Long Tan
A battle that is right up there with the greatest of Anzac traditions! That’s why Allan and I games it yesterday using Battlefront rule Nam.

Now I really like this version from BF, there is one really great reason, Allan and I have played it for a year and we didn’t need to keep flipping through the book for rules! Thanks to BF v4 is now playable.

Enough of that back to the game, now if you don’t know the history, then I’ll ask you to buy a book, watch a documentary or read something on the internet, but basically an Australian company bumps a NVA battalion, outnumber, short on ammo, fighting in a monsoonal downpour with help a long way away. Despite the shear bloody mindedness of the Vietnamese to wipe out the Australian company, the Anzacs held on in the true spirit of the Anzac.

So the terrain was pretty simple, one half a rubber plantation, the other elephant grass as tall as a man.

We had some special rules for the scenario, but if I were to recommend to anyone else who wishes to follow my example is to let the NVA get a free born in the north to die in the south rule, that said the special rules I devised was to randomise some of the events, like the monsoon rain, supply of ammo for the Anzacs, but basically the game was scenario 4 from the Nam book, blocking force. It seemed to represent the battle nicely.

Turn1 to 5, the NVA rushes forward attempting to swamp the Anzac’s but tru to form as the NVA got close the Anzac artillery were deadly! As in real life but you can’t beat a player who consistently rolls 6’s! Most of the NVA casualties came from the artillery bombardments and they very rarely missed.

But it was slow going for the Anzac reserves to arrive but equally bad for the NVA born in the north rule. However slowly the reserve arrived in the form of two artillery batteries from the fire base at Nui Dat, even some Phantoms helped out and (unlike history) dropped some napalm 🔥 burning several 82mm rocket launches.

After this the writing was on the wall for the NVA, they had one last hope, Allen bravely removed the depleted five NVA platoons on the table and brought them back on in the final turns of the game,  he assaulted an M113 platoon and an Australian infantry platoon. The m113’s gave two platoons a very bloody nose but three platoons of NVA managed to assault the Aussie platoon destroying several stands and forcing the Australian off an objective, it almost worked the NVA were just about to pull it off, however you can’t beat a player who rolls 6’s consistently, the Australian’s I’m pinned and managed to contest the objective and the M113’s assaulted and beat several NVA platoons, this was enough for Allan to concede!

A really enjoyable game, thank you Allan, a great set of rules and a fantastic period to study!

Oh, one tip for Nam, use sabot bases for the NVA force, you can thank me now 😁.

IJN Hei Minesweeper

Hi everyone,
I received a commission to paint up this nice Warlord cruel seas ship, love the game and the models too but I’ve recently sent an email to my local group here in sunny Toowoomba and received some minor criticism on my latest project, a Japanese Hei class minesweeper. Now initially I used Tania spray (IJN grey) for the base coat, it’s very dark so I did highlights but I didn’t want to go overboard (sea what I did there 😂)! Anyhow a fellow Greybeard suggested that it would probably turn into a rust bucket very quickly, so I came back to the model and thinned some red paint with a brown wash and this is the result.
I hope you all like it and I hope it’s owner is pleased with my work.

Lets go look for the Wild Things.... or Max gets sent to bed without any supper!

Time for a rumpus with the Lords of the Wild

This is a faction close to my heart.  I played Wood Elves but in my WHFB days and also have a large and tattered collection of Beastmen. I even have enough Minotaurs to run the Black Hills legendary warband list.  However this list just screams for me to pull out my old Wood Elves and thankfully I have a broad enough range of models to fill most of the options this list provides.  

At first glance the Lords of the Wild looks shooting friendly, but I see it as ranged unit friendly.  This is because most of the battle board abilities support ranged units in melee too. 

The Lords of the Wild warband has access to lots of shooting, with Bow (foot) or Composite Bows (mounted) across Hero, Heathguard and Warrior troops and javelins for your levy.  You also have access to the full range of Monsters (0-2 of) and Creatures.  No War Machines but they they live in forrests to what is the point ;-).

