SAGA: Retreat-Irish vs Saxons

Wow.........two games in one week, I am on a real roll!

Last night myself at Adam got together for a game of SAGA at the Hobby Bunker. There is no question that we both enjoy this ruleset and Adam got to field his newly painted Irish Warband. He really did a great job on them. The game was also a bit of an occasion as this will be our last game of SAGA, as our next game will be played using SAGA2. I am looking forward to this as I believe it the re-write will be a significant streamlining of the rules.

I had planned to field a Moslem Warband but for a couple of reasons I decided against it. I am one unit short to make 6 points so it was going to be a little difficult and SAGA2 is going to result in a significant rewrite of the battleboards. 

Thus I decided to go with a warband from the Aetius and Arthur supplement which is SAGA2 compliant. I have played both the Romans and the Britons from this book and wanted to do something different. After a quick look through I decided to go with the Saxons. I am by nature a defensive player and the Saxons are an aggressive warband so I felt it would be a good warband to try to get out of my comfort zone.

We picked the Retreat scenario from the A&A supplement which we had played once before. The last time Adam was the attacker and won the game, so it was felt only reasonable that I should attack.

Adam went with a Standard Warlord as well as 2 Curraigh derived from a 2 units of Hearthguard. He also went with 4 Warrior units, one being some Irish Wolfhounds for his 6 points. 

I went with the Hengist and Horsa 1 point warlord upgrade as well as 4 units of warriors and 1 unit of levy for my 6 points.

The starting positions. essentially the defenders are set up in a narrow 6" band in the middle of the terrain and have to escape off the board to the farground. The attackers set up in a 6" strip on their table edge but may also put up to 2 units on the defenders table edge. The defenders start the game with 1 fatigue per unit and any attacker on the defenders edge starts with 2 fatigue. It is a good scenario which is a lot of fun. Victory is given to the player who gains the most points. Points are gained by the defender from their figures off the table edge as well as from the opposing figures killed. The attackers gains points from opposing  figures killed. As you can see I placed by levy bowmen on the defenders table edge (right farground)

The attack starts, the game is only 6 turns so alacrity in advance is required.

Irish Warriors and the Wolfhounds and a Curraigh being tracked by the Saxon Warriors with Horsa leading the way.  They were all successful with minimal loss in escaping.

The Irish were less successful on the other end, I was able to quickly take down a unit of warriors and decimate a unit of Hearthguard and the Warlord's Pride resulted in the Irish Warlord being forced to engage Hengist and losing.

The last unit of Irish escaping off the board.

The Irish had all escaped by turn 5, but despite an abysmal Turn 4 SAGA dice throw where I got 6 Common Dice, I was able to eke out a victory with a 21 to 17 point victory for the Saxons. 

It is not often I win against Adam, so I have to say I was happy with my choice of Warband. The Saxons have an interesting BattleBoard, so I think you will see them again.