Saga Age of Magic: The Otherworld

This will be the first of several entreis about some armies I am thinking of using for Saga Age of Magic.  First up an Norse mythology theamed Otherworld list. 

I've been looking for an excuse to use the miniature since I painted him for the 2015 Painting Challenge.   Thor will be my warlord and I'll probably spend a point to ungraded him to an "archdemon" The figure is from Reaper miniatures.

If Thor is your warlord than Odin must be your Sorcerer (miniature from Footsore) since Thor as an archdemon automatically has the energy domain of magic Odin will take death, it even works thematically! Odin can also work as the Conjurer if I want to save a point. 

OK so this is Norse themed but I'm not following Norse mythology in any strict sense. Fernier is a foe of Odin and Thor but he makes a great Behemoth type monster so he shall fight along side them here

For Hearth Guard we shall use Shield Maidens who war obviously Valkyries I'm going to experiment with calling them "Winged" even if they don't have actual wings.  

Hunters are special aggressive type of warriors that the Otherworld lists can use.  I think wolves and hunting dogs (together or separately) are prefect for this option.

For warriors I'll use my old Viking/pagan Saxon figures in the guise of Einherjar of Valhalla

I may do a single unit of warriors ore two depending on if Odin fields as a sorcerer or Conjurer.  This probably won't be the first army a field because John and I have agreed not use spells in the first game to limit the new elements each of us has to master and I think Magic is going to key to how this army work.

Saga Meeting encounter: How do you say "Custer" in old Norse

Last night John and I played another game of Saga at the Hobby Bunker.  I went "historical" and ran Vikings under the hero Ragnar. (John uses him a lot and I wanted to have a chance a the fun).  We used the book of battle sand got: Rough Ground, Meeting Encounter, Pithced battle, Forced March, subjugation.

Two turns passed with little action because of the slow movement imposed by forced march.  My left Flank warriors made the first contact of the game

and threw back the Skrelings threatening that side of my formations... then my shield maidens started falling under a rain of arrows, spear and tomahawks..

The poor girls didn't last long... I had hoped their "large shields" would help but this was not the case.

My Left flank warriors are also picked apart thought they did reduce the enemy down below the 4 warriors for a saga dice in the process.

My Hearthguard stood off the charge of the Skrealings but that was the last good turn... We did almost no damage thanks to the darn Agility ability of theirs.

last turn charges... I do damage taking down the last of on unit of Skrealing warriors but loosing most of my Hearth guard.  Ragnar kills six Skrealings personally but is exhausted by damage and the melee.

He goes down under arrows... a warlord killed by levies... how shameful.

A grand total of two of my war bands survived the battle... hopefully the are adopted into the tribe since I think getting back to Iceland with two men to man the ship is unlikely!  John won this battle in convinceing fashion with 34 points to my 14

Clash of Warlords Irish vs. Ragnar's Vikings

John and I met at Hobby Bunker for another game of Saga.  John's copy of Book of battles is still in the mail so we did the Clash of Warlords game. We did a standard game but rolled deployment C. This meant our troops had to be deployed at least M (6") form each other.   John used the same list as last game.   I had two Champions and a Personal Champion.  Two points of Warriors, 1 point of Shield Maidens, and a unit of Sling armed levys (women) I think of this as a 7 Samurai list the heroes helping defend a village from raiders.

I lead with my slingers moving them up into cover to hit the Vikings as the cam forward.

Here's a Ragnar's eye view of the village laddies.

Viking Levies came up and killed one of the women... then the Hearthguard came up and killed all but two of the ladies.  I'm pretty sure the game designers said this was a contemptible move...

John got one of my warriors with arrows from his Steppe Warriors allies.

My larger group of warriors came crashing into one unit of Viking Levies killing 7 of them and depriving John of one of his Saga Dice.

I brought in multiple javelin units and turned John's Hearthgard into a pin cushion.  I got lucky and John didn't make a single save.

John Decided that Berserkers would clearly view Shield maidens as an insult to their man hood. They charged, but  with the powerful combination of closed ranks and the "shield maiden's pride" they wiped out the Berskerkers for the loss of one of their own.

One of my Champions charged the levies but only killed one.  Sill they were driven back. 

Ragnar is now fairly isolated and after trying to wear him down with Javelins my warlord engages him for the first time.  I had both Blood of Kings and Ireland's heart in effect.  The result is..

A draw Ragnar is very hard to kill.  Ragnar kills one of my champions and then holds off the attack of a second.