The factions sorcerers have access to Earth and Light magic. Both are very useful depending on whether you are choosing to be Monster/Creature heavy or light.  Given that Lords of the Wild battle board has no orders or orders/reaction abilities which support Monsters, spells are the only way to help them out during the game.  

Irrespective of whether you choose a shooting, monster/creature or mixed list, the Lords of the Wild is going to be your ambush, snipe and whittle down the foe before delivering the final blow type of play style.

The Lords of the Wild special rules

• Your Lieutenant has Ranger which means treats all uneven terrain as open.  Plus, and this is the real benefit, all other units in the warband get to treat any uneven terrain the Ranger is in as open too.  The Ranger also has the option to be armed with a Bow.
• The Swarm is a levy upgrade which makes one unit Tiny, Insignificant and Primitive.  This means the unit always counts as being in light cover against shooting, doesn't reduce its move through uneven or dangerous terrain and won't inflict fatigue on units if wiped out within S.  The swarm is therefore going to work well as a fatigue inflicting speed bump in front of your units.
• The sacred ground, is a Primitive Totem which inflicts fatigue at the end of your activation phase (but before the end of your turn) on every enemy unit within VS so long as you have a saga dice generating unit also within VS. Given that sacred ground is always a small, high impassible piece of terrain this gives the Primitive Totem one of the smaller areas of effect, but can still be really useful if placed correctly.

What to look for on the battle board and spells:

• Sharpened Arrows (one rare) is a fantastic ability that will be used whenever possible.  Getting 2-4 automatic hits means almost certain death to any exhausted Heroes, Creature or Monster units. Its also nasty against heavily armoured units or those in cover.  It can also combine with Ambush (one uncommon) and Fury (Common or Rare) to delivery this alpha shooting strike at distance with a unit of warriors or levy.
• A mounted sorcerer with Verdant Wakening (any two magic dice) automatically gives you a piece of small uneven terrain as the source of Ambush fire. This gives you a shooting threat range of L+S+S+L with bows and L+S+S+M for Javelins or composite bows. So basically almost any where on the board can be targeted this way.  
• Retreat (Uncommon or Rare) will then allow you to run your sorcerer away if threatened in the following turn, because after using Verdant Wakening you will already be within S of some terrain.  Or if you used the magic bonus to get the 2 extra magic dice, you could use Banishment (Light) to move your threat away out of charge range in your turn.
• Wall of Thorns (Earth) works well with the battle boards abilities as it provides Solid Cover to a unit within L of the sorcerer, which is a blessing for your ranged weapon units.  A unit of bow warriors in light cover will save on 4s and if combined with Sacred Dance (common or uncommon) will gain 3 defence dice too. All the other melee abilities can be activated on commons too, so Call of the Wild, Fury, Point Blank Range (all one common at a minimum) or Poisoned Blades (two common) come into play.  This means your warriors with bow have not only an excellent change of surviving melee, but they can also deal out a lot of attacks too.
• Finally you will have to have a spare Titan figure lying around for Rise of the Spirits (Common plus Rare, during orders) which enables you to replace a small unoccupied piece of uneven terrain within M of one of your unit with this Titan. To really make this work you will need a common, uncommon (for activation to move/charge) and a rare, but it is going to make your opponent think about where they put uneven terrain on the board and unit placement too.

Tactical musings:

• I am sorely temped to take a very heavily shooting based warband as it has the ability to hit at range, snipe, hide in terrain and shoot and scoot depending on the units.
• Placing woods and fields in your opponents half of the table is a priority, likewise placing ruins and rocky ground in yours if possible.  Whilst high terrain blocks line of site, this is less of an issue for the Lords of the Wild compared to other shooting lists.  Because of the fragile nature of your ranged troops you want them in terrain wherever possible to give them cover and also reduce the opportunity for melee troops to charge quickly and without gaining fatigue.
• The ranger offers tactical manoeuvrability for mounted heathguard or warriors with composite bows. Move L into uneven terrain containing the Ranger with no fatigue, shoot for free and then decide whether to withdraw or not.  With terrain S apart it is possible for the Ranger to move between terrain pieces to allow this to happen a couple of times.
• As much as I like Chrysalis (Earth) as a spell, with one sorcerer my go to spells will be Wall of Thorns, Verdant Wakening and Banishment. All three support the hitting a range, delay the advance and support defence in melee tactics my Lords of the Wild warband will favour.  

