SAGA: Graeculi

 Over the last few weeks I've been playing as Syracusan Greeks against Mr T's Romans. These offer a different playstyle to the Carthaginians and rely mostly upon infantry in the open making use of Phalanx abilities. Units in uneven terrain cannot make use of Phalanx so you need to be careful with the terrain deployment otherwise you severely limit the power of the battle board.

Being able to activate multiple units for one dice is always good in SAGA so Implacable Advance is nice for the Greeks, as it gives you the option to move or charge. The caveat of this moves/charges all being in open terrain does slightly limit it's uses but as you want to stay in the open anyway it's not a massive disadvantage. 

The board does give the Greek general multiple ways of building a good defence in melee and Hammer & Anvil allows you to build on a solid defence. It is best used to absorb an enemy attack when they hopefully burn all their dice and then charge a fresh unit into that fatigued by the combat.

If you are lucky enough for an enemy to charge a unit near your Hearthguard block then you can unleash your main hammer unit when the enemy is least prepared to take a charge.

The board also offers ways to keep your levy skirmishers in the game when they may look like easy pickings. I didn't initially have any javelinmen painted up for the Greeks but in order to use these abilities I ordered some Victrix models and quickly painted them up.

Thureos is a nice little surprise for your opponent as they will need to re-roll all those lovely high scores, as you start with an armour of 4 for the levy javelinmen then this should save you a good few wounds.

If you manage to combine it with Aspis then you should have a really hardy block of infantry. Extra defence dice is always nice but being able to save on a 4 by closing ranks should make them into a decent anvil. You can't combine this with Hammer & Anvil as the levy cannot gain Phalanx but it is good for holding up a flank.

The Greeks don't have any abilities which allow you to cancel enemy activations but they do get one which allows you to give a unit Resilience (1) and also Wall of Pikes. This ability encourages you to keep your Warrior and Hearthguard infantry close together in order to cancel the maximum possible number of wounds. You should enjoy the look of disgust in your enemies eyes when they manage to sneak some wounds past your defences only to have them cancelled out. Combining this with Hammer & Anvil is a good move.

The Greeks do lack a few things from the battle board, most obvious is a way to cancel enemy activations and also shooting reaction for anyone who isn't infantry armed with javelins. You want to get into combat with the enemy and after absorbing the best they can give hit them back in their turn. You do get another ability (Hubris) which allows you to charge a unit which was a defender in a melee after the melee is over. That gives you up to 2 charges in the enemy turn, again these are best made once your opponent has burnt their dice. They also lack any ability to remove fatigue so you need to be careful not to let is build up too much.

SAGA: River Crossing

This week I decided to give the Greek board a try to see how it played as compared to the Carthaginians. The Greeks have three different themes to play with and I went with a Syracusans who field a classic infantry heavy Hoplite force. To get the most out of the army you need to to use the Phalanx abilities, which require your units to be in open terrain.

The Greeks consisted of:
1 * Warlord on Horse
2 * points of Hearthguard on foot in 1 unit of 8
3 * points of Warriors on foot in 3 units of 8
1 * point of Levy with bow in  unit of 12

Mr T played the Romans again and fielded the same force as last time:

1 * Warlord on Horse
2 * points of Hearthguard on foot in 2 units of 4
3 * points of Warriors on foot in 3 units of 8
1 * point of Cretan archers in 1 unit of 8

We rolled for scenario and got the River Crossing scenario, which gives bonus points for units that have managed to cross the river by the end of the game. This was not the best scenario for the Greeks as their abilities really rely on being on open ground so having the board centre being rough or dangerous terrain wasn't good for them to be able to push forwards.

The Romans realised this and opted to use the river as a safe area to stage for an assault on the Greek lines and pushed up on one flank whilst shooting from the other with the Cretans. The Cretans proved that with time to shoot they are pretty deadly and they managed decent chip damage throughout the game.

Once the Romans had cleared the river I was able to launch an attack with the Greeks on hand which pushed the two Warrior units back with some casualties but it wasn't a knockout blow

The Roman counter-attack was pretty devastating and took off most of one unit of Greek Warriors so the Greek Hearthguard went on the attack again and managed to wipe out one unit of Roman Warriors and damage another but at the cost of being wiped out. The Greeks have an ability which allows them to make a charge with a unit that is the defender in a melee once the melee is over, essentially taking a charge and then counter-attacking in the oppositions turn.

The Romans had blocked my attempt to advance over the bridge and also push some infantry across on the right flank.

In an attempt to even the odds up my General launched himself into some Roman Warriors and managed to wipe them out, it's easy to forget how powerful the Warlord is in melee.

On the other flank I chipped away at the other Roman unit but as the battle drew to a close it was the Romans who ran out the victors by a few points.

