AAR: Normans v Scots (Saga v2) 12May2019

In this SAGAv2 game I played a new opponent, Dan, who fielded a Dark Age Scots army. As I’ve never faced Scots before I was interested in what they would bring to the table. Interestingly, I have never played using my own Normans; in fact they have only got to the table once and then were used by my opponent. They were the last Dark Age SAGA force I painted, and this was as my interest in SAGAv1 faded. So, this would be a game played by novices, using unfamiliar forces. I should also thank Dave from the club for his help and advice to both of us during the game.

We played the vanilla ‘Clash of Warlords’ scenario and used a random, generic terrain set up (a few gentle hills and woods). Also for purely curiosity reasons, I decided to field my bow levy troops as 2 weak, 6-man units, rather than the normal 12-man unit. I had an 8-man unit of mounted knights and another 8-man mounted sergeants unit, plus an 8-man crossbow unit and 8-man spear unit. After a cursory reading of the Norman battle-board, I decided the best plan was to take some ranged pot-shots at any exposed Scots, before unleashing my mounted troops a.s.a.p. Nothing fancy here!

The first turn proceeded as expected, my left-hand levy’s using ‘volley’ fire to increase their range and killed a couple of Scots. I foolishly advanced my right-hand levy into some woods, and these were promptly attacked and thrown out by some Scots warriors. I was now concerned that these warriors were in a good position to continue their attack and hit my rather exposed crossbowmen.

Normans at the bottom (on a very sunny day)

Next turn I charged on some other Scots warriors with my mounted sergeants; the warriors closed ranks but were narrowly beaten back. Dan then moved his woodland warriors back to threaten the rear of the mounted sergeants, who looked doomed (but, my crossbows breathed a sigh of relief!). Next turn I went ‘all-in’ charging with the mounted sergeants (again) and my knights on the other flank. I boosted the Sergeants as much as possible and again gained a narrow win. Now it was the turn of my strong unit of knights and I soon discovered the power of the Scots. I had no extra modifiers to my basic 16d6 allocation, but Dan played ‘Long Spears’ converting 4 attack dice to defence dice, and then ‘Counter-Attack’ which gained him 8 additional attack dice! I received 6 hits and save none! My glorious knights had been mauled by some measly Scots with spears!

Norman left flank, where the levy not only survived but actually did some damage.

For the following couple of turns I could not throw a single ‘flag’ symbol, and the remaining dice were either all ‘helmets’ or all ‘shields’ (bizarre). My mounted sergeants made a valiant effort to try and killed the Scots warlord, but failed and were wiped out. My 2 remaining knights tried to KO a 3-man unit of Scots levy, and failed also.

The Norman crossbows about to get their prime target, the mounted Scots warlord.

In the final turns I did manage to clear the Scots levy and this opened a path for my crossbowmen to fire on the Scots warlord himself. I used the ‘Wounded’ ability to gain 2 auto-hits and diced for 1 more. The warlord failed to save any of the 3 hits, and perished. This seemed to anger his mounted Thanes, who moved from behind some woods and charged my crossbows. My Normans survived and shot the last Scots Thane next turn.

The game ended and we tallied the ‘massacre’ points. The Normans won by 23 v 15. This was a really enjoyable game and the margin was larger than I expected (I thought the loss of those 6 knights would have hurt more). The Norman strategy basically focussed on their mounted attacks, but it was the crossbowmen who really won the game. I think the Scots missed a trick by turning back with the warriors in the woods. Dan really used his battleboard well; the ‘No Respite’ ability is really annoying to the opponent, as is ‘Reach’ whereby suddenly most Scots become armed with javelins! The Normans are a powerful, if one dimensional, force and if (!) you roll ‘flags’ then I think they can be a tough nut to crack. As a final note, I fielded my Norman warlord on foot, not mounted, because I wanted to a play a SAGA game where my leader survives for once.