Composition:

Like all my Age of Magic lists, my composition is heavily influenced by the figures I already have and which I have traditionally thought cool.

Warlord - I can take any of the options but am leaning toward Bow or Mount: Animal Composite Bow options.  I like the Mount: Beast (Flight) but feel I am going to need the We Obey ability too often

Lieutenant - Bow (cull 2 HG)

Sorcerer - Mount: Animal (Wall of Thorns, Verdant Wakening and Banishment) (1 point)

6 x Heathguard - Mount: Animal Composite Bow (2 points)

12 x Warriors - Bow (1 1/2 point)

12 x Warriors - Bow (1 1/2 point)

2 x Biped Creatures (1 point)

2 x Biped Creatures (1 point)

Looking at Masters of the Underneath

Basic overview of Master of the Underneath

Masters of the Underneath are supposed to represent the miners, the underground hordes, things that hide, things that delve and make arcane machines etc...  Well maybe they do and maybe they don't but this is one of the options my Dwarves will be taking.

The Master of the Underneath (MoU for short) like heavy weapons (Warlord, Heathguard and Warrior options) as well as warriors having access to Firearms.  You can have a flying war machine or two, and a Scourge (for that dragon or golden horde worshiping firewrym) but otherwise no other flying.  Only your Heathguard can be Mount: Animal and your Warlord can Mount: Beast.

The Master of the Underneath's special rules includes

• Alchemist - a grenade throwing lieutenant
• Destruction Team - a single model warrior with 3 firearm shots and a chance to blow up
• Underground Network - two M by M pieces of low impassable terrain that enable you to manoeuvre your units through one to the other.  Not only does this give you the opportunity to deploy you units into your enemies rear, by placing 2 pieces of terrain as one you 

The battle board and spells 

The MoU battle board is interesting and subtle.  You have 3 Orders/Reaction abilities which force your opponent to take higher risks to engage your units. Tenacity on a common gives one of your units 3 defence die in melee or shooting for a -1 penalty to attack dice rolls.  Traps and Chasm are rare or double rare and are very good if you can get them off.  Use Traps on the unit your opponent has setup to do all the damage. They need to roll their melee armour or higher on a D6 for every activation and if they don't must either cancel the activation or suffer a fatigue. Large Heathguard units, Warlords and Titans are going to hate this.  Chasm is not going to be used often but when it is the results could be devastating.  If your opponent is all lined up closely and doesn't have many movement activations then this is going to spread a lot of casualties around.  So having it on your board is great way to prevent them preparing for that alpha strike with all their abilities and magic up.  The only away to avoid the effects of Chasm is to move outside of S and this requires activations.

Aside from Experimental Techniques which is shooting, the rest of saga abilities are melee and fairly defensively oriented.  Remove fatigue, get solid cover, move out of range etc...  Don't expect the MoU units to charge in deal out lots of attack dice and smoke units in melee.  However if you use your shooting right, deal out fatigue and then charge in you are likely to be decisive.  Order of Battle (two common dice) is a great ability as it potential allows you to activate 4 units to charge if your units are all within of the first unit you activate with this ability. Or, you can activate to shoot with firearms, deal out fatigue and then charge in with your flanking units into melee.

MoU magic comes from Time and Metal spells.  My current choice are Slowed Time (Time), Decay (Time) and Rites of Battle (Metal). These spells support they way I expect to play the MoU.  Slowed Time supports your shooting, move your firearm equipped warriors, mobile warmachine, or Destruction Team to within M and fire without fatigue. Decay forces unto 3 enemy units within L to roll a die and potentially take a fatigue, casualty or both for each unit. And, Rites of Battle is one of my favourites as it gives all your units within M (basic) or L (common+uncommon) a bonus 2 attack dice in each melee for your turn and next.