It was an interesting game and the Greeks have an interesting board which I will look at another week which encourages clumping up and moving forwards, but it needs open terrain to really shine.

SAGA: Archer Wars

We continued are re-familiarisation with SAGA this week with another quick game of Romans vs Carthaginians. This week in an attempt to combat the ranged superiority of the Carthaginians the Romans recruited the Cretan archer mercenary unit. 

This unit comprises of 8 Warriors who generate 1/2 shooting/melee dice per figure and have a few nasty rules. They can be activated to shoot for free once per turn as long as that is the first activation they undertake and also on their first shot of the turn they gain 2 extra attack dice and a +1 to hit. Either of the last two rules would be good on their own but together is really powerful, you'd probably want these chaps in any army that lacks good shooting abilities on it's board.

Having realised how nasty the Cretan's are I was fortunate to have my mounted Warrior unit opposite them so moved up and charged in the second turn, taking 4 off and pretty much eliminating them as force from the game.

The rest of the game saw the Romans come on in the normal fashion with the Carthaginians looking to weather the initial storm and then counter-attack to cause damage. Mr T's rolling was down to his normal standard and his troops fluffed a couple of big combats so I was able to wear him down reasonably quickly.

The game ended when the Roman commander was exhausted by my Levy archers and then finished off by my commander who bravely rode in to complete the kill.

SAGA: The One with the Elephants

 

For this week's SAGA game I decided to try out some elephants which are a new unit for Age of Hannibal. I used the same force as last time but replaced the 2 points of Hearthguard with 2 points of elephants in one unit. The elephants count as citizens so they can be the one unit of citizens you need in the army. Mick went with the same force as last time.

Romans

2 points of Hearth Guard in two units of 4

3 points of Warriors in three units of 8

1 point of Levies with Javelins in one unit of 12

1 Warlord on Horse

Carthaginians

2 points of Elephants in one unit of 2

2 points of Contingent Warriors on foot in two units of 8

1 point of mounted Contingent Warriors with javelins in one unit of 8

1 point of Levy bowmen in one unit of 12

1 Warlord on Horse

Elephants come with several special rules to simulate their role on the battlefield. The Carthaginian battle board doesn't have a special elephant related abilities on it but they can make good use of some of the abilities. Eagle Eye could be used to boost their shooting attack, but that is better used on the levy bowmen if they are still generating 6 shoot dice. Blood Price is another ability that stands out as it allows you to transfer up to 2 wounds onto a neighbouring unit instead of taking them on the target unit. This coupled with the Resilience (2) is the only way to keep those elephants in the game, as they only have 1 wound each if the enemy can get through your defences then the unit can be wiped out very quickly.

Whilst the elephants don't generate a lot of base attack dice, 5 versus the 8 of one point of Hearthguard or Warriors, they do score automatic hits which in most cases should make up for that.

The scenario we rolled up allowed us to nominate one opposing unit to count as double kill points so Mick went for the elephants making them worth 8 kill points each, this meant we would be certain to see them in action.

The game itself followed the same pattern as the last one with the Carthaginians sitting back and the levy archers shooting up the Velites whilst the Roman foot advanced to get to grips with the enemy

The got into position and launched one battle board loaded attack against the elephants when I had my defensive abilities ready almost did the job, despite rolling a fair few attack dice the resilience (2) and Blood Price meant I was left on 3 fatigue and transferred two deaths onto the Spanish infantry. I did leave both our battle boards empty so if Mick had been able to activate for another charge that turn he would most likely have taken at least one if not both off.

Unfortunately he couldn't and I had the chance to load my defences back up again and when the next weaker charge came in I was again able to survive with both elephants and inflict some more casualties back.

As one last final throw of the dice the Roman commander charged in but taking 4 automatic hits along with the other hits I rolled left him as a thin pile of pulp on the battlefield.

So the elephants worked in the sense that they lived but it takes a fair amount of battle board investment to keep them safe and even though they didn't die it was on the knife-edge a couple of times, I think you'd always be worried about the loss of the investment you've put in, 2 points of foot Hearth Guard are a safer investment in my eyes.

SAGA: A Battle of Heroes

 Continuing our re-familiarisation with SAGA we opted this week to use the scenario generator matrix supplied in the book of battles. This gives a random selection of scenery layout methods, warband deployments and victory/special conditions. The scenery condition allowed Mick to setup 3 pieces of terrain and me to move them, the deployment was pretty standard with us alternating deployment through mounted ranged > mounted > foot ranged > foot units and Mick taking first turn. The victory condition was to add up points left of your force at the end with extra VP's available for reaching the opponents corners.

