SAGA - What's this

Another miniature wargame that I play and have armies for: SAGA. It's supposedly getting a new edition soon (rumour has it early in 2018), but it might still be useful to do a run-down of what this game is.

In short, SAGA is a miniature wargame that is:

• 28mm or 1/56 scale
• Skirmish-sized, with somewhere between 25 and 73 miniatures for absolute maximum and minimum "standard-sized" games, more usually around 37 or so.
• Rules made by Studio Tomahawk
• Official models (more about this later) made by Gripping Beast
• Historical, based around the Dark Ages (the base game), the first Crusade (SAGA: the Crescent & the Cross / version 1.5) and/or the fall of Rome (SAGA: Aetius & Arthur). My main focus is on the Dark Ages.
• Uses d6 dice for everything.
• Uses the time-tested "I go, you go" system where each player has a full turn (with some, but not much, input from their opponent) in turn.
• Has a somewhat unique activation system and way of using special abilities within these turns.

Viking Jarl and Norman Come. Both counts as Warlords in SAGA

I should probably note that the rule system is the same for all periods (the Crescent & the Cross provided minor updates and clarifications, and is the current ruelbook), and armies are approximately balanced between periods (allowing your 11th century crusaders to fight against 6th century romano-brits), although balance is only guaranteed within an era, where most of the playtesting is done. For me, the system is mostly for the Dark Ages (or Viking Age, as it's known around here) because Vikings. I started the game because I wanted to paint some viking miniatures, and wanted a game to use them with... Anyway, moving on.

One major advantage of SAGA is that you're in no way limited by the official figures. Not only is it hard to trademark a viking warrior, meaning that many companies produce something suitable, there is only minor differences between a viking warrior and, say, a saxon warrior (essentially, one is slightly more likely to carry a cross) which means that one can quite freely mix and match figures that one likes.

SAGA also shows this in that figures are quite generic (don't worry, they still manage to differentiate factions). There are three levels of troops as well as your warlord (the boss, essentially you on the tabletop): hearthguard (the elite sworn warriors of the warlord with the best training and the best equipment), warriors (free men or militia, people with some training and equipment but not enough of it) and levies (the poor folks or even outright slaves, with little training, or stomach for the fight, and almost no equipment).

Hearthguards with various equipment

List construction is simple and robust. You get a warlord for free since every list must contain one. Then, for a standard game, you have 6 points with which to buy figures, with a varying number of figures for each point depending on quality (and you must use whole points for each type of figure). Finally, you divide these figures into units of 4-12, where each unit must contain only one type of figure, and all must have the same (if any) special equipment

Hearthguard have an armor of 5 (you must roll equal or above the enemy armor to hit them), corresponding to maille and a shield, and 2 attacks for each figure. They're also the most expensive at only 4 figures for a point. Next up, Warriors have an armor of 4, since maille is expensive, but a shield is cheap and very useful, and 1 attack for each figure, but gives you 8 figures for each point. Finally, levies only have an armor of 3, not even a shield, but are by far the most common source of ranged weapons, and you get 12 for a point. They have only 1 attack for every 3 figures, but where most units halve their attacks when using ranged weapons, levies instead increase theirs to 1 for every 2 figures (making them equal to warriors).

Warriors, the most varied unit type.

The warlord, being special, has an armor of 5 against melee and a mighty 6 against shooting, 5 attacks and a host of special rules including the ability to soak up one hit without worries, and sacrificing other figures to soak up more hits.

These base stats can be altered by faction special rules or by equipment options (given by each faction. Several factions can, for example, choose to equip some or all of their hearthguards (and/or warriors) with horses, making them faster, but lowering their armor against ranged weapons by 1, since horses are easier to hit. Another common option is two-handed weapons (most commonly axes), which reduce the armor of the carrying unit by 1 in melee, since you can't wield a large weapon and a shield at the same time, but also reducing the melee armor of any unit they're fighting by 1, since those axes don't really care about armor. Most levies (but not all), and some warriors and hearthguard, have an option of bows, or even crossbows. The armor of levies aren't affected by these, but warriors and hearthguard equipped with bows/crossbows lower their armor by 1, probably due to the lack of shields. On the other hand, some few levies have the option of forgoing bows for spears and shields, loosing their ranged attacks, but gaining 1 armor and attacking with 1 dice for every 2 models. Unless otherwise specifiec, all units are assumed to be armed with a hand weapon (which can be either a spear, an axe, a sword or something similar), that have no special rules.

Levies with bows. The least varied troop type

What makes SAGA special, and each faction special within the game, is the SAGA dice and Battleboards. Each faction gets a battleboard with abilities, 5 generic (activate a unit of a certain type, such as warriors) and 10 more or less unique for that faction. These battleboards are included with the rulebooks and expansionbooks, each book including battleboards for the factions within. Which can be a bit of an embuggerance, if you want the Viking battleboard, you need the first rulebook, despite it being superceded (in a few but important aspects) by a latter book. But at least they're not too expensive.

To use the abilities on your battleboard, you need to alocate SAGA dice. These dice are rolled in the beginning of each turn, two dice for your warlord if he's still alive and on the table, and one for each unit of warriors or hearthguard on the table (no dice for units of levies), up to a maximum of 6 initial dice. On each die, there is 3 symbols: the common one on 3 sides, the uncommon one on 2 and the rare on, on only a single side. Ordinary d6 can be used (with 1-3 corresponding to the common symbol, 4-5 with the uncommon one, and the 6 with the rare), but special SAGA dice are sold. Each faction have an intended dice set for use, and each set are shared between similar/related factions. For example, all "viking" factions share a set of bone white dice with runes on them, while celtic factions (scots and irish) have brown dice with gaelic images.

Each ability on the battleboard then requires specific symbols to activate, with more powerful abilities requiring rarer and/or more dice. So, to activate a unit of hearthguard (the most common ability, shared by all factions), any symbol can be used, but to activate the Norman ability "Aimed Volley" (a powerful ability that allows you to re-roll missed shots in ranged combat for a single activation), it requires not only a common symbol allocated, but also a rare one. Similarly, some abilities might get more powerful if a rare symbol is allocated.

Finally, there is a limit aside from SAGA dice in how much a unit can be activated, with any unit doing more than one activation of the same type (move or shoot), or fighting in a melee, gains one point of fatigue. These points can then be used by the opponent to decrease the effectiveness of the unit (being removed in the process), or left until the unit exhausts itself and can't do anything but rest.

/Fool out