Saga Sunday: Anglo-Dane progress update and rules
Since the last update, I’ve been meaning to crack on with some Warhammer 30k stuff for our big game in July. Unfortunately I’ve been hooked on Saga, something which hasn’t helped the big game, but has meant I’ve made a lot of progress on my Anglo-Danes.
The initial picture is set up almost identically to the initial update here to show the difference.
Something I love about the Gripping Beast Plastics is how much of a change they are to paint, but also how good they are. For the price, you can do a lot worse as they have enough detail and look superb when completed.
After finishing off the hearthguard, I moved onto the warriors. I have three units of them, so split them in half and painted up two batches of 12. There is a post in the coming weeks about painting up Anglo-Danes in the same style.
So far, so good. The only other units to finish once these are done are the two units of twelve levy, and the two warlords.
Rules and gaming
Last week we had an evening of gaming where I played my first 6 point game of SAGA with the Anglo-Danes. Setting up my force I thought I had a reasonable plan, which quickly fell apart under the onslaught from Mike’s Vikings.
My idea was to send two units of warriors and a unit of hearthguard off to the right with the warlord close behind to take advantage of his We Obey special rule – gives a free activation to one unit within S distance (S being 2 inches). The warriors on the left should have been where the levy are, but lack of concentration when placing meant that I realised after placing. Nil desperandum, lesson learned. Mike would have let me switch them I’m sure, but I’d rather see how they fare with the cock up.
As the first couple of turns progressed, two things became apparent –
- The levy had to move in front of the warriors on the left to be able to sling stones at the vikings, and
- The forces on the right were about to be butchered.
After taking some pebbles off the Viking levy, they were charged by a unit of hearthguard who chopped all but one of them to pieces. This then lead to the butchering of the other squad of warriors, leaving few left. The roles for the battleboard hadn’t been too successful up until this point.
If you’ve not seen the Anglo-Dane battleboard, it contains the ‘Lord of War’ ability, which is magnificent. As I felt my Warlord was in a precarious position, I decided to use this if I got a helmeted head on any of my dice roles. Thankfully, I managed this on every turn from this point.
Because the warlord I was using was armed with a two-handed weapon, he was always at -1 armour, so the Lord of War ability meant that I could fight with the warlord and move him, or fight twice, and at the end of the activations, use Lord of war. This removes fatigue and ensured that his armour is back up to 5 for the Viking’s turn. I’ve no doubt this ability saved my skin and allowed ups to finish at a draw.
My highlight of the day was charging into a squad of berserkers and using ‘Crush the Weak’ to gain 3 extra attack dice, and killing three of four berserkers. In the Viking’s turn, the remaining berserker charged in and used several Viking battle board abilities to slay the remaining hearthguard on his own.
Using hearthguard with two-handed weapons was interesting, in that they were exactly how Adam described them, not good at saving, but very killy. I found that charging a squad of warriors with them, three died while 4-5 warriors died, so it’s swings and roundabouts. They’re good at killing, and being killed, so I need to work on a way to use them more effectively.
All in all, it was an interesting first game with the Anglo-Danes – second game of SAGA – and it’s left me with a lot of questions that I’m sure I’ll work out the answers to in the coming months.
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