Limes Game 2

Myself and Robbie had our second game in our Limes campaign a couple of weeks ago, it was quite a different game as you will see as the Romans have built up their defences.

The Saxon force was lead by a Warlord with 2 Missile Levy units, 2 Warriors units and 2 Heartguard Units.

The Romans as below with a Warlord and 2 Companions 

Reports

Limes Summing Up Raid 2

Saxons

4 Victory points

Resolve drops to 6

Romans

13 Victory Points

Morale stays at 8

4 Hearthguard and 2 Warriors lost.

This was tough game for the Saxons and they will have to be a little more cunning in our next game!

Game Photos

Initial Set up

The Romans have a new Armoury

The Roman cavalry are a challenge but we were able kill quite a few of them.

Quite a few melees in the game

I misinterpreted one of the advanced BB abilities thinking I could get off the board in a single move, in the raid scenario the Saxons score points by getting off the opposite edge.

I only was able to save my Warlord and a Hearthguard by hiding in the woods.

Ending up being a very solid Roman Victory. I have to remember that the Saxons do not get any points for killing Romans! 

Limes

A little more than a week ago Robbie and myself got together for the start of a Dark Ages Saga campaign. I had played one previous Dark Ages campaign under the persona of Iohannes using the Dux Britanniarum campaign system, it was pretty complex but a lot of fun so when I saw that Robbie was looking for partner, I happily agreed.

Briefly, the campaign is a 6 turn event where the Romans try to withstand a number of raids by the barbarians. We set our series of games in Southeast Briton 40 years after the Romans have abandoned the island for good. Robbie wanted to play the Romanised Britons while I took on the Saxons. We started our campaign just as Vortigern's son Vortimer has betrayed the Saxons under the brothers Hengist and Horsa. 

We have gone with the process as laid out in Limes as well as using the Saga Age of Invasions sourcebook and Battle Boards. We were not sure if you could use Heroes or not but to add to the fun and the narrative we decided to add the ability recruit Heroes as laid out in AoI. Each turn in the campaign takes place in the spring of the year with both sides able to recruit troops over the next winter. The Saxons have a new warband each game while the Romans recruit their warband in the first turn, this initial warband remains in place and can suffer attrition but also can recruit new troops over the winter as well as build up their defences. The recruitment process is calculated by using Time Units (TU), the Saxons start by constructing their warband where every unit costs so many TU according to their composition. The more the TU's spent allows the Romans to increase their recruitment efforts. It is a novel process that I found quite attractive. To add in Heroes, we settled on a cost of 4 TU. Once recruited (and this can happen in any turn) that Hero stays as the warlord with all his associated attributes. Once the Romans have paid they have no further costs but the Saxons have pay for a Warlord (1 TU) each turn. We are hoping this does not unbalance the campaign but we will have to see. The Saxon player introduces a Stratagem  before each game.Additionally the Saxon warlord makes a Boast just before the game begins. Victory is declared when the Saxon's Resolve drops to zero

As you can see I used 6 TU in the first turn

The Saxon force was lead by a Warlord with 2 Missile Levy units as well as 4 Warriors units.

The Roman force was mostly mounted with 2 units of Mounted Hearthguard, 2 units of Foot Hearthguard, 2 units of Warriors and a Warlord with 2 Companions.

Reports

Limes Summing Up Raid 1

Saxons

20 Victory Points

Resolve stays at 10

Romans

15 Victory Points

2 Warriors Killed

Morale -2, now 8

I had a lot of fun and a few photos

Bardic Poem by Keredig

Midgard-First Game

We had our first game of Midgard a couple of weeks at PY's. PY played the Romans while I played the Britons (actually Saxons). We used the first scenario from the book and decided to play on a fairly open table thus not having to utilise the terrain rules.

My troops are in the foreground, I had more warriors but no cavalry and fewer missile troops. 

The battle was quickly engaged.

A melee

Looks like my slingers are done for

Dastardly Romans

Well my reputation dropped to zero after the massive all sides melee in shown in the 2nd photo above, a nice victory for PY's Romans.

This is quite a nice ruleset and we finished our first game in a couple of hours with clear conclusion. The mechanisms were quite simple and both the rulebook and the QRS are well written. I am sure we missed things, I noticed after that I really did not use any of my army traits. We are hoping to have another game next week.

 

SAGA: Anglo-Saxons vs Jomsvikings

I am a bit behind in posting my reports of games, this is a game that took place about 10 days ago with my friend Pierre-Yves. Unfortunately, blogger is becoming increasing dysfunctional at times which make it difficult to upload photos. Some of the details are now a bit foggy, but what I remember is that it is one of the best games of SAGA, I have had in a while....................despite losing!

Jomsvikings

Warlord

3 points of Hearthguard

3 points of Warriors

Anglo-Saxons

Warlord

2.5 points of Hearthguard

2.5 points of Warriors

1 point of Bow-armed Levy

Unfortunately, I have forgotten some of the details of the setup but we used the French Scenario pack for SAGA ( I do not believe it exists in English). There a 6 scenarios in the pamphlet and I suspect most of them exist in the main rulebooks, we played the "Les combat du chefs". It was a good scenario. 

I really have forgotten the details now, but I did go with large units all being 10 figures aside from the Levy which were 12.

The Battle Line, with the Jomsviking on the right.

Jomsvikings

Anglo-Saxons

I played a fairly aggressive game initiating the first attack on the my right

Really did not much with my Levy

This dis not go well as you can see below.

Final line after 6 turns.

The final score was 16 to 10 for the Jomsvikings. I enjoy playing the Anglo-Saxons and I will stick with them for a while in Age of Vikings games.

SAGA- Skraelings meet the Jomsvikings!

Two weeks ago, Myself and PY got together for another game of SAGA at his house in Lachine. PY has been rapidly painting up figures for SAGA in anticipation of our clubs invitational SAGA tournament at the Abyss on November 25.

This was PY's first AoV game, I like playing my Skraelings and I was expecting to face off against Vikings and had brought their BattleBoard with me. I was shocked to find out that he was planning to play the JomsVikings which are certainly quite a bit different than the vanilla Vikings who I have played against several times in the past. I had never faced the Jomsvikings and their novel mechanic of Wrath. 

Basically, the Jomsvikings opponent has to choose whether to cancel the BB advanced abilities by giving them Wrath. I thus started the game with no idea what I was facing! 

Jomsvikings-6 Saga Dice

Warlord

3 points of Warriors

3 points of Hearthguard

Skraelings-6 Saga Dice

Warlord

5 points of Warriors

1 points of Hearthguard

Set-up-Chaos

Vanguard

Pitched Battle

Marshy Country

Forced March

Target

The Game

We started quite close together with minimal terrain.

Anxious to wipe out those invaders

What in the hell is this coming at us.

I had to deploy first so essentially I had to run my troops to the opposite flank from whence I started. This was a tricky game as it was only going to be 5 turns. I believe I might of rushed in a little to quickly and because of this I set up well and never got to use my totems, except one. 

I put the eagle totem on my 10 man band of javelin armed warriors but before I knew they essentially got multiple casualties early on. 

I was able to put some damage though on 2 of the Jomsvikings HG units.

I like using the Skraelings as they are quite nimble.

Before we knew it 5 turns were up, we tallied up the points. The difference was less than 3 so a draw. I do like this action shot of 2 Jomsvikings HG running away.

I enjoyed the game and certainly the Jomsvikings are a novel opponent, certainly the next time I meet them, I will have their BB in front of me. I have to decide what to play in the tournament, the Skraelings may not be a good choice, I am tempted to use my Anglo-Saxons.