Saga: Last Stand Scenario

My Final Game of 2016 and my first post of 2017.  John and I met to play Saga on Thursday, I was running my Norse-Gales and John had decided to play Anglo-Saxons.  We decided to play the last stand scenario form the Cross and Crescent book.

My boys had to be set up first and had to be in the center.  John put his men around the edge, His goal was to kill all my troops if he could.  I had to survive for seven turns. (each player bids for the number to turns he thinks he will need to destroy the enemy, I bid 8 John bid 7 and the low bid gets to be the attacker)

The game started with an exchange of missile weapons between my Javelin armed Warriors and John's singers (levies)

The levies got the better of it... John is playing against type needing to aggressively attack

He does so moving one unit of warriors twice despite the fatigue cost.  As he moves to attack I use the Show of Strength challenge.  I win and John has to fall back (he also loses 1 warrior)

My Dane Ax armed warriors engage the Flemish spear men but armor and fury cancel each other out, I have to fall back.  I conclude form this that frontal assaults on Flemish Mercenaries are to be avoided. I got very lucky.

John charges in on one of my Hearthguard units.  Its bravely done and as I don't have any challenges we have to just go at it.

My Dice however are better and he goes back with 4 less warriors.

The Flemish troops take one death from my Javelines.

and I am pulling my men into a compact formation to buy time.

Another unit of Johns Warriors goes after my Hearthguard I have Howling Axes in effect and John has some good Anglo-Saxon abilities going on too.

Both forces are battered, loosing three Heathguard is bad but I traded two men for each I lost.  My Warriors and the Flemish soldiers also clash again... to goes slightly worse for the Mercenaries but John can afford to lose men if he gets kills.

Oh the final turn John is closing in but he has to kill a lot of my men in one turn.

Show of Strength stops many battles before they even get started

The final attack ends when I win a Show of Strength The Norse Gaels are very dangerous on the defensive in this battle.  John might have done better with an all out attack from the get go.  His forces re-spawn when he has 4 to 12 dead men of the same type.  Being Anglo Saxon worked against him here as big units are the key to the Anglo-Saxon battle board. That said both of us really liked this scenario, in fact, we are thinking we will try this scenario again in but switch roles.  John's Anglo-Saxon's defending while my Norse Gales attack.