25 years of minis and counting: Bustling Saga activity in Finland

Saga Limes Campaign year 4, news on the 2nd edition, upcoming Saga-tournament...

Our club is at the moment bustling with Saga-activity, so this blog post gives you an overview of what's going on here in Helsinki, Finland. In this same package you'll also get what have I gathered on Saga 2nd edition and a battle report on my 4th game in our Saga Limes Campaign! Enjoy!

Saga Tournament

A while back in December I started planning for a Saga tournament as part of our Club's main event: "The Winter War" that is a 2 day tournament event with tournaments for following games:

Warhammer 40k
Warmachine
Flames of War
9th Age
Bolt Action
Infinity
Saga

So our Saga tournament is going to be a one day tournament on Sunday, taking on the space (and several players) left vacant from Saturday's Bolt Action tournament. We have 12 slots for players, so far we have 8 players enrolled. Some features of the tournament set up:

Players bring a warband of 6 points and they play each game with a 5 point warband chosen from them
4 games within one day; 1h 45min per game on preset tables
Reinforcement points: player can choose to spend a RF to bring 1 more point of forces into the game. This helps new players to have better odds (and games) against veterans. Unused points are calculated into tournament points in the end.
First taste of 2nd edition; will be trying out some of the new rules from Saga 2nd edition (see more on these later):

Maneuvers: you can activate a unit for movement without spending a Saga dice if it's the first activation and the unit starts AND ends it's move further than L from any enemy unit.
Levy units with at least 6 models generate Saga dice
Warrior units with less than 4 models don't generate Saga dice

The first round is going to be historical matching forces, after that it's based on tournament poins
Scoring: Victory 5 points, Draw 3 points, Defeat 1 point

Saga 2nd edition - Gathered so far

Talking to Grippingbeast's Lord S in Reading's Warfare, listening to podcasts like Northern Tempest and following different forums, this is what I've gathered on rules so far:

Maneuvers: you can activate a unit for movement without spending a Saga dice if it's the first activation and the unit starts AND ends it's move further than L from any enemy unit.
Levy units with at least 6 models generate Saga dice
Warrior units with less than 4 models don't generate Saga dice
Changes on Warlords:

8 A
No resilience
Only HG works as "human shields"
No "Side by Side."

Fatigue:

All units have fatigue cap of 3 and can't take more (not sure does this include WL's as well)
You can cancel an enemy unit activation by burning 2 fatigue from it

Movement:

Happens in straight lines, no more snaking around
Cavalry can move first 6" into one direction and then another 6" an angle (like movement in Congo)
All models must end their movement within 4" of the model, that moved first (so no more extended lines blocking half the table), bit like Lion Rampant
Most of the current rules, like second move activation within S of an enemy..., are removed

Melee: all models fight, no matter where they are positioned
Shooting or Charge -activations: target must be nominated

My thoughts...

I really like most of this and really look forward to the 2nd edition. It will take some thinking and trying out how the new rules for warlords work. I had some doubts about "everybody fights, no matter what" as it removes any advantage from outflanks (with cavalry for example), but then again I guess it's good as it will speed up the game - no more measuring who's in range to fight...

Saga Game Nights: immersing new players

Few weeks back I organized a Saga demo game night. We had 4 experienced Saga players educating 4 new players to the game. 3 new players borrowed warbands from me and from the miniatures we have at the club. We were all so happy with it, that we agreed, that from now on we'll have a Saga Game Night every first Monday of a month. Plenty of orders for Dark Age miniatures went out after this evening...