Raiding Season Week #2

For Turn 3 of the Raiding Season campaign the Norman raiders decided to go South and with the Rus deciding to defend South 2 and the Normans raiding South 1 a battle was fought.
The battle was the Crossing Paths scenario from More Saga Battles and in a similar vein to last week saw both sides trying to escort some baggage across the table. Victory Points where gained for getting your baggage off the opposite side of the table, stopping your opponent from doing so, and the destruction of entire units.

Initial Setup

The Normans opted for an all mounted force and field three points each of javelin Hearthguard and javelin Warriors. The Hearthguard formed two units of six and the Warriors three units of eight.

The Rus went with one point of Hearthguard, four points of Warriors ( 2 units of 10, one of 12 ) and one point of Mercenary Scouts with javelins.

The opening moves saw both sides perform a general advance with each side seeking to move the baggage down their own left flank whilst looking to disrupt the enemy advance on the right.

The mercenary Scouts allow any unit to ignore the movement penalties for any area of rough ground they entirely occupy so the Rus looked to pass the baggage through the wood and also managed to get a few shots off against the Normans.
At this point the Rus forgot that the unit of Hearthguard ( bottom left corner ) could still maneuver for free so they stayed rooted in place.

The Normans pushed forwards and let loose some shooting causing a few casualties in the centre and also pushed up a unit of Hearthguard on their right flank.

The nature of SAGA is that you generally get one big charge off a turn and this the Rus did on their left with a unit of Warriors killing four Hearthguard with two losses in return. A little bit more shooting in the centre encouraged the Normans to back off.

The Normans then decided to counter-charge with the remaining Hearthguard and despite combining that with some shooting to seriously deplete the Warrior unit both Hearthguard died and the unit was wiped out.

Over on the Norman left they had been making steady progress towards the table edge until another effective charge almost wiped out the Warrior unit leading the advance, this left the baggage train somewhat exposed.

In the centre things had reached a stalemate with the Normans not willing to risk another unit and the Rus needing to spend the activation dice on their right flank. The Normans had managed to finish off the weakened Rus Warrior unit which meant it was one all on units killed. The Rus Hearthguard had finally advanced though.

On the Rus right they had managed to wipe out the last remaining Warrior to go into a 2 - 1 lead on units killed.

They then withstood a charge from the remaining Norman Hearthguard and forced them to retreat back with a few casualties.

At this point I managed to forget to take a final photo as on the last turn the remaining Warriors on the Rus right charged the Norman baggage but failed to kill them off.
This left the Rus as the winners on 2 units vs 1 killed and also just ahead on slaughter points. Over all it was a very close game with some good defence dice on the Rus side keeping units in the fray, it could easily have gone the other way though.

Campaign Situation after 3 Turns