SAGA: Age of Crusades

 

I played my first game of Age of Crusades last night at L'Abyss in Montreal. Had a great time and met a new gamer Luis F. who has a great sense of humour and was a lot of fun with whom to game. He appears to be quite an experienced gamer and had some great looking figures. L'Abyss is quite a gaming shop with a lot of fantasy figures but also some Bolt Action, Flames of War, Gripping Beast SAGA books, dice and figures and an enormous selection of multiple brands of Fantasy miniatures. They also have a lot of terrain and gaming supplies available including paints from Vallejo (superb Model Air collection), Citadel, Army Painter as well as Scale75. They also had a lot of mdf terrain from a Quebec company called XOLK, which I will have to explore further.

The gaming area was quite impressive with I think 20-25 tables, all sit down with an enormous selection of terrain tiles, mats and terrain to use. The place was blocked (this was a Tuesday night) with all tables in operation. They even had specialised 4x3' SAGA boards. Very nice.

We set up using the Book of Battles Chaos method, Luis was not familar with this game setup as the  French version of the BoB has not yet arrived in Montreal.

Game Set-up (BoB Chaos)

Scenery-Rough Ground

Deployment-March Column

Special Rule-Forced March

Victory Conditions-Targe

Game Length-Cautious

The Levantine Crusaders (6 SAGA Dice)

Mounted Warlord
3 units of Mounted Hearthguard in 2 groups
1 unit of Crossbow armed Warriors
1 unit of Bow armed Archers
1 unit of Fanatical Pilgrims

Saracens (6 SAGA Dice)

Mounted Warlord
1 unit of Mounted Hearthguard
1 unit of Mounted Warriors
1 unit of Composite Bow armed Mounted Warriors
2 units of Warriors
1 unit of Bow armed Levy

I could tell pretty quickly that this was going to be a challenging game, I was quite unfamilar with the Saracen BB and seldom play mounted warbands. I was helped though by the fact that the special rule Forced March limits movement to half of normal in the first 2 turns, and we had a 5 turn game because of Cautious.  So on to some photos......

Initial Set up from the Saracen end

Beautifully done Crusader Warriors. Luis has the cavalrymen attached to the horses using tiny magnets so he can change out the riders, but more amazingly so the shields are also magnetised to the figures so he can change them out!

Crusader Bowmen, the unit I targeted for my bonus.

Fanatical Pilgrims, they are quite interesting as every time I killed one Luis can to add a SAGA dice to his BB. This is a very interesting ability as he really does not have to set up his BB defensively for the next turn.

My Mounted Warriors, Luis targeted this unit as his bonus.

My Levy Bowmen

This is about half way through the game. My targeted unit was the Bowarmed Warriors so I moved my Levy bowmen as well as my composite bow armed Warriors to take them out as well as the Fanatical Pilgrims on my right flank. At the same time Luis focused on my left flank and took out my Blackrobed warriors. He also forced my mounted Warriors back and threatened my Bluerobed warriors.

Luis moved in for the kill on Turn 4, it was looking bad for the Saracens

I was down to 3 SAGA dice, so I sent my mounted Hearthguard in against 1 unit of Crusading Hearthguard, I was able to kill 4 of them, I then followed up with Warlord attacking the other Crusader Hearthguard unit, I had only 1 of my Hearthguard in S of the Warlord but I was able to survive with 2 fatigues taking out 3 more Hearthguard. In turn 5 Luis sent his Hearthguard into take out my Warlord, he just succeded he wanted to follow up with his Warlord to take out my my 2 remaining Hearthguard but he had fatigue so I was able to slow him. End of turn 5, game over!

So we totaled up the Massacre Points and it was 25 to 23 for the Saracens, a very close game. It was a fun game and I look forward to the next. It was the first outing for my Moorish figures since I painted them several years ago, it was nice to see that they won their first battle. More importantly of course, I have met a new gamer in Montreal who was a fun and engaging player.