Tactical musings

Your lieutenant (Alchemist), Destruction Teams (0-2) and Firearms Warriors are the things that make your shooty stuff different.  Between M and L, firearms are just like bows, but within M they are crossbows which impart fatigue on they target if it suffers a casualty.  Normally this isn't a big deal, but with Resilience Heroes, Creatures and Monsters out these this is really good. Cause 1 casualty to get 2 fatigue, with a good round of shooting likely to exhaust Resilience (1) units and leave Resilience (2) units on 3 fatigue. If you have a Static Warmachine in LOS of any exhausted Resilience unit, then you are likely to be waving it goodbye.

The nature of the battle board suggests that you want to pick you time to charge and hold of your opponent until you have sniped away and got them fatigued.  If you can break up a concerted attack and force them to charge piecemeal then your defensive abilities should see you in good stead.  you can afford to keep one firearms unit up to shoot at M and then use Tactical Withdrawal to move fatigue free back out of range.

Placement of terrain is interesting, especially your Underground Network.  I am going to be sorely tempted by the opportunity to place them side by side (S away) dead centre of the front of my deployment zone and place my war machines behind them.  The Order of Battle ability means that you will be rewarded by keeping your melee units close by.  A couple flanking a shooting unit provide both defensive and attacking options as the battle progresses.

Composition:

My collection of Dwarves don't have any creature or monster suitable options at present.  So I won't be taking them for the time being.

Warlord
Lieutenant - Alchemist (cull 4 warriors)
Sorcerer - (Slowed Time, Decay and Rites of Battle) (1 point)
1 x Destruction Teams (cull 2 warriors)
4 x Heathguard (1 point)
4 x Heathguard (1 point)
12 x Warriors - Heavy Weapons (2 points)
9 x Warriors - Firearms (2 point)
9 x Warriors - Firearms (2 point)
1 x Warmachine (cull 4 warriors)

Some thoughts about The Horde

Saga Age of Magic is now out in Australia and a few people have been asking about the different factions and how they play.

So this is my first attempt at a faction review and/or play guide.  I hope you find it interesting.

The Horde, what are they like?

The Horde is the faction most associated with the idea of barbarian warbands, the mass of unruly blood crazed warriors and races such as orcs and goblins. Regardless of the miniatures you choose and your flavour of fantasy I see them as the charge and bash faction.

The warband is combat driven, with regular heavy weapons or mounts being the core options and you shooting limited to levy bow, mounted composite bow warriors, Scourge monster, a single war machine and javelins on war chariots.

The Horde battle board only has one shooting ability, but since everything else is mostly movement and melee based, you are going to want to build a melee oriented warband.

The Horde's sorcerers have access to Earth and Metal magic, which buff the Horde battle board and troop types really well.  With right spell selection and the full battle board, the Horde are very fast, hit hard and can deal out a lot of damage very quickly.  The have some defensive abilities which reduce the likelihood of taking casualties in return, but overall you can expect that unless you can significantly reduce your opponents Saga dice generation abilities early, there counter attacks are going to hurt.

The Horde's special rules include

• a lieutenant upgraded to a aggression 6 Champion with Pride.
• War Chariot heroes which hit hard with javelins and have double aggression if starting melee with no fatigue.
• and, a Sacrificial Stone as their Sacred Ground which imparts a bonus attack die to all Horde units within S in melee.

Battle board and spell synergies:

• for a rare dice, For the Horde (Orders) increases your charges over open terrain by S and your fatigue can't be used against you.  This means you can camp outside of shooting or cavalry charge ranges with mounted units or outside of the foot unit charge range and initiate charges from far away.  This makes me want to take lots of mounted units and quadruped creatures.  Combined with the metal spell Stoke Fury, you now have a mounted unit capable of charging L+S+S or a monster charging M+S+S.  This is potentially brutal.
• Me First (Orders) stacks well with either of the above to give you 4 bonus attack dice, if your first activation for the turn is a charge.  Play this on your Behemoth and it enters melee with 16 dice.
• Domain of Metal spells are particularly useful for the Horde as they give bonus dice when calculating your initial attack dice pool.  So you get to max out your monster in combat despite not being allowed to use advanced saga abilities and your other units can use Rage and Prayers to the Old Gods to their best effect.
• Let the Blood Run gives you two charge activations for the price of one so long as you have no more than one fatigue.  With For the Horde up this gives you the opportunity to charge in and then use Let the Blood Run to finish off small units etc...