Thoughts on Saga 2nd edition

I remember when Saga first hit the wargaming scene and the renewed interest it sparked in the Dark Ages period. After a couple of games I was inspired to get figures for the 4 factions listed (Viking, Anglo-Danish, Norman and Welsh), and then proceeded to play many games over the next few months, against many different players. I liked the simplicity of the rules; movement and combat were easy to work out, the scenarios were clear and decisive. I thought the lack of morale rules was strange, as was the use of fatigue, but the rules worked OK so I was happy to ‘refresh’ opposition units to gain combat advantages. The core mechanic, and real beauty of the rules, were the Battleboards. They gave each faction its own distinct flavour and allowed skilled players to tailor their actions to get the most out of the forces on the table. Even though I played numerous games, I tended to switch between factions, so I never truly felt I ‘knew’ the Battleboards well enough, and this is probably why I lost more games than I won. I noticed that ‘good’ players tended to favour a particular faction, one that they fully understood and could exploit efficiently. Interestingly after a year or so, my Saga gaming declined and it has been 2 or 3 years since I last got the toys out of their boxes. This was not due to dissatisfaction with the rules, but simply I had other projects on the go.

Well, the new 2^nd edition of Saga has been released and I bought a copy at Salute this year. I’m not going to review the rules and highlight the changes made, because others have already done this and I don’t want to go back and re-read the 1^st edition rules in depth. As I have not played Saga for a few years now, I hope my failing memory will allow me to judge the 2^nd edition as (almost) a new player. The soft-cover base rule book (£10) is produced to the high standards expected of modern wargame rules, with plenty of informative diagrams plus nice photos and graphics. I like the use of explanatory text boxes to highlight key points, and the summary boxes at the end of each section. It was apparent that some changes had been made to clean up the rules. The movement is now specified as being in straight lines and the move of a unit is ‘mapped out’ by movement based on the first figure of the unit. This is fine but will take some time to get used to; the urge to move figures in a block manner may not be as automatic as previously done. Warlords are now single units that do not combine with others in combat, which seems clearer to me. I like the fact that Levy can now generate Saga dice. All units now have a fatigue limit of 3, irrespective of quality (not sure whether or not I like this). The combat modification process has been clarified, with attacker/defender taking it in turns to make choices, and this should nullify the debates that were previously common in games. Overall, everything appears fine. My only complaints are: (1) There are no rules for buildings! How can this be justified? Stating that such rules will be included in a future Battle book seems to me to be a cop out. In the 1^st edition the building rules were simple and covered less than half a page, so unless the authors plan a multi-page in depth revision, then the rules should be included in the base rule book! My games always featured at least one building and the absence of this key bit of the rules is a bad omission. (2) The second criticism is the lack of scenarios. Rather than the single scenario given, I think the authors should have included the 6 basic scenarios from the 1^st edition. Again, it stated that scenarios will be provided in the future Battle book, but I think the addition of a few basic ones in the back of the base rule book would have been appreciated.

I also bought the Age of Vikings hardback book (£30). Whereas the base rule book was good value, I’m not sure Age of Vikings was. Essentially what a gamer needs are the new Battleboards, plus the brief details required showing the faction composition/equipment. The rest of the material is fairly irrelevant. Based on my experience of 1^st edition Saga, I have never played using legendary characters, elite or ‘mercenary’ units etc. Maybe some players like to change things up, but I have found the generic forces to be fine. The Ragnar text boxes for each faction may turn out to be useful, but I would have found some general advice on strengths/weaknesses/tactics to be more helpful. The cardboard Battleboards will obviously be used in every game, but the Age of Vikings book (although very pretty) will spend most of it time sitting quietly unused on the shelf.

AAR; Wargame Weekend 17/18 Sept 2016

My friend, Graham, who I’ve known and gamed against for over 50 years, and currently lives in Brussels, visited for the weekend. He is an excellent wargamer (i.e. mainly wins) and frequently plays competitively. He used to play ancients (DBM, then FoG) but has dropped the period and now plays predominately WW2 FoW. I therefore decided to show him the ‘Sword and Spear’ rules (S&S) to maybe rekindle his interest and get his 15mm armies out of their boxes. Unfortunately I forgot to use my camera, so there are no photos with this post.

