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.