25 years of minis and counting: Gentelemen's Saga-tournament

Winter War Saga-tournament

Finally the days had arrived! Nopat & Taktiikka Club's famous Winter War Tournament Weekend

with some 150 players fighting it out in some 7 different game systems including 40K, 9th Age, FoW, Bolt Action, Infinity, Guildball and SAGA!

I had been organizing the Saga-tournament since November and was delighted to finally get into action! Unfortunately 2 out of 8 players had cancelled, but as you can see, the committed bunch of Warlords started the day in very good humours!

I had organised the games as follows:

At least the first game would be a historical match Up
Tables were set or GM (me) would make adjustements as per scenario
Tournament points per game:

5 for victory
3 for draw
1 for losing

All players brought 6 point warbands and could use 5 point WBs for each game
As we had many new players, everybody had 2 reinforcements points for the tournament. These could be used to bring a point of troops to a game to play with 6 point WB. Unused points would be worth 2 tournament points each at the end.
Troops in the warband were allowed to change their gear from one game to another, but the over all composition had to stay the same
We took some tasters from the 2nd. edition rules:

Manouver rule
Levies (min. 6 models) generated Saga dice
Warrior units with less than 4 models do not

Enrolled players and their warbands

Dark ages

Jaakko Siitonen / IRISH

Tuomas Lempiäinen / Vikings

Sebastian Schiavone / Vikings

Matti Anttila / Rus Princes

Late Antique

Teemu / Late Roman

Mikko Leino / Picts

We had had two more players enrolled, but they unfortunately had to cancel.

Games starting

My army for the tournament was as follows:

Warlord
8 HG
24 warriors, typically 10 archers, 10 fighters and 4 fighters “reserve”
6 levies

You can see my Late Roman army paraded here: http://25yearsofminis.blogspot.fi/2018/01/armies-on-parade-late-romans.html

My first game vs. Mikko’s Picts

First game was the classical “Clash of the Warlords” scenario. I set up my forces on the left flank with my archers ready to rush into the Roman villa.

Unfortunately Mikko’s Picts won the roll off for the starting and his nimble warriors took control of the building. Mikko’s HG cavalry with javelins moved around the building, but were too scared to do anything real, like fighting! Rest of the WB were skulking in the woods with the WL

On my first turn I blasted twice one of pict warrior units with my Manuballista, doing some serious damage. My WL and cavalry moved to

the right to protect the ballista and to look for the opportunity to take out the enemy WL...

2nd turn

Mikko’s hunters with bows (levies) moved aggressively closer and were now threatening my flank...

So my elite cavalry had to charge and drive them away! Unfortunately one of my knights fell of his horse.

In the middle my archers pushed forward and looses few boosted volleys on one of the pict cavalry units and wiped them out! Huzzah,

things were looking good!

Rounds 3-4

Pict WL lead his men to charge my HG and they all died fighting against this barbarian onslaught outnumbering them greatly...

More Pict charges happened when the naked warriors charged my archers, whom valiantly drove them back!

So after these fights I had a clear power position on my left flank and my WL lead my warriors to take out the Pict WL with ease!

ROMA VICTRIX!

With 11 killpoints (only, as the game ended early, due to WL being killed)

2nd Game against Tuomas’ Vikings

In the second game I faced Tuomas and his straitforward Vikings: no shooters, just a band of very aggressive hairy guys (including Tuomas 😂)

Scenario was a custom one: whom ever would hold the central beerstube or ale house would win.

So getting the first round would be crucial! For this game I took less shooters, cause it would be decided

In a real bar room brawl manner... my 8 HG also dismounted.

So obviously my opponent got the first go again, damn! Vikings rushed in to the ale house asap and soon we could hear loud skåls...

On my turn I pushed forward focusing my forces to the right side of the building, my Elite legionnaires leading the way!

