Saga Saturday #2

Yesterday I hosted a second 'Saga Saturday' on my big gaming table with friends Rob, Ralph, Byron, Mike and Ed. I have a second, portable table I put in the room for a fourth table of Saga, but we had a couple of late cancellations, so it wasn't needed. Still the six of us had great fun playing Saga. Three of the players, Rob, Byron and Ed were new to Saga having played only one or no Saga games previously. The veteran players split up, each taking a newcomer. As far as I can remember, all three games were close fought affairs. We all chose to play four-point games to ease the learning process for the new players. Ed and Mike even managed to play two games.

In my game Byron played using Mike's Milites Christi army versus my Russian Princedoms force. Byron had two four-figure hearthguard units, an eight-figure warrior unit with melee weapons and another eight-figure warrior unit with crossbows. My force was similar with a twelve figure levy crossbow unit instead of the eight figure warrior unit Byron had.

Byron took no time in running down my levy crossbows, all but eliminating the unit in one charge. He followed that up with effective fire on my warrior unit eliminating three figures over two turns. I attempted to counter by charging his warriors with one of my hearthguard units. That was fatal for me eliminating only three of his warriors at the cost of all four of my hearthguard. It didn't look good for the Russians. To the left, you can see the Russian dead piling up on my side.

Byron followed up my disastrous charge with an attempt to finish the battle by charging my remaining hearthguard unit with one of his. This went slightly in my favor, with him losing two figures and me losing only one. Desperate times call for desperate measures, so I followed this up with a charge from my warlord, supported by javelin fire from my warriors (thanks to a Saga board ability). This eliminated his unit, and I withdrew my force to catch my breath (photo left).

Byron finally got his second hearthguard unit through the rough terrain they were stuck in and made a final push to try his hand at eliminating my final unit of hearthguard. That attack went well for me losing one figure to his four. After that was just clean up as we both were down to only one or two Saga dice and a final turn to try to use them. Byron made a desperate attack with his warlord, which didn't damage much on either side, but the added fatigue meant the next turn his warlord was vulnerable to counter-attack.

In the end the game was very close. The massacre points I gained for destroying his warlord being the difference. Byron gave me a great game, fun and competitive for a first game. That's one of the things we like about Saga.

Here's a short video of a panorama of the games as they started.