SAGA: Seljuks vs Anglo-Saxons

Myself and Graham got together last week and had a game of SAGA at my place. Graham had not played much SAGA and was keen to get back into the game as our Wargaming Club now has a monthly SAGA night which has been very well attended. One of our club members has set up a SAGA Tournament for the end of November so we are all keen to get in some practice.

I recently have been playing the Anglo-Saxons with which I have had some success but I felt it time to rotate out another warband. My Moorish warriors have not seen any action for some time and I saw that the Seljuks were on the AoV/AoI list as allowed in the tournament so I thought I would pull them out and see if I could assemble a warband. I had initially planned to play them as the Umayyads but when I had a look at their BB (Moors) and the figures I decided to play the Seljuks (Saracen BB). I found the BB more attractive and my figure collection better suited Them.

As an aside Graham had thought that the Anglo-Saxons had javelins rather than spears, so when I pointed this out he was quite surprised. We had a quick look through his figure collection and the rulebook and his figures could easily be played as the Welsh but he had prepared himself with the Anglo-Saxon BB. He decided to stick with them for this game.

We used the Chaos method to set up our game, unfortunately I did not record the details so that is lost to time. The warbands are as follows.

Seljuks

Warlord

3 units of Foot Warriors

1 unit of Composite Bow Armed Horse Warriors

1 unit of Spear Armed Horse Warriors

1 unit of Bow Armed Levy

Anglo-Saxons

Warlord

3 units of Foot Hearthguard

2 units of Foot Warriors

1 unit of Bow Armed Levy

I have forgotten most of the details of the game but I did take a number of photos in which I will try to describe the action.

As you can see Grahams had arranged his figures in quite large units as is representative of Anglo-Saxon play. The fatigue you are seeing was due to rapid movement of the Seljuks. I had most of my figures spread out along my edge but Graham had focussed his track on my right so I had to move quickly.

Turn 2, as you can see the action almost immediately went over to my right flank. I had sent my horsemen up the board in an attempt to flank the Anglo-Saxons. I did have quite a few concerns about getting in melee with Hearthguard before they were weakened so planned to use my composite bows to weaken then and the spear armed riders just to harry them.

 

The Seljuk Horsemen.

Grahams beautifully painted Dark Age warriors.

Turn 5: As you can see in the top of the photo my horsemen have done a good job taking out the Anglo-Saxons warriors and hearthguard. But I am having some trouble with the Anglo-Saxon Levy on my direct right flank.

Final position of the troops at game end, the Seljuks scored a fairly decisive victory by points but the Anglo-Saxons had put up a challenging game.

It was a fun game and although not close, I thought Graham played quite well. I suspect though for the next SAGA night these will come on as Welsh. I think I will stick with the Seljuks for a bit! Their BB is interesting but I have a lot to learn in how to utilise it.