Then Vikings did, as one could have expected: warlord and his HG charged out of the building and into my HG. Bucket full of dice were cast and after the din of melee quieted all but one of my HG were laid down with 4 Viking HG lying beside them, oh dear !!

I then proceeded to roll the Saga dice for the second round and it seems I did well as Tuomas looks shocked...

And then somewhat despaired 😁

I then proceeded to pepper the scary hairy guys with my arrows, but this didn’t really terrible damage - Vikings have good abilities against shooting.

Third Round

Surprisingly the Viking HG now retired for some more ale... or I guess that’s not so surprising after all.

Instead their WL now commanded his warriors to charge my archers with him. This time my defences worked and only few of my

Archers fell and they made a tactical retreat. I made sure NOT to burn any F from the Viking WL...

Then there was a brief encounter between the WL and my warriors... F was now piling up on him...

And he was now ripe for my Centurion Temusius to charge and finish off!

So things looked good, as Tuomas was down to just few Saga dice and I still had fully functional army.

Tuomas retired his remaining warriors to the ale house as well - did they think the fight was over? ( I should have made the building into a normal one with only 8 models fitting in)

I then spent couple of rounds banging my head against the ale house door, but as we all know, it’s almost impossible to separate a Viking from his ale or mead... eventually I just run out of time and manpower and couldn’t budge them Vikings out! At least I scored my highest slaughter point score at 19,5

Victory for Vikings

It was now time for a lunch break and a BEER!

3rd Game vs. Sebastian’s Vikings

In this Cattle Raid scenario from Aetius & Arthur supplement the defender (me) only gets 4 points of troop to the table until the attacker snatches one of the loot tokens, then WL and the rest of the warband are deployed. For this game I chose to deploy 2 units of 4 mounted HG.

Early phases

Vikings moved quickly to the closest of MY cows and sheep, but obviously didn’t snatch any just yet.

I moved my archers into position in the village (only the yellowish building was “open”) and took

some pot shots to the enemy, but again Vikings were well protected against shooting. My first cavalry unit moved

into position, but didn’t engage, the numbers were still too much in Viking favour...

Take that you thieving scoundrels!

Viking perspective

Mid game - reinforcements arrive!

As Sebastian had most of his forces on his left flank, I consider those few animals there lost for good and

Pushed in from my left flank; I had my fighting levies, warriors and now a HG unit facing just one unit of Vikings, whom needed at least 5 animals to win and I had now at least 2 of them well covered...

Sebastian now started to retreat in his left flank, where 8 HG and 8 warriors were

herding one animal each. I decided to leave them be and focus all my forces to recapture the other two (or three) he had on his right flank.

So I left my archers guarding the last sheep on the right and moved my WL and HG to the middle - Viking WL looked quite stranded if happy with his cows... in the far left Viking warriors were screening the escape of their comrades, but I pressed on...

End Game

After that shot, the game got so intense, that Ihad no time to take pics. I proceeded to kill the Viking WL (3rd game in a row) and then chasing after the one animal in the left. On the last round my WL charged the unit holding the 3rd animal for Vikings twice, but it was not to be! I was very close to winning this game (me thinks), but it was a draw with a one cow margin!

On this round I scored the highest slaugher score: 18.

Later we discussed, that this scenario quite easily ends up as a draw, then again, it’s a good scenario to make a difference with the top players.

Fourth and Final Game vs. Matti and his Rus Princes

Matti had only played few games of Saga before the tournament, but now he was leading

the tournament with 2 victories and 1 draw. He and made good use of the Rus’ a Endless Winter ability.

He is currently painting his first warband (Scots) and was now playing with my Rus Minis. So at least my minis were

Leading the tournament!

Scenario for the last game was “Champions of God” from the Crescent and Cross

Deployment

As I was facing a lot of elite cavalry, I chosen quite a lot of shooting and a 1 unit of 4 mounted HG.

MY PLAN was simple: take the building with my archers and rain death on the cavalry, while holding back with the rest of the army until the enemy was weaker...