Greetings pilgrims, and welcome back to another SAGA article! Over the past weeks I have delved deeply into SAGA 2nd edition in order to practice for an upcoming tournament. Transitioning my Crusader army from the old edition meant I had to paint up some additional miniatures, and in order to get used to the new battleboard I played around 10 games – mostly against the Islamic armies, vikings of different flavour, and the Greco-Roman chads of the Byzantine Empire. In this article I’ll share my thoughts on the Crusader army after snagging a first place with three straight wins at a small tournament held at the local club here in Malmö, Sweden.
Let’s talk army composition
Looking at the Crusader board I think it is quite obvious that you, from the very start, have to decide what flavour you want to base the army around. The battleboard has several abilities whose effect differ depending on whether you field pilgrims or knights. Most of my old army was made out of a core of Hearthguards, and I really like the game style of the abilities that favour them, which is why I have opted to not field pilgrims. This article will not review all of the abilities of the board (if you are looking for that, here’s a great write-up by my friend Alex who took my army for a swing a couple of months ago). Instead, I will discuss how I approached each game of the tournament, and how my units and abilities performed. On a last note I forgot my camera at home, and was too carried away during each game to take battle pictures, so you will have to put up with some shots of the army taken after the tournament.
The tournament format allowed us to bring a roster containing up to 7 points (no legendaries allowed), and before each game we had to select a total of 6 points to field. This is a local meta we’ve had for years which adds some really nice tactical flavour to the game, as you can tailor your “fielded” warband a little bit when you see your opponent’s army. I, however, only brought 6 points as I had not finished my additional point of troops. I brought the following force of Baltic Crusaders from the Age of Crusades book:
Warlord
8 Hearthguard, mounted w. lances and shields
8 Hearthguard, on foot w. great weapons
8 Warriors, on foot w. sword and board
12 Levies, on foot w. crossbows
Taking Baltic Crusaders allows levies to be fielded with crossbows which, although they’re only a small part of the army, is a crucial component in my strategy. The Hearthguard on foot is split into two groups of 4, whose main objective is to fend of units going after my levies, and to decimate enemy units before the cavalry charge. I chose the 8 dismounted warriors just for objective grabbing and screening purposes. I usually deploy my levies in the center of the board, flanked by the two units of dismounted Hearthguard. The Cavalry and dismounted Warriors try to go after weak spots in the enemy lines, and to grab and score objectives. When I get the time, I will probably add another 8 Warriors on horse just to be able to field more mounted troops for scenarios that favour manouvering.
Game 1: What do they call a Quarter Pounder with cheese in Normandy?
In the first game of the tournament I was pitched against a Norman force containing 16 mounted Hearthguards with javelins and a warbanner, some levied archers and footslogging warriors. This army was fast, French, and deadly! We played an updated (read home made) version of the scenario ‘Sacred Ground’, in which you have to claim and defend three areas of terrain set up in the center of the table. I had a lot of respect for my opponent’s shooting capabilities, so I made sure to put dice on “Happy are the Humble” and “Blessing of the Righteous” almost every turn. This meant that I could protect my Hearthguard units (giving them +1 armor, resilience (1), and re-rolls to their armor saves against shooting). With the protection of maille and faith, I could then move up and threathen the scoring areas, and after fending off one unit of cavalry the game was pretty much mine. My levy got stuck in a shoot-out with the Norman archers around the center hill, and thanks to the ability “Find Chinks in their Armor” I managed to trade 2 casualties for 7 kills in one turn – rendering his levies pretty much useless. The crossbowmen were definitely the MVPs of this game as they forced the Norman cavalry to stay away from the center of the table, which in turn gave me free reign to claim the ‘uneven’ terrain pieces early on. The crossbow levy really shined in this game (even though they performed well during the entire tournament). “Find Chinks…” is a great ability on it’s own, but it is within the Baltic Crusader force that I think it shines the most. Being able to shoot 10 bolts for a common dice (12 for a rare!), at +1 to hit, against soft skinned targets is brutal in this game. Sure you have to re-roll your 6:s, but who cares when you hit levies on 2+, and mounted Hearthguard on 3+? It is one of those strange abilities that is almost reversed, as it is better the lower the armor of the target is, while at the same time being written as an anti-armored ability (I think). Anyhow, if you get the chance try it out for yourself! The unit is rarely activated for more than one or two activations in a game, but they have a huge impact on how you can limit your opponent’s game plan. Their threat potential is simply amazing and a very fun tool to push around.