We went for pretty much the same forces as last week with Mick splitting his 8  Hearthguard into two units of 4 and I replaced the Citizen Warriors with a unit of Contingent Warriors. The thinking behind this was that with attack dice being hard to generate for the Carthaginians it was best to have one main strike unit and then a couple of shielding units with the Contingent abilities being focused on staying alive.

We both moved forwards for the first turn with the Romans seeking to bring their limited ranged firepower to bear against my archers.

In the second turn the Romans who where activating first again pushed forwards and in my turn I unleashed the archer levies. The Eagle Eye ability is the only that gives extra attack dice and this is for ranged attacks only, a rare dice gives 4 attack dice and any other only 2. During the game I was able to put a rare dice on this ability for all but one round so the archers shot with an impressive 10 dice most goes. The levy archers managed to kill 5 Velites with their first volley and the mounted Warriors with javelins also shot one off, this left the Velites seriously damaged.

During the Romans turn I also managed to make good use of the Redeployment ability, this allows you to move one unit 4 inches (short) before your opponent gets to activate. This allowed me to move the mounted Warriors into shooting range during my turn and then back out of a comfortable charge range in the Romans turn. The Carthaginians also have an ability which allows you to cancel the activation of an opponents unit that has a fatigue on it, for only a common dice this can mess up a potential charge from the opposition.

Over the next few turns I kept up the shooting from both the archers and the skirmishing cavalry with one unit of Contingent Warriors being committed to killing off the Roman Principes (red shields), the Romans kept grinding forwards as they lack a devastating ranged attack.

Eventually the Romans did make it into contact on my right causing a fair few casualties but I was able soak up a reasonable amount of damage and shoot/melee a unit of Triarii off the table.

That was the end of the 6th turn and thus the game and once again the Carthaginians proves victorious. This week the levy bowmen did a lot of the heavy lifting and they certainly earned their points back and more, in fact I didn't even need to commit the Hearthguard unit into combat.

It does make me wonder if I need to use the attacking power of the elephant(s) but as I've bought and painted the models I will certainly give them a try next time we play.

SAGA: The Age of Hannibal

After a long break from playing any SAGA this week we dusted off the rules and got the new Age of Hannibal armies and book out.

We started off with a straightforward 6 points a piece game using the Kill scenario to get back into the swing of the rules. SAGA is pretty straightforward from a game mechanics point of view with little book keeping, most of the nuance is offered via the battle boards.

I took the chance to dress the edge of the board with the new Iron Age ring fort I'd painted up, and it looked like some Greeks had moved in.

The Romans consisted of:
2 points of Hearth Guard in one unit of 8

3 points of Warriors in three units of 8

1 point of Levies with Javelins in one unit of 12

one Warlord on foot

The Carthaginians consisted of:

2 points of Citizen Hearthguard on foot in one unit of 8

1 point of Contingent (mercenary) Warriors with Javelin on Horse in one unit of 8

1 point of Contingent Warriors on foot in one unit of 8

1 point of Citizen Warriors on foot in one unit of 8

1 point of Levies with bow in one unit of 12

one Warlord on Horse

I'd had a quick look at the Carthaginian board before and playing through the game it became obvious that the board is mostly defensive in nature with the only way to add attack dice being for shooting. So the decision to take a big unit of Hearthguard paid off as the generate lots of attack dice natively. The three warrior units struggled to put out much hurt against the Romans as they lacked the dice.

It may be that the Carthaginians need to invest in the Elephants in order to offer an alternate punching unit. The Elephants can also shoot so would benefit from using the Eagle Eye ability.

The Romans as you would expect like to be moving forwards onto the enemy and they have a couple of abilities which allow them move forwards, the Pilum ability which allows a free Shoot and then Charge is good, especially as it is only one common dice to use. In contrast to the Carthaginians the Romans can also generate extra attack dice pretty easily, again encouraging them to get stuck in.

In the game itself the Romans closed in on the Carthaginians quickly and almost wiped out a unit of Warriors early on with the Carthaginian Hearth Guard counter attacking to stabilise the situation and wiped out the exposed Roman unit. The Hearth Guard followed up with some more fighting and the Carthaginian archers proved effective whilst the Velites hung back in the woods.

The Roman Triarii (Hearth Guard) where eventually committed and managed to maul the Spanish cavalry but by that time it was too late and the Romans had lost two complete units of Warrior with a third almost wiped out.

We picked up the rules again pretty quickly with the only real delay being the need to learn the battle boards so we can distribute the activation dice, this will speed up with practice.

This week also saw the much delayed arrival of my League of Infamy pledge so I can now finish off the Kingdom of Men army by painting up the three General on Winged Beast that I was missing. 

I can then get the game itself painted up and ready to play.