Tactical thoughts:

• Having played a handful of games with the Horde, I like the fact that they are fast, really fast if you let them.  I think you need to be patient and wait the right time to unleash their charges.  If you get that rare sage dice early, I think you need to place it on For the Horde as it is only to screw with your opponents mind early on.  You can fill your battle board over a couple of turns knowing that if your opponent wants to stand off you can use manoeuvre to close to just outside of L.  If you get a second rare, placement on Activation Pool means that you are guaranteed two extra saga dice on your charge turn to ensure you have all the activations you need.
• If you take only one sorcerer then my spell choice is Chrysalis (Earth), Stoke Fury and Rites of Battle (both Metal).  Chrysalis is so you can re-roll one magic die per spell cast, which gives you two chances to get the +2 bonus attack dice on Stoke Fury and range L with Rites of Battle. On the turn you charge you want to have both of these off if possible and you need Rites of Battle up to give you extra hitting power during your opponents counter attack.
• Placing the Sacrificial Stone early and in your opponents deployment zone sounds like a good idea as clearly indicates to your opponent that you are coming to get them.  Uneven terrain is your enemy, so you also want to place these out of the way and limit the amount of terrain on the board as early as possible.
• To mount of not to mount.  Given that your strike range can be L+S, I think that it is feasible to have an all mounted melee warband. A mounted sorcerer enables you to maximise the Rites of Battle bubble and ensure you get Stoke Fury on the right unit.

Composition:

Disclaimer, I am playing Age of Magic so I can bring out all my old fantasy armies. Given the size of my collection I can pretty much take any combination units I want and I have so far.  But based on my games so far this is what I will be taking next.

Warlord - Mount: Animal

Lieutenant- Mount: Animal (cull 2 HG)

War Chariot (1 point)

Sorcerer - Mount: Animal (Chrysalis, Stoke Fury and Rites of Battle) (1 point)

6 x Heathguard - Mount: Animal (2 points)

2 x Quadruped Creatures (1 point)

2 x Quadruped Creatures (1 point)

8 x Warriors - Mount: Animal or with Composite Bow (1 point) 

1 x Behemoth Monster (1 point)

Saga @ Little Wars Melbourne - Wrap Up

Little Wars Melbourne for 2019 is done and dusted

Great day for Saga in Melbourne and massive thanks to Pip, Robbie, Kat, Ben and Tony for helping out with all the demo games, setup, pack up and just being a great bunch of people to hang out with.

The table and display

We were allocated 12'x5' and needed every inch of it. The table base lives on top of my pool table at home so needed my tailer to bring it to the hall.  Everything was packed in tubs and the team had lots of fun laying the hex tiles out.  All the key terrain pieces are made according to Saga terrain dimensions and 4" hex system always means you keep them S away from each other.  The only down side is that you need to fit them in the frame so you can't move them that 1" more.  But that is a small price to pay.  The MDF hex tiles are made by Mike @ Battlefield Accessories and I flocked them up. We also added some extras for a little eye candy including a 3D printed cathedral that Robbie had made which is amazing.

The miniature display stands were supplied Viv @ Knights of Dice, who not only made them up especially for us, was putting together the last one right as we were setting up.

Demo games

In order to give people a feel for playing Saga with it key mechanics, we made 3 point / 4 Saga dice warbands.  Vikings v Anglo Danes and  Crusaders v Mutatawwi'a were the go to lists though we had Spanish, Moors and a couple of others in reserve.  Using 3 points allowed for 2-3 quick turns which more than adequately demonstrated the key phases, activate units and the battleboards.

Kat, Robbie and Pip were the demo masters in chief with Kat playing non-stop from 10AM to 3PM.  For most of the time we had 2 games going at the same time and early on we had 3.  I stopped counting when we hit 20 demo games, so I think we got around 30 with lots more people looking on.

Saga miniature display

We had over 200 miniatures on display plus some terrain samples from Ainsty Castings and Renedra.