Game 2: Ragnarok errupts as I had to shut down #Lindisfarne2.0 in ‘Claiming Territory’.
In my second game I was reunited with my club mate Simon and his Viking force. I had looked forward to this match up for a long time as I lost against him during our practice game, and had spent a whole night sleepless thinking about how to change my approach to his force. Vikings are notorious for their offensive abilities, but can defend really well in the 2nd edition of the game thanks to some fatigue removal and other scary melee-abilities – so I knew that I could not charge them head on screaming ‘HAVE YOU HEARD ABOUT THE GOSPEL OF MATHEW!?‘ like I did last time.
Thanks to some clever terrain deployment from me, and some sloppy objective placement on Simon’s behalf, I managed to get a sweet defensive position within a piece of ‘Rocky ground’ close to one of Simon’s objectives. I parked my great weapon wielding knights within VS range and watched as my 1pt of Hearthguard fended off half of his army trying to storm the objective. Yes – I had some very lucky saving throws, but I also think that I played my battleboard to the best, always stacking up re-rolls with “Without Fear of Being Wounded” and “Blessing…” when he loaded up for charges, and gaining extra attacks with “Jericho” to do as much damage in return as possible. Once Simon popped the “Ragnarok” ability, it took him 5 charges (losing a total of 9 warriors, 3 Hearthguard, and exhausting his own Warlord) to kill off 4 great weapon wielding fanatics. Re-rolling saves of 4+ and having a +1 to hit bonus turned out to make the day here. As most of his army pressured one corner of the battlefield, the rest of my cavalry force together with my Warlord secured and scored me points on the other objectives of the table using regular activations and the ability to move during his turn with “God’s host“.
Game 3: There’s only room for one lunatic in the Holy Land.
I had made it to the top table in the final game of the tournament only to be pitched against – of course – other crusaders. This time it was Johan and his warrior clerics of the Milites Cristi. I had never faced this battleboard before so I approached the game with a mix of curiosity and fear of their tricks. We played a tweaked version of the ‘Bagage Escort’ scenario where both forces had to defend a bagage train as well as trying to destroy the opposing army. Most of our clashes turned out brutal as we traded knights both right and left. The two battleboards play out very different, but the outcome of our melees was almost always the same – I would stack up on attack dice and re-rolls to my armor saves, while he stacked up on attack dice and auto-cancelling hits as well as raising his armor to 6. I think one of the big turning points in this game was when I offered him an easy charge into my levy, in order to draw out one of his cavalry units close to my great axe-men. I was completely fine with the idea of losing my crossbowmen in order to get to his knights, but lady luck had favoured me this day and I managed to roll some pretty nasty saving throws – resulting in him only killing 6 levies out of his 17 hits! Not only did he fail to take away my ranged threat, I got to keep their dice generation as well. We kind of traded units during the game but as I had the upper hand from early on I won due to earning more Slaughtering Victory points. Once the dust had settled there was only one church boy choir left on the field.
Final thoughts
The tournament was a blast – not only because I netted some sweet prizes in the form of miniatures to bring home to the loot stack – but because I got to play against three cool opponents (and armies) who did not give me an easy time. Our local community is very talented and I think we would do well against international players. Some are taking the cross to the German Grand Melee next week but I have to skip out this time.
The tournament was run very smooth, with the T.O Johan arranging everything from prepping the venue to our lunch on his own. The scenarios also worked well for competitive play, although I prefer the Bagage Train-mission from the Book of Battles over the tweaked version we tried. Johan also got to test out an idea we spoke about during the Howling Axes event some weeks ago – where players could select secret “secondary missions” that earned extra tournament points upon achievement. These objectives varied from simply (well, this is not simple!) killing the enemy Warlord to having your own units in the opposing deployment zone at the end of the game. The secondaries could also only ever be selected/scored once for the entire tournament which meant that you had to think about what you could achieve the easiest prior to each game.
It was also nice to meet Thomas and Henric from the land of Danes, who came over here representing their club in Copenhagen. It is nice to see what have become of our Scandinavian SAGA community, a group I piloted, and I hope we can gather more outlanders soon enough!
If you enjoyed this article, please leave a comment below!
Cheers!
/F.
scattereddice.wordpress.com 