Saga Night- English vs Swiss

Last Thursday we had our monthly Saga Evening. This was quite well attended as usual with 6 games being played, 3 each from Bothe the Age of Vikings and the Age of Chivalry.

I again brought my Age of Chivalry English and took on Michel's Swiss warband. This was the first time I encountered the Swiss and I was quite curious as I also have a Swiss warband done and I was curious to see how they played.

We play the Clash of Warlords scenario from the main rulebook, this was a novel experience for me as well as I usually play the Chaos method from the Book of Battles.

English (5 Saga Dice)

Warlord

2 units of Foot Hearth Guard

1 unit of Foot Warriors

3 units of Warrior Bowmen

Swiss (6 Saga Dice)

Warlord

2 units Warrior Pikeman

2 Unit of Foot Warriors

2 Units of Levy Crossbowmen

This was a very carefully fought battle with both sides being slow to engage in combat but initially relying on shooting.

Initial Positions

The game flipped to the English left flank which slowed down moving into combat. I had to swing around my 8 man Hearthguard to take on the rapidly approaching Swiss Pikemen.

Finally some combat with the Swiss Pikemen taking on the English Heart Guard

Interesting game which ended up in a tie with the Swiss scoring 12 points and the English scoring 11. I believe I might try the Swiss in our next SAGA night.

Mounted Knights

Next Age of Chivalry units are the Mounted Hearthguard, as well as a Warlord. These are all Perry Plastics aside from one figure which is from their metal line.

Again these were a lot of fun to paint. I have started with a unit for the Yorkist faction in a War of the Roses game. The Warlord is based on one of the numerous Nevilles who fought for and against Edward IV. I have hand-painted the livery's on the other knights representing some of the minor aristocratic characters who supported the Yorkist faction.

This chap was given to me by Helge, one of the members of our club. As mentioned above it is a Perry Metal Character from the Agincourt range; Le Comte de Vendomme. He will be used as a French Warlord or more likely the Mercenary Knight for AoCh.

Foot Knights!

 

Next up to be photographed are the Foot Knights for my Age of Chivalry Warbands. These again are all Perry Plastics and I actually found them quite easy to paint. That is aside from adding heraldry!

Three units of Hearthguard with Sir Richard Ratcliffe, a English Warlord.

English Knights

French Knights

Knights for all sides

Again a lot of fun to paint.

English Long Bowmen

 

Over the last 6 weeks, I have been painting figures for SAGA Age of Chivalry. It has really caught on at our historical wargaming club in Montreal. At our monthly SAGA nights we usually having 10-12 players.

After some research, I decided to go with Perry Plastics for my figures. This ended up being a good choice as they are a good price, easy to assemble and a lot of fun to paint. I am also starting to appreciate that they are quite light weight in comparison to metal figures. I have designed and printed round 25mm bases and oval 25x50mm bases for my SAGA armies. These are all magnetised with a 1x10mm magnets, the fact that they are plastic helps with this and they certainly seem to be easily transported with metal boxes.

I know a lot of players finding the exact armour and accruements for the time period, and I do appreciate the medieval age was a period of rapid change of armour and weapons. I elected to do my best to be accurate but especially in respect to head wear I might be a little off for specific countries.

I decided to build armies for the English, Swiss and Yorkists first as they are quite different in organisation. Of course a lot of these figures can be used for other countries but I felt it important to put a couple of forces the table as quickly as possible. I think I have painted 12 units so far but I will start with my English Long Bowmen.

The Long Bow was integral to the English army during this period. They are also relatively unique in SAGA organisation to the English. They can also be hired as mercenaries by some other specific factions. I did do quite a bit of research on how to paint them and generally what I found it could be quite varied but I decided to go with basic colours of the time but adding several figures in the livery of the Yorkist faction of Edward IV. I also decided to do one specific faction in the livery of Sir Richard Ratcliffe. 

Three units of Long Bow Armed Warriors

In the Red and Blue livery of the Yorkist faction.

The Black and White livery of Richard Ratcliffe

Non specific but uniform clothing but with a touch of red and blue to keep them English. I will use this unit as my mercenary bowmen for other countries.

The figures are from the English Agincourt box in the first 2 groups and the last unit is from the War of the Roses box. I have to say that the War of the Roses figures are quite nice and I prefer their styling.

