"Norman conquest a Saga battle report" Topic

We had a game of SAGA at the club on Wednesday between an army of Normans and a joint Viking and Anglo-Saxon army. The report can be found here:

Link

An excellent read. Nice photos too

Good stuff, well done! I love SAGA, and I believe Crescent and Cross will be getting me to spend more money soon too haha

Thanks John, we really enjoyed this one as we have finally got used to the rules and how to best use the Battle boards.

Thanks for the report, enjoyed it.

Looking forward to Crescent and the Cross also. The Normans can be used for Crusaders so that means just the opposition to paint.

Those rascally Normans!

Great AAR

Great report, thanks for posting. How many points per side were you using?

The Normans had 6 points and the other side had 2 4 point factions. Despite this the Normans won.

Wow, that's interesting.

Good report – I couldn't help noticing how ineffective the knights/hearthguard unit were, almost losing the battle for the Normans. Was this just bad dice, or were they outfought?

How successful do you and your colleagues find Normans? After using Normans for SAGA for about a year or so – against the same opponent, who has yet to beat me with Saxons, Vikings, Irish, or Norse Gaels – I have found that warriors (foot or mounted) are better value than knights. You don't get more dice, but there are more men in the unit, so it lasts longer in melee. The special abilities of mounted Normans are only available for the initial charge, which is best used against units "softened up" by archers/crossbow. You stand a better chance of wiping out the target unit and avoid second rounds of melee, in which you can be pinned and either surrounded by other foot units, or picked off by enemy archers.

For a 6pt Norman army, I usually go for
Warlord
Warriors (foot) with x-bow
Warriors (foot) with spear
Warriors (horse) with lance
Warriors (horse) with lance
Levy archers
Levy archers

Depending on the scenario, I might drop a Warrior or Levy unit for the Flemish mercenaries, but the former does limit me to 5 dice.

Well it was definitely bad dice as we were expecting the knights to win comfortably. On the evidence of this game i would say warriors are the better bet for the reasons you give.

I've just tidied up my garage so have room to fit games in now so i will be getting many more games of Saga in as it s always a bit of a laugh. Plenty of experimentation to do with the make up of warbands also.

I will be getting the Crescent and Cross version also and looking forward to playing to that.

Look forward to seeing more of your reports, Mick.

My regular opponent and I are going to look at C&C ourselves with a view to doing SAGA WotR, as retinues/warbands are a pretty good match (and we've got a load of Perry plastics!).

So many possibilities with these rules. Really expecting them to bring out a Samurai version also. Carl has been wanting to get his small band of Samurai and Monks painted for ages, just need an excuse!