Our first game involved Medieval Hungarian (me) versus Ottoman Turk (Graham). My first mistake was not to allocate enough dice to scouting, so ended up deploying first. The terrain was fairly open, but there was a big forest on Graham’s side of the table opposite my left flank, which I thought would restrict both his deployment and movement of cavalry on this flank. I therefore made my right flank strong (most of my knights), with only a couple of mounted units covering my left flank. Graham promptly deployed heavily against my weak left flank, accepting the forest impediment! Could my outnumbered left flank cavalry hold long enough to allow my right flank troops to move across the army front and intervene? My left-hand cavalry did OK but were eventually overwhelmed, and the Turk cavalry went on to pick off various Hungarian foot and threaten my camp. My potentially decisive right-hand knights did move across but were hindered by being ‘undrilled’ and slow (heavily armoured). Just as they began to close with the Turks, I was reminded by another trait Graham often employs i.e. he will avoid any clash where he has a disadvantage. Rather than face my knights, his heavy cavalry simply retired and surrendered ground, leaving me punching air, desperately trying to pin down his illusive cavalry, and pointlessly moving around the back of the forest. The final result was a decisive win for Graham and the Turks!

Next we had a game using my Greek hoplites for the Peloponnese War, with Graham taking the Athenian/Thessalian army versus my Spartan Alliance force. Terrain placement went well for me until Graham fortuitously placed a marsh in right front of my nicely placed gentle hill on which I planned to centre my army. In this game I was determined not to be outscouted and devoted a lot of dice to ensure this (and still only just beat Graham by one point!). Luckily in the first turns I threw good dice and was able to move my hoplite line forward quickly. I was concerned that my lack of cavalry compared to Graham’s Thessalians would result in me defending threatened flanks against envelopment, but the rapid movement of my hoplites largely removed this option. The clash of the hoplite lines was fairly balanced; my superior Spartans fighting against Athenian hoplites defending another gentle hill. For many rule systems a clash of hoplites can be a very boring situation with little thought as the conflict unfolds, but the dice allocation mechanism of S&S forces players to constantly think, assess the situation and carefully consider where to place available dice. The game remained close and Graham eventually broke the Spartan army, but I was within 2 points (i.e. a single unit of the Athenians, even Psiloi) of victory. We immediately ended the game at this point (lunch was ready) but with hindsight we should have concluded the turn because there was a chance that the end of turn army morale test could have resulted in the loss of one more unit from the Athenians, therefore converting the marginal win in to a draw.

I think Graham enjoyed both the games and the S&S rules. He thought the S&S rules worked well and cleanly, giving a fast, clear result and forcing the player to constantly think about actions/reactions. He did find the mechanism rather abstract i.e. is the game simply a dice allocation game rather than a tactical military simulation? I can see his point, but would counter that this happens with most rule sets (e.g. DBM PIP allocation), and the ‘cheesy’ moves that seem to happen using FoG that are far from ‘historical’. I hope that the two games we played may inspire Graham to buy a copy of the rules and get his 15mm armies on the table again, at least for ‘friendly’ games.

The next day we played a couple of SAGA games. In the first game Graham’s Anglo-Danish force rapidly beat my Vikings. I learnt not to allow your Warlord to become isolated, because he will quickly become dead meat! For the next game I changed my army to Normans. I intended to shoot Graham’s forces, but he quickly scuttled out of line of sight. He then skilfully used his dice to take out my crossbows and damage my peasants. My knights, lead by my warlord, charged a unit of hirdmen, which Graham bolstered with his warlord. The result was the death of both warlords and a drawn game.

Again, this was Graham’s first use of SAGA, but equally I’ve only played one or two games over two years ago, so we were both inexperienced! The games were fast and furious, and we both felt the skill revolved around usage of the special abilities of armies. I think game play would improve with more experience and improved familiarity with the force being used. I therefore resolve to get in more opposed games using SAGA. I don’t think SAGA would work solo because you need the uncertainty provided by an opponent when allocating dice.