Midgard- Britons vs Romans

 

This past Saturday myself and PY got together for a game of Midgard, our second. In this game PY played the Britons while I played the Romans. We used the 300 point lists from the Midgard website.

We again played scenario 1 from the rulebook, I ended up being the attacker. I have to say the game did not go well for me. It is clear that I have a lot tp learn about tactics with this ruleset, the only excuse I have is that I am still learning the rules. 

I started an aggressive attack which caused me to lose 2 of my units almost immediately, I did push on but by the third turn my reputation had dropped to zero....game over!

I do enjoy playing though and I am sure I will get better with more experience. Some photos to follow.

Many Rivers to Cross-Turn 2-The Village

Forces

Guards Platoon 1, FM 8 (missing 2 soldiers)

FR 0, 5CD, Regulars

Supports (10)

Barbed Wire 2

Extra Infantry Section

MMG Team

Schützen Platoon 2 FM 8 (fresh)

FR +1, 5CD, Regulars

Supports (15)

Pioneer Wire Cutting Team

Adjutant

Shabby Nazi Trick (fifth columnist)

Red Dice

MG34 Tripod Mount

Pregame Bombardment

Extra Schützen Squad

Patrol Phase

Patrol Markers

British JOPs

Well spread German JOPs

Fixed Defences

Bunker status

Allied left protected

Allied right protected

Allied centre protected

Game

This was my second shot in trying to take this village. In the first game I concentrated most of my resources on my right flank, this time as you can see from the Allied fixed defences, the only real choice I had was to attack equally on both flanks. Again, I only had light weapons so the key to my advance was probably the Pregame Bombardment as well as a Fifth Columnist. My JOP's were in much better position now with choices of deployment on the extremes of each of my flanks as well as in the centre. The Allied JOP's were heavily concentrated on their left with a single JOP on their right, but positioned thus so they were unable to deploy forward into the fenced area in front of the barn. I rapidly deployed all my forces in the first 2 phases. with 2 squads to the left with the MMG team, the mortar team and a SL all within command range. I was also able to deploy 1 squad half way up the field on my right in a tactical position that they were already half way across the table. They were covered by another squad behind the hedge.

Sounds good so far, but the Allies actually then got 4 double phases in a row and were rapidly able to accumulate CoC pips. It took them awhile to deploy but they got a lot of chances to do so. I probably should have advanced early then I did but I was able to get to a rifle team off the table on the right by splitting them off from the LMG team under command of their JL. I was able to put covering fire down on the side window of the building on the far left Allied flanks as well as put a smoke grenade down to protect the LMG team in the field. The rifle team was able to rapidly advance once out of the field to the edge enemy edge. The 2 men left got within 3" and were about to be shot when I was able to interrupt and get them off the table. First victory condition met!

While all this was happening, I was firing with 3 squads on the building on the Allied left but to absolutely no effect due to the hard cover provided. It is difficult without heavy weapons. My focus here was due to the fact that I could win the game if I could clear the right and left Allied flanks (2 foot squares) I would meet the 2nd victory condition and win. Graham had yet to place anyone on his right flank so that square was already open, all I had to do was knock that one section out of the left Allied flank. But by now my FM was falling due to the attrition I was receiving on 3 of my deployed squads. A SL got killed, my FM was down to 5 and by now my fire power was much reduced and Graham deployed his last section on his right. I had no chance to win so I withdrew.

As you can see below this battle cost me dearly in men and in Mens Opinion, my leadership has categorised as Dangerous. I am now a murdering officer!

Game Photos

My right flank taking a pounding again

I should have been more aggressive with my left flank

I was able to drive this section out of the destroyed house on the Allied right

The Allies liked being in the houses

Summing Up

German Platoon #2 

Platoon Leader Outlook: Sad

Platoon HQ Leutnant dead, HQ now consists of 2 Feldebel (SL’s) 

Men’s opinion: -4 (-1 on FM roll)

CO’s opinion: -2 

8 Dead, 4 missing next game

German 1st Platoon has lost 5 dead 

British Platoon #1 

Platoon Leader Outlook: Affable (+1 on FM roll)

Men’s opinion: +3 (+1 on FM roll)

CO’s opinion: +2  

1 dead

Graham played well in these first 2 games, he has decided to hold the village in the next turn. It is going to be tough with the limitations as noted above.