My warlord reengaged again I have both Blood of Kings and Ireland's heart and Ragnar falls to my blade.  The end result when the massacre points are totaled are 10 for John and 23 for me probably our most lopsided battle since the new saga rules came out.  I think John might have been able to keep Ragnar alive had he "closed ranks"  he would have been harder to hit (6 rather than 5) and he would have been able to cancel more hits.  That said he had a better chance of killing my warlord by throwing all 8 dice in each of our combats... I did well on my saves to cancel hits and my Saga Abilities made my heroes very hard to kill. As the game wrapped up John got a call from his wife who must have asked if he had won his response: "No Adam beat me rather badly and about half his little men were women so I'm not sure how to take that. "  LOL

Saga Into the Salughter Norse Gaels Vs Vikings

   Last nights game was a scenario called "Into the Slaughter" basically fight until one of the warlords dies or is driven M away from any of three makers (the bushes you can see above).  By Norse Gale warlord is facing off against John's Vikings.

John's boys are lead by Ragnar but the rest of his force is quite different from his normal mix.  Two Levies armed with javelins are backing up two units of four hearth guards. 

He's also giving his steppe nomads a try a very coll looking unit with great power to annoy. 

 My Army has one big unit (12) of javelin armed warriors, two six man units of Dane Ax armed warriors.  I've also got four Hearthguard with Dane Axes and another unit of six Hearthguard with standard equipment.

 John had a unit of levies run up they took out my Dane Axe men but took serious damage themselves.

 My warriors fall a bit short to reaching their target they got charged in turn by Johns Hearthguard and lost four of their number

John used Odin to Exhaust my Javelin men who fail to score any kills.

 The Huns make a quick strike but do no damage  then fall back.

 John's second Heathguard unit cripples my Javelin men laving only two! I kill one Hearthguard in return...

 Then John tightens up his formation.  My Dane ax armed warriors drive off then Huns

 My Hearth Guard crash into John's Levy and kill half of them at the loss of one of their own.

 There has been lots of death on both sides but nothing decisive. I deiced to force the issue.

 With King of the Isles in effect (and loaded battle board) I move my warlord in and dare Ragnar to come for me. John hits me first with is last two Hearth Guard.  I take a chance and don't use as many battle board abilities as I could...

 I survive just barley... then Ragnar comes in.

Its an epic battle with buckets of dice thrown on both sides the result is both of us die.  I imagine the final scene with us both wrestling on the ground choking and stabbing each other like mad.  It was a good game but it needs a some slight modification.  since the survival of your warlord is the only way to win it encourages a bunker mentality John and I both mostly ignored this instinct so we hit a resolution but had both of us played more carefully the game could have gone a very long time.

Saga Irish and Vikings battle in the Sacred Forest

 John and I met for our first game in a long while.  John had found a cool scenario called the Sacred Forest so we decided to give it a go.  I had Irish with Brian Boru, two champions, 4 Hearth guard, two units of 10 warriors, a short unit of 4 wolf hounds and the Gael-Gahie (SP check). John had Vikings under Ragnar with 4 Hearthguard, 4 Berserkers, 8 Warriors, 12 slinger and...

 a unit of Shield maidens.

 The Bad Squido huntress got her first game leading the dogs... as we both rushes for the forest (if you have more troops in it than your foes at the start of your next turn you get extra points.

 So there were lots of double moves early on and the red shield champion is trailing one my new fatigue markers....

 John's warriors out did him in combat and soon he has a whole murder of crows fallowing him.

 MyForeign Gaels  and warriors push froward and drive back the viking slinger... I didn't get them below six but they are out of the forest and to scared to come back.

 Units start piling up in the forest and in the mid game I didn't take as many pictures as I should have.  John's Warriors had a really good day.  Killing red shield  and forcing Boru to "run" for his life.  I killed of John's Bersekers getting two with Sons of Dana and then the other two fell to my warriors. Ragnar's Hearthguard killed Boru's Hearthguard.

 My Green champion managed to kill the last Hearthguard but died in the battle himself.  Boru faced viking warrios...

He survived but was defeated and made his single biggest move of the game. 

The Foreign Gaels battle Ragnar... they almost get him... 4 of them die but they exhaust Ragnar.

 Ragnar used some battle board abilities to reduce his fatigue and charged in he hit them hard but with the eye for an eye ability...

 They manage to kill Ragnar... though only one of them survives.

 John took a shot at Borue who was exhausted... but I had Blood of Kings and Heart of Ireland both working... so he would still be able to cancel two hits. He also rolled a six on his one die getting three hits (two from Heart of Ireland)

 Boru survives by the thinnest margin... he even got two kills out of the fight (watch out for old men with swords!!!)

The Shield maidens also fall.  I won this one but a score of 9 to 7.   I like running Boru but he has some real down sides that I am not sure are balanced out by his liablities... the short unit of wolf hounds probably wasn't a good idea I have to consider getting more or going with more warriors.

So the results are not quite as listed above.  Review of the rules indicates that the use of Heart of Ireland was incorrect as an exausted warlord cannot use resiliance .  John has written up the respsults and a review of the sceneario here The Sacred Forest John won 10 to 9.