Saga tournament - tactics analyzed

Not your typical Battle Report 

I ran a small one day Saga Tournament (Age of Crusades) last Sunday 

with three games and 4 players. Saga is a good game for tournament playing and

couple of us are preparing / trying to qualify for Saga World Cup, to be played in London

in August this year.

 In this blogpost you won't find a typical battle report, but rather an analysis how did we fare tactically in our games.

EPIC FIRST CRUSADE HAIL CAESAR BATTLE

Battle of Dorylaeum 1097

The Battle of Dorylaeum took place during the First Crusade on July 1, 1097, between the crusaders and the Seljuk Turks, near the city of Dorylaeum in Anatolia. - Wikipedia.

Introductory video here.

Deus Vult: Battle of Arsuf - Report completed!

Mighty Battle and a mighty man feast!

This was a long term plan: prepare for the first BIG Deus Vult gae of the year: Arsuf. Plan started to develop and it evolved into a weekend trip to Sultan Kallah's summer cottage. So an umpire and 4 mighty warlords packed their armies and supplies and gathered for an epic battle... read on how the both battle and all side events unfolded... 

Unboxing ForgeStarter first wave

ForgeStarter's (by FireForge Games) first wave arrived... see it's contents unboxed in following pictures.

Demoralized (Burn & Loot) / Disordered (Deus Vult) markers painted by Kalle

UