Another Norman vs Skraeling Battle at the Hobby Bunker last Thursday. Adam changed up things a bit and went with a unit of mounted warriors armed with javelins rather than the Flemish mercenaries. I went with the same configuration.
Normans
Warlord
3 units of Mounted Hearthguard
1 unit of Javelin Armed Mounted Warriors
1 unit of Javelin Armed Mounted Warriors
1 unit of Crossbow Armed Warriors
1 unit of Bow Armed Levy
Skraelings
Warlord
5 units of Javelin/Tomahawk Armed Warriors
1 unit of Bow Armed Levy
We opted to go Chaos again, which means on all 5 attributes we threw a d6 to randomly generate the conditions of the scenario. We ended up with the following.
Scenery: Bleak Moor
Deployment: Refused Flank
Game Length: Until Dusk
Victory Conditions: Subjugation
Victory Conditions: Subjugation
Special Rule: Night Fight
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| The basic 4x3 terrain, we were fighting along the long axis of the terrain rather than the usual short axis. The Srkraelings started to the right and the Normans to the left. |
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| The inital Skraeling dispositions. |
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| The initial Norman dsiposition. |
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| Turn 4: I had taken down Adam's mounted warriors but had lost 2 units of warriors and had positioned my levy poorly so they never got off a shot in the whole game. As you can see both my warrior units are threatening but the large unit of Norman mounted Hearthguard is quite close. I really messed up the next 2 turns and by the end of the game I think I had lost almost 30 of my 48 warriors. |
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| Adam's very nice crossbowmen. |
Again a pretty quick game maybe a little over 2 hours. The dice favoured Adam in this game but I have to say he played a tactically better game than I. So the reverse of last week with a decisive Norman victory with a final score of 18 to 7 for the the Normans.
I realised that there is no way that I can take on the mounted Norman Hearthguard in melee, they are just too powerful. A unit of 12 mounted Hearthguard with a banner generates 22 melee dice before any BB abilities are used. There is just no way to confront this with 12 die no matter what BB abiltiies are available. Couple this with their ability to move L, and they are a bit of challenge. Definitely have to come up with a different plan next time.
I recommend checking the rules the maximum initial combat pool is 16 dice and this includes bonus dice from the charge ability. You want your levy shooting the Norman units from cover. I would always pick maximum difficult ground like ro my steep hills or woods.
ReplyDeleteI actually asked Adam about that in the game as I thought there was a limit, ceratinly on the QRS it says that. I will have a look at the rulebook.
DeleteI did come to the same conclusion about staying in cover.
Thanks for the advice, it is not often I get a comment on my blog from someone who actually plays SAGA.
John