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.