  

Unfortunately the V&V shipment didn't arrive in time, but we got 

1st Corps, Aventine Miniatures , Bad Squiddo Games, Conquest Games, Crusader Miniatures, Drabant, Eureka Miniatures, Fireforge Games, Footsore Miniatures, Gorgon Studios, Gripping Beast

Magister Militum, Newline Designs, Old Glory UK, Shieldwall Miniatures, SHQ Miniatures, Steve Barber Models, Stronghold Terrain, Wargames Foundry, Warhansa, Warlord Games and West Wind

The display probably got more attention than the demo games and I was constantly answering questions about the companies, playing and collecting Saga armies and discussing long lost piles of metal which people thought about bring out of boxes and onto the the table.

There were lots of complements on the display and surprise at the number of companies making 28mm Saga suitable miniatures. The most common comments were:

• the miniatures look so much better in the flesh and that some company's websites just didn't do their figures justice
• whilst there was some difference in scale most people were comfortable with the idea of mixing and matching ranges
• lots of people took close up photos and the copies of the contact details for further research.

Day in review

It was a great day out in general. Lots of demo games, with some really great terrain and armies on display throughout the hall. It was also great to see that my club, the Nunawading Wargaming Association was incredibly well represented and the talent and commitment displayed was amazing.


From a Saga perspective we hit all the goals; lots of games were played; lots of new gamers and those who owned th game but never played it were uncovered; and we created lots of interest. Melbourne is a big city in area so it is easy for people to live 1-1½ hours from each other, so it was great to be able to direct people to gamers and gaming clubs local to them.  I don't know exactly how many people attended Little Wars, but we had a couple of hundred drop by our stand.


Looks like we will be doing the same thing at PAX in October 2019 and working towards a Melbourne Saga tournament later in the year too.

Battle for Pelisium Moor

Great Kingdoms v Horde Battle Report

using

Menoth (Privateer Press) and Warriors of Chaos (Games Workshop)

A cold wind swept over Pelisium Moor, dispersing the mists into cobweb like clouds across the fields.        The discordant sound of jangling armour broke the morning's silence, disturbing the water foal into the air and small animals to seek shelter.

As the sun's ray burnt away the last of the morning mist, the two warbands could clearly seen facing off across the wet and marshy moor.  Ready for battle.

The Great Kingdoms warband consisted of:

• Warlord on foot
• Captain on foot.  This is the Great Kingdom's lieutenant which has We Obey as its special rule
• Paladin on foot
• Sorcerer on foot 
• 2 points of heathguard on foot with heavy weapons (1 point turned into the captain and paladin)
• 1 point of biped creatures
• 2 points of warriors on foot
• 2 points of levy, 1 with firearms and 1 with bows.

The Horde warband consisted of:

• Mounted warlord
• Mounted lieutenant
• Mounted sorcerer
• War Chariot. Horde special hero unit
• 2 points of mounted heathguard (6 figures after 2 replaced for the lieutenant)
• 3 points of warriors (in 2 units of 12)
• 1 point of behemoth monster

Book of Battles - Battle of Heroes set in Marshy Country, with Refused Flank and Unknown Length.

We mucked up the setup and deployment reading the refused flank rules after setting up so the terrain was concentrated along the Southern long edge, leaving the North sparsely covered.  We also forgot that placing Sacred Ground is part of regular terrain deployment and left it for last.  So The horde entering from the East decided it needed to play the game in the Great Kingdom's deployment zone and hence the 2 sacred ground pieces were in the North West.

Turn 1

The Horde place half is warband North of the woods and then the rest South after the Great Kingdom deployed.  The aim was to sweep in around the southern flank.  With a 6 Saga dice to start, the horde was able to fill up the battle board including a rare on "For the Horde" and maneuvered up to just outside of L of all the Great Kingdom units aside from the level bow, which moved its warriors to within charge range.

The Great Kingdoms moved filled its board, moved the firearm levy forward and shot it and the bow at separate warrior units using "Enfilade" causing 1 casualty to each unit.  

Turn 2

Using Magic support "Stoke Fury" (on a rare), "Strengthen" and "Me First" Saga Ability; the Horde's warriors charged the levy bow in the swamp, killing 7 with 1 units; and then charged the levy firearms with the other killing 10. 