Dracula's America-Dagon Rising!

 

Myself and Luis had the seventh and final game in our Forbidden Powers campaign set in the Swamplands of the Deep South. We played this as a one-off campaign not in association with the campaigns in Shadows in the West or the Hunting Grounds sourcebooks. I will calculate Destiny Points for this campaign in case we do move on in the future with another Dracula's America campaign. Although it was not really stated at the beginning of the campaign, I would think that Luis's Cultist Posse represents the Alliance of Chaos while my Nephilim represent the Alliance of Order.

To date Luis had won 4 of the previous games and I had won 2, the Infamy accumulated were quite close with Luis have a 2 point margin. Really though the Cultists were trouncing my Nephilim in most of the games. I believe I really only had one significant victory. The Cultists have much more seasoned veterans who are better equipped.

This scenario was set in a dry area in the middle of a swamp, with Dagon's Pool in the middle with monoliths placed around it. Each posse can claim a monolith with a character using an action utilising one of their grit dice. With a successful throw they can claim it, if the Alliance of Chaos claims 3 of the monoliths then a Minor Servitor of Dagon appears. If at the end of turn 8, if the Servitor is on the table then the Chaos Alliance wins the game. The Servitor can appear anytime after turn 3. Simple enough!

Game Summary

In my recent Saga game, I mentioned that I had incredible dice while my opponent was absolutely abandoned by the dice gods. In our last Dracula Americas game the reverse happened to me to a point where even Luis felt sorry for me. Unfortunately, it was very similar in this game, just terrible dice and yet again my Seraphim once on the table is knocked down by some random event and never gets to engage the enemy. But time to stop whining!

We had 10 characters each, I started in the left lower corner (southwest) while Luis was diagonally across for me. Winning the game was dependent on me not letting the Cult capture 3 on the monoliths. Clearly the one next me should be easy enough to get early in the game, so I sent 3 characters to the east and 3 to the north. I kept Astaroth back with Malpas, who was half dead anyway, as well as the Bokor. I also kept Uzza back but advanced him toward the pool so he could make a run for the SE and NW monolith as need be. I also had to consider trying to win the campaign as the margin was just 2, but knowing that Luis was a much more experienced player, I made this secondary.

Luis advanced his characters to the same monoliths but more to the SE monolith, so I set up the Undead Drifter there on Lookout while 2 veteran hired guns advanced to claim the monolith. By turn 3, Astaroth had captured the SW monolith and in turn 4 or 5 the SE monolith was captured. I was surprised that Luis did not put capturing the NE monolith high on his list. So essentially more than half way through the game I had 2 monoliths and Luis had zero. In turn 6 and 7, Luis started to turn the tables on me and captured 2 monoliths and near the end of the turn 7 was aggressively trying to capture the 3rd. By now I had lost 5 of my characters, although I had killed a minor entity that Luis had spawned as well as banishing a Shogoth that had spawned.  I believe Luis had lost 2 characters including one with an infamy of 4.

I am not sure if Luis had missed it, but he started Turn 8 with only 2 monoliths, so I had won the game as there was no Servitor on the table. A surprising victory as I had not played that well. But the real shocker came in the post game process, Luis's character Mr T with 4 Infamy was deemed killed. He lost these points so the final Infamy total was 39 for the Nephilim and 36 for the Crossroads Cultists. I had won the Forbidden Powers campaign winning 3 out of 7 scenarios. 

I am not sure when we will play more Draculas America as we are moving on to Pulp Alley next. I did go ahead and made a post game Posse sheet for the Nephilim as who knows when they will appear again. Just is case we play another DA campaign I did calculate the Destiny Points. The Alliance of Chaos has 4 for their 4 victories while the Alliance of Order has 5, 3 victories and 2 extra for a campaign win.

I have to thank Luis for setting up this campaign, he really put terrific tables together and he has an amazing collection of figures. It was a lo of fun. In respect to the ruleset, I do find it difficult to play and I continuously made errors and missed things. There is a lot of moving pieces in this ruleset, I think I also found the swamp terrain difficult to navigate as LOS and cover were never very clear to me, but the terrain did look terrific. Playing 7 games over 13 months was really not enough to keep the rules fresh in my mind. Hopefully the next time we play, I will be able to play more frequently.