Unlikely Allies - Saga Campaign Game at Mike C's

Yesterday a group of us got together at my friend Mike's place to play another game of Saga in Mike's Crusades campaign. This battle used a scenario mike called 'unlikely allies'. I was paired up with Greg, running another Crusades army against John and Paul both with Mongol armies. The main concept was to destroy the enemy while achieving more prestige points than your ally. Capturing the camels was also wort some points but other than shooting them, we all ignored the camels and went for each other's throats.

The Mongols, John and Paul. John brought a war drummer, in my opinion the best heroic unit in Saga, two units of hearthguards, two units of warriors and a unit of levy archers. Paul brought four units of hearthguards and two units of warriors.

Expecting hordes of mounted Mongols to sweep down upon me like a cold wind off the Russian steppes, I set up to hunker my infantry down in some hard, un-burnable cover. My cavalry positioned on my right flank, in the middle of the battlefield prepared to support Greg against Paul's massive onslaught of hearthguard cavalry. At the end, Greg needed no help. He was a force from start to finish this day.

After deploying in the hard cover, John's warlord advanced out in front of his force. I charged it with my mounted warriors, backed by most of my Saga dice abilities. I was able to exhaust the warlord and drive it off, but could not finish it. The hubris of the warriors was met by a counter-charge from John's Warriors and Hearthguards. Combined they were able to eliminate the warriors in detail. The warriors gave as well as they got, taking out a unit of Hearthguards and a good portion of John's mounted warriors in trade.

In the middle, my hearthguards were busy trying to eliminate the enemy archers and war drummer. They gutted the archers, but the war drummer proved resilient and avoided elimination after the first and second charges. Each time my hearthguard being nibbled away by John's mounted archers little by little.

Finally I launched my secret weapon, unarmed, unarmored peasants! They proved to be tougher than they looked. After receiving 13 casualties across three separate melees, they finally lost their first figure. Much to my chagrin, they passed 12 melee savings rolls in a row. I think they did it to punish me for counting on the saga dice they generate when they die.

Still the emboldened peasants started to rip into the Mongols with religious zeal eliminating first the enemy warlord (having been nearly exhausted fighting the last of my hearthguards), then killing the remaining enemy archers then finally finishing off the war drummer. The fanatical pilgrims killed more enemy than the rest of my combat troops and were the battle's MVPs for sure.

In the end, their  efforts were not enough. Greg out did my efforts fighting and eliminating the more prestigious hearthguard-based army commanded by Paul. John, out-did his ally by enough prestige points to end up the big winner of the day even in a losing battle. Fun scenario, great day with friends. Thanks to Mike for organizing it.