The Great Kingdoms then counter struck the northern warriors, first with its creatures who ended up exhausted without inflicting any damage.  Then their warriors charged winning combat and charging again, wiping out the Horde's warriors and distributing fatigue to the warlord, sorcerer and behemoth. 

Turn 3

The Horde repositioned its units for charging in its next turn.

The Great Kingdom sorcerer seeing how his enemy controlled the power of his magic (just) decided to risk the "Abuse of Power" to remove all the fatigue from his creatures unit only to roll double 1 and disappear in load smelly puff of smoke.  

Turn 4

The Horde trigger's "For the Horde" and with a combination of "Let the Blood Run", "Violence" and "Stoke Fury" charge the southern Great Kingdom units.  The levy bow were wiped out, but the warriors survived the war chariot's charge and only lost 4 (not enough to lose a Saga dice).

Seeing his enemy isolated and fatigued the Great Kingdom's paladin charged the behemoth kit and the warlord ordered his creatures into horde's warlord and destroying it too. 

Turn 5

With only 2 Saga dice left the Horde charged the war chariot back into the Kingdom's warriors only to die a horrible death and the lieutenant charged the captain only to end in an exhausted draw.

Ahead on points and will all its units within charge range exhausted, the Great Kingdom's warlord orders his units to rest awaiting the killing blow to land in turn 6.

Turn 6

The horde rolls a 3 on a D6 roll and the game ends.

Key Takeaways:

1. Read the scenarios first before setting up. This is not a mistake we normally make, but in the excitement of getting an 8 point game in, both of us forgot.  Knowing the the Refused Flank deployment in advance would have changed the game.  The Great Kingdom's wood would have been centre field, the hordes one in a corner and its Sacred Ground at the edge of the Great Kingdoms deployment zone.  Once the Great Kingdom's Sacred Ground was placed, the horde would have called time and there would have been less terrain. Maybe?
2. The horde is aggressive and there were times when it should have really pushed harder.  Its deployment was all wrong and should have just left the bows in the swamp and dealt with the rest of the army.  
3. Remember that War Chariots have Javelins and their +1 bonus in melee on the charge.
4. Fatigue management is critical. Even with resilience 2, you need to not only know when to spend your opponent's fatigue, you also need to weigh the risk of taking fatigue from that extra activation. Each point of fatigue is one closer to death and all it takes is a un/lucky roll or two and poof!
5. It was a great game which seesawed multiple times and 1 or 2 dice rolls made the difference.
6. Still have lots to learn about the synergy between units and the battleboards.  There is going to be a lot of fun learning the intricacies of Saga:Age of Magic.

Little Wars Melbourne Preparations

Saga Suitable Miniature Display

As part of the Saga Demonstration and Participation table at Little Wars Melbourne we will be displaying Saga suitable miniatures from:

1. 1st Corps
2. Aventine Miniatures 
3. Bad Squiddo Games
4. Conquest Games
5. Crusader Miniatures
6. Drabant
7. Eureka Miniatures
8. Fireforge Games
9. Footsore Miniatures
10. Gorgon Studios
11. Gripping Beast
12. Magister Militum
13. Newline Designs
14. Old Glory UK
15. Shieldwall Miniatures
16. SHQ Miniatures
17. Steve Barber Models
18. Stronghold Terrain
19. V&V Miniatures (hopefully, still checking the post office daily)
20. Wargames Foundry
21. Warhansa
22. Warlord Games
23. West Wind

In addition to I have some terrain and accessories from:

1. Ainsty Castings
2. Battlefield Accessories
3. Knights of Dice
4. Renedra

The purpose of this display is to enable you all to see the quality of sculpts, casting, scale and style of different companies before committing a a sight unseen purchase online. 

All the companies above have kindly donated examples of their ranges covering Age of Invasions, Age of Vikings and Age of Crusades periods.  I have had the opportunity to meet and talk to many of owners of these companies.  All of them are extremely passionate about wargaming, making miniatures and it is truly fantastic that they have all been able to pursue their passion and receive an income from it at the same time.

