Saga Levantine Crusades Game Day

Saturday my friend Mike hosted the first game day in a series he's running using Saga. The setting is the 7th and 8th crusades in the Levant. Players and armies chosen from a list of appropriate armies for the area and period. I got in with my Crusader army. Each player was paired up with a historical opponent and we played the very complex 'Pillage' scenario from the Saga Book of Battles. Much fun and confusion was had by all. Mike will be varying the scenarios and using some of the Saga rules for Warlord experience to add flavor to the campaign.

My game was against Charlie's Byzantines. I was defending the village against his force lead by his fearsome Varangian Guard supported by some mercenary western knights.

I'm not going to go into our battle much other than to say I made a big mistake playing not knowing that the villagers were mercenaries, and I used some of the advanced Saga abilities. Charlie was graceful about forgiving this mistake but it made the outcome of our game much different than it should have been. The first turn the Varangian guard eliminated one unit of civilians easily. All of my civilians should have suffered similar fates, but due to me using Saga abilities, the subsequent fights with my civilians went better for them than they deserved.

To the left, my dead civilians after two turns. I got good reinforcement rolls. I was able to re-occupy the central building in my village with Charlie's Varangian guards heading off to pillage other buildings.  This helped me raise the alarm and end the game quickly before Charlie ran off with too much loot.

Photos from the other tables where you can see hordes of invading mongols swarming the villages in both of the other games.

The most common sight of the day - everyone reading and re-reading the complex scenario rules. The good news is, after this most of the other scenarios should be MUCH easier to learn. This one has all the bells and whistles in it. Since Mike was GM for these games and I got to play, I'm counting it as a game played in my annual counts and not a game hosted.