For the Emperor

This week Mick and I finished off sticking his Normans / Early Crusaders together and onto bases so again we did not get a game in. Now that they have been completed we should be back to actually pushing models around a table next week.

I did complete my Byzantine army this week and now have seven points of troops to choose from.

In SAGA the normal army size is 6 points with your general being free ( unless you choose a special general ) 1 point = 4 Hearthguard = 8 Warriors = 12 Levy with the troops being less effective individually as the number you get for a point increases.

I have painted up 3 points Hearthguard making for 12 mounted men and 4 points of Warriors making 32 foot troops as well as a mounted General.
Once you have purchased your troops they can then be split into units of between 4-12 men and given equipment.

The Byzantines have the option of arming the mounted Hearthguard with bows ( also lowers their armour ) or as I have done sticking with the Kontos. The Warriors can either be spearmen or archers ( again lowers armour ) and the Levy are always armed with Javelins. The equipment options vary between factions with some getting more options than others but all following historical lines, so no mounted Viking armies for instance.

The main difference between SAGA and the standard wargames rule set is that it uses a unique Battleboard for each faction with abilities being activated by placing dice on them. The dice are generated at a rate of 2 for your General and then 1 per unit of Hearthguard or Warriors. A maximum of 6 dice can be rolled each turn so you want to make sure that you have enough units to generate at least that many dice and if a unit is lost then it generates no dice. Each SAGA dice has 3 common symbols, 2 uncommon, & 1 rare so some abilities will be more difficult to activate than others.

The Byzantine Battleboard is built around cooperation with abilities that allow you to shoot through your own units and into combat as well as a couple of abilities for the Kontos armed Hearthguard. This would seem to favour a balanced force of spears, archers and cavalry.

My initial idea is to field 2 points of Hearthguard and 4 points of Warriors organised into :

1 General
1 Unit 8 Hearthguard
2 Units 8 Warrior Spearmen
2 Units 8 Warrior Archers

The Hearthguard could be split into 2 smaller units but having a decisive charge with one larger unit stacking the favourable abilities may prove more useful than the flexibility of two smaller units, only time will tell.

The advantage of a nice skirmish game is that the army does not take long to get painted and ready for the table so I also have some Military orders chaps to paint up and they should be appearing soon(ish).