Work in progress and there are still more to go.  Resin, plastic and different types of white metal as well.

I have been chipping away at the miniatures every evening, driving my family made as it has taken over half the kitchen table.  Still got quite a few to go but everyone who stops by our Little Wars stand will get to see at least 200 miniatures.  If I have enough time, bases and space left, I might get to include some Age of Magic Undead miniatures too.

A Week in Review - Gaming

First experiences with Sage Age of Magic.

Last weekend I was lucky enough to get in a few games of Saga Age of Magic.

The first was an 8 point game at my local club, Nunawading Wargaming Association. Brought along my old WHFB Beastmen and Dwarves ready to play as The Horde and Masters of the Underneath, respectively.

The Beastmen Horde charged forward, their extra 

movement of the war chariots catching the 

Master of Underneath (Dwarves) by surprise

The 8 point composition of the two warbands was based on what looked cool and trialling out how the units would work. Each warband had a sorcerer, with a Minotaur warlord (counting as warlord mounted on beast) leading the Beastmen, and Dwarves choosing to be shooting heavy including a static and flying war machines.

A bloody and fun affair which came down to the final turn.  The Beastmen rushed to an early lead, with the Dwarves clawing their way back only to succumb at the end.

Major learning: You need lots and lots of fatigue markers in Age of Magic.

The second game was a small skirmish between two 4 point warbands.  

The Chaos Horde warband face off against the
Dwarven Masters of the Underneath

My old WHFB Chaos playing as Hordes and the Dwarves as Masters of the Underneath again.

The first two turns were are fairly static as both sides built their battle boards and manoeuvred where they could.

Then the Dwarves Gyrocopter (flying war- machine) sniped at the mounted heathguard and caused two casualties.

Twelve warrior dwarves charge a behemoth (Shaggoth) and
are beaten off after the behemoth inflicted 11 hits to 8.  The
dwarves were supported by a full battle board and the
behemoth with magical support

This signalled all out war and the horde rushed forward inviting the dwarves to hold or flee. Sitting comfortably outside of M, the Chaos horde felt confident in their charge next turn.

Seizing the bull by the horns, the Dwarves surprised with Shaggoth (behemoth) by charging with the aid of some magic. The resulting melee was devastating

The Chaos warlord on Daemonic Steed slams into the
Dwarven warlord only to be undone

in its intensity with both sides striking in a berserk rage. The Dwarves were beaten back after losing five comrades, but left the Shaggoth exhausted and vulnerable.

OK playing 4 points means that you loose Saga dice really quickly desperation kicks in with, 'Can I cause more damage before I am undone?'

The Shaggoth died in the next combat and the two warlords ended up one-on-one due to Pride with the Chaos warlord on Mounted Beast charging into the Dwarf warlord and losing.  Saga is a great game and sometimes you just have to accept that the dice gods have got it in for you. Revenge was sweet with the warriors finishing off the Dwarf warlord, but at that point it was basically game over with the remaining Chaos forces overwhelming the Dwarves in the final turn.

 

My final Saga Age of Magic game was another small one. This time 5 points worth, with the Lords of the Wild using Wood Elves and Circle of Orboros figures against Lords of the Otherworld against Tzeentch Daemons.  

A large unit of warriors take cover in a ruin supported by
flying creatures, Sorcerer, A Scourge, and Warlord on a
flying beast

Like the the previous games this was a bloody and brutal affair with fierce combats and more importantly some impressive shooting.

The two warlords go head to head, but with neither able to
land the final blow

The Lords of the Wild battleboard really support shooting with both the Heathguard and Warrior units pushing all the Otherworld resilient units to exhaustion and finishing them off.

Having lots of flying troops lead to lots of movement, but again the limited number of Saga dice limiting options.

Another close run game which literally drew to a close as darkness fell on our board. A narrow win to the Wood Elves with their warlord and warriors surviving, with the Otherworld beaten off with on the sorcerer and a few warriors left.

Looking forward to 8 point and employing each factions Sacred Ground soon.

2nd major learning:  Choosing the right spells to match the battleboard and warband composition is really important.  Combined the synergies transform the effectiveness of our units.