Death in a Tight Splace Redux

Myself and Adam got together to yesterday to replay Adam's excellent scenario Death in a Tight Space. On our last outing, I played the defender. Yesterday, we reversed roles: Adam decided to go with the Norse-Gaels as the attacker and I decided to use the Vikings as the heroic defenders. We played from the Age of Vikings source book for SAGA2.

Vikings:

Ragnar Lothbrok

3 points of Hearthguard

1 point of Berserkers

Mercenary unit of Jarl Sigvaldi's Jomsvikings

Norse-Gaels:

Warlord

4 points of Warriors (half Dane-Axes)

2 Points of Levy

Unusually, I had a bit of time to think about the game before I played so I had actually generated a plan. As laid out the last time the Attackers have the Endless Warbands rule and the game was to last 10 Rounds (nightfall we could say). Victory was based on Slaughtering Points. With this in mind, I felt that I had to try to not engage the attackers for at least 4 rounds to prevent having to face multiple endless warbands. At the same time, I planned to position my Berserkers so they could take out the largest group of warriors while screaming Valhalla. Best laid plans of course, as I think the Berserkers ended up attacking in Round 3 and being wiped out without accomplishing their mission. I then had to play a game of cat and mouse taking out the Norse-Gaels when an opportunity presented itself while trying to survive until nightfall. The below photos will illustrate what happened.

Here is a view of the starting position, Vikings to the right. It was 25 Vikings vs  57 Norse-Gaels. I went with two 6 figure units of Hearthguards and two 4 figure units of Berserkers and Jomsvikings. Ragnar generated 2 SAGA dice for a total of 6. The Norse-Gaels had two units of 12 Levy, three units of 12, 10 and 10 Warriors as well as a Warlord for 6 SAGA dice.

A scary prospect.

I missed a few photos here but in a early clash I lost 3 Hearthguard but was able to kill a unit of Warriors.  I had already sacrificed my Berserkers without taking them out.

Ragnar advances with 3 Hearthguard to take out the these two units of Norse-Gael warriors . The game ended on turn 9 with the Vikings having 43 Slaughtering Points while the Norse-Gaels had 20, a clear victory for the defenders.

I enjoyed the game and believe I put together a pretty good warband for this heroic stand. It went quite smoothly although I am not sure if I played the Jomsviking's Fury correctly. Adam kindly let me play the Fury as a Activation/Reaction which I am not sure is right.

Coming up

I really have nothing up next on the painting table so have been trying to decide what to do. I am thinking about a Christian Warband for the SAGA Age of the Crusades. But I decided to add a unit of Shieldmaidens to my Swords for Hire reserve. I had been searching about for a while and I found these this morning and although plastic they were purchased within minutes. This is exactly for what I was looking. No dumpy Viking females for me.

Update on Jarl Sigvaldi

• Sigvald gains a Fury Token automatically at the beginning of the controlling player's activation (there are multiple other ways to gain tokens as well)
• Sigvald burns his Fury Tokens only at the beginning of the controlling player's activation and the effects last through the opposing player's turn.
• Sigvald only switches sides if he loses a melee when he has no Fury Tokens in hand.

This actually sounds like quite a mess if you read the series of posts, but from what I understand a FAQ is near and should clear things up.