First impressions of DBAv3

Following our game of Jugula (see last post) Ian and I decided to try a first play of the newly released De Bellis Antiquitatis (DBA) version 3.0 by Phil Barker and Sue Laflin-Barker (WRG, 2014). I have a strong affection for DBA because they were the rules that got me back into ancient wargaming after many years away. I first played ancients using the WRG 2^nd edition rules but I found as subsequent versions came out my enthusiasm declined. I did not even buy my own copy of 6^th edition and the 7^th edition finally finished me off. In the early 1990’s I joined the Scimitar club in Coventry and they were heavily into playing the recently released DBAv1.0 rules and they drew me into the games. The club was unusual (?) because they used 28mm figures (rather than 15mm) on a 4’x4’ board, and their modelling skills were excellent, turning each base into a beautiful vignette. I regularly played DBA for a couple of years before moving up to playing DBM with 15mm armies. I found that I lost touch with DBA and the regular release (official or otherwise) of updated versions was confusing and annoying. Some rules authors seem to have a need to constantly ‘tinker’ with their work and this is maybe driven by pressure from critics and ‘experts’ in the historical field. Anyway, in the end I was never sure if I was playing the latest version and I was frequently pulled up because I was using rules remembered from previous versions. Incidentally, this ‘version-creep’ syndrome also eventually drove me from playing DBM, so I plead with the Barkers not to give in to pressure this time. Stick to version 3.0! Don’t tinker or update! Have confidence in the rules and the play testing they have been put through. If some players have modifications in mind then they should remain as ‘house’ rules only.

Enough ranting! When DBAv3 was published I immediately bought a copy and wanted to revive my 6 Dark Age 15mm DBA armies based on the 1066AD period (English, Welsh, Scots, Irish, Viking and Norman). The new lists did have some changes which I could address by reassigning some elements and painting/basing some additional figures. I have not changed the number of figures per base, so for example my Scots 3Pk elements have 4 figures, and many of my Wb and Bd elements have the wrong number of figures. To make the ‘Fast’ foot elements clearly distinguishable from other ‘Solid’ foot elements, I have painted the rear corners of all ‘Fast’ elements in all my armies. This has taken a few weeks to do, but I now have all 6 armies again, with all options available. Ian and I diced to randomly determine the armies we would use (Ian was Welsh and I took the Anglo-Danish).

Figure 1: Welsh Army: 10 elements of Wb (Fast) and 2 elements of Ps.

Ian diced again and was determined to be the aggressor, so I sent up the terrain, which was ‘Arable’ in nature. The set up and deployment rules were clear and caused no problems. We then started to play the game. It now became clear that rules had changed considerably since either of us had last played DBA and a simple scan reading of the new version was not truly sufficient to allow a  satisfactory game to develop. I will not attempt to go through an itemised account of the changes because it is so long ago since I last played, but the use of base widths as the unit of distance was new (making my nice set of brass measuring sticks redundant), and the importance of flanking support elements (rather than just rear support) was very different. Neither of us had enough knowledge of the rules to attempt any complex tactics, so we basically both went for a simple head-to-head clash. We found that we did frequently need to refer to the rule book. For example, when I destroyed an element of Wb that had a rear support Wb, both of us initially thought the rear support element would also be destroyed. After checking the rules neither of us could find any rule that supported this view, and we were not sure whether this was confusion resulting from previous DBA versions, or whether it was due to a vaguely, half-remembered DBM rule. We did play the game to a conclusion after roughly 45 minutes and the result was a narrow Welsh win (but if rear support elements should have been lost, then the Anglo-Danish would have won).

Figure 2: Anglo-Danish Army: 4 elements of Hd, 4 elements of Sp, 3 elements of Bd and 1 element of Ps.

To finish, we both felt that the rules were well worth persisting with; we definitely needed to study them in more depth before the next game; the ‘Barkerese’ style of writing was still a major hindrance to achieving a clear understanding of the rules; the new hardback publication was good; and the lists were worth studying in greater detail for the armies we both could field. In conclusion, DBAv3 has a thumbs-up from both of us (for now) and has inspired us to play further games with other armies. When this will be I’m not sure, because our next game (in 2015) is going to be American Civil War using  Longstreet rules.