The Tide is High

For what promises to be our last game of SAGA v1 we played a fan made scenario called The Deadly Tide. This involves the two sides fighting on a battlefield with high ground in the middle whilst the tide moves from one side of the table to the other. The rising of the tide is controlled by a die roll so you cannot be certain how far if it all it will move, and we used our normal river boundary to mark out the leading edge of the water. Any model that was caught by the tide would be removed as a casualty and the victor decided on by slaughter points. 

The table

On the first turn the water only advanced 6" and as my Milites Christi had setup in a central position they could move forward without much worry.

Both sides advanced towards the hill but did not break formation.

On the second turn the tide did not advance so the Milites Christi crossbowmen seized the hill and had a couple of shots at the Crusader axemen without causing any casualties.

The Crusaders then charged the hill and wiped the crossbowmen out for the loss of one man.

After another 6" tide advance the Milites Christi knights charged the hill and after two combats managed to wipe out the Crusaders with 50% losses to themselves.

The second unit of Crusader foot hearthguard then charged the remnants and managed to wipe them out but due to some poor armour save rolls also got wiped out in return.

At this point the tide took a big leap forward and the Milites Christi seized the high ground once more and charged into the remaining Crusader hearthguard.

One Crusader was lost to the waters

Despite doing good casualties the Milites Christi lost the remaining hearthguard on the next Crusader turn as the Crusaders opted to stand and fight rather than move away from the advancing tide.

At this point fortune smiled on the Crusaders as the tide did not advance in turn 5 so rather than losing several men they could move away unhindered as the Milites Christi opted to stay on the high ground.

It then came down to the last throw of the dice for the advancing water with the Crusaders being 6" from the water anything other than a roll of 6 would see them survive. I had the roll and didn't get the 6 I needed so the Crusaders came away with the win. The slaughter points where 14 1/2 v 16 to the Crusaders.

All in all a very interesting battle which I thought I had won when the tide was set to wipe out the Crusaders only for a 1 to be rolled and the tide to stay put. I like to think that the inclusion of my Byzantine Warlord standing in as a mounted Priest made the difference.

Captured

This weeks SAGA game saw another matchup between my Milites Christi and Mick's Normans acting as Crusaders. We did play last week as well with the Crusaders coming out on top, unfortunately I forgot to get any pictures of the battle. It would seem that rather than the victor writing the history, it is the person who recalls to take the pictures.

The boys ready for action

This weeks scenario revolved around attempting to escort the captured Warlord of the opposing warband across the table. Failure to make it across in the time limit or if the Warlord was freed would result in a win for the rescuers. After a roll off Mick opted to attempt the rescue and we set up our forces with my troops being deployed first.

Starting Positions

I went with my standard warband but had to detail two of my Hearthguard to escort the captured Crusader Warlord. Mick opted to have his Warlord on foot in order to reduce at which he could be moved and also drafted in a Warrior Priest. As his Warlord would not be generating any SAGA dice until he was freed he had to accept being short of dice at the start.

I took the first turn and pushed my foot Warriors forward and triple activated the crossbows in an attempt to cause some damage to the foot Hearthguard, this failed to cause any damage.
The Hearthguard then charged my crossbowmen and wiped them out without loss. As Mick was short of dice he opted to push his other troops forward a bit.
On the second turn my remaining Warriors charged the Hearthguard and managed to kill three for no loss to themselves, the rest of the Milites Christi shuffled forward.

The remaining two Crusader Hearthguard then charged my six man mounted Hearthguard causing one casualty for the loss of both men. At this point I realised that I didn't actually need to go straight down the table so started to move over to my right flank.

The Crusader mounted Hearthguard then launched an attack on my larger Hearthguard unit and despite stacking abilities only managed a three to two victory.

My Warlord gathered the remains of that unit and lead them in a countercharge which killed another three of the Crusader Hearthguard. Whilst this was happening my Warriors charged and got rebuffed by the Crusader crossbows and the prisoner and escort made some progress towards the opposite side of the table.

Crusader Warrior Priest and Hearthguard as yet not commited

 The lack of extra SAGA dice had meant that the Crusaders had effectively had to omit moving an extra unit each turn so now with my route plain to see the uncommitted Hearthguard and Priest started to relocate. At the same time my Warlord lead the smaller four man Hearthguard unit into the Crusader crossbowmen and despite the loss of two men managed to clear them out of the way.

This left position on the last turn of the escort having a clear path to the edge of the table and with the dice rolled only the unit of a single mounted Hearthguard being able to reach them. During the combat one of the escorts died but the other lived so the Milites Christi scrapped a victory by the narrowest margin.
This was another bloody battle with lots of casualties on each side, the Crusaders did suffer from the missing Warlord but perhaps not as much as either of us had initially imagined. Having to move an extra unit that did not generate dice also put pressure on the Milites Christi and it was difficult to balance moving my forces with sacrificing deice to increase my Piety to make my abilities more powerful. Overall it was a close game and another well balanced scenario.

Capture the Relic - Playtest

This week I got to playtest the Capture scenario I had planned out with my Milites Christi joining battle with Mick's Crusaders. This was the first time either of us had played Crusaders so as well as testing out the scenario it would be a learning experience for the Crusader board.

The Byzantines escorting the Relic

I also had the chance to use the stone bridge I had been bought for Christmas as a jumping off point for the escorting party. The bridge is hard plastic and went together very easily with some plastic glue, I then gave it a coat of grey paint and a good helping of Army Painter dip to bring out the stone effect. As this left the model as a large block of grey I then decided to break that up with some mud effect and grass to make it more interesting.

Initial Setup

The Milites Christi

I went with 3 points of Hearthguard, 2 points of Warriors and the Religious Advisor for a 6 point warband. I split the Hearthguard into a 4 man unit and a 8 man unit and fielded the Warriors as one 8 man crossbow unit and one 8 man melee unit.

The Crusaders

The Crusaders went for an all infantry force with 3 points of Hearthguard, 1 point of Warriors, 1 point of Levy and the Enlightened Priest. The Hearthguard where split into 6 man units with heavy weapons, the warriors in one 8 man unit with crossbows and the Levy in on 12 man unit with throwing weapons.

The Milites Christi move forward

As do the Crusaders and the Byzantines

The battle started with both sides making a steady advance in the first turn before the Milites Christi charged in to the Byzantines to claim the Relic. At this point we decided that the Relic carrier should only move once per turn so as he had already moved at the beginning of my activation he could not be moved again, it also stops people from using multiple activations to end the game in one turn.

Relic Seized

As the Crusaders had speed disadvantage they could not stop my forces making a move to the rear.

Retreat !

But they did manage to get a charge into the Milites Christi after having taken some shooting damage during my activation. At this point the power of the Crusaders board in melee became apparent as they easily wiped out my Hearthguard.

The Crusaders claim the Relic

On the other flank the Crusaders took several shots at the Milites Christi foot but a combination of bad rolling to hit and good rolling to save resulted in no casualties being inflicted.

Shields up lads !

During the next turn the larger unit of Milites Christi retook the Relic as they finished off the Crusader foot which had already been weakened by some accurate crossbow fire.

Relic captured for the second time

This left the Crusaders without any combat units close by to attempt a recapture and this was compounded when the Crusaders remaining Hearthguard unit was wiped out whilst killing all the Milites Christi melee Warriors. Again the Crusaders rolled an impressive amount of attack dice as they had been powered up with some excellent abilities and managed to inflict 18 kills on an 8 man unit. In return the Warriors inflicted 7 hits none of which the Crusaders saved, this lead to both units being destroyed.

Retreat once more

Back by the bridge the Crusaders pushed forwards with their remaining units but more accurate fire from the Milites Christi crossbowmen whittled down the Levy Pilgrims and the Crusader crossbowmen once again proved ineffective.

Pilgrims into Action

Crusader Crossbows cause 1 casualty

The Crusaders could not cause enough damage to stop the Milites Christi exiting the table with the Relic and claiming the win.

Milites Christi just before they exit the table

The scenario worked pretty well and even though the Crusader army was overall slower than the Milites Christi the rule addition for only allowing the Relic unit to activate once per turn to move helped to keep the game in contention. We will try the scenario again and may allow the Byzantines to generate 2 attack dice each so that the initial capture of the Relic is a slightly more dangerous affair. This may encourage players to let the other player take the risk of making the first capture and allow the Relic to travel further across the board.