up to participate and have great fun.

Google Gallery with all of the photos I took is here: https://photos.app.goo.gl/nr4nft2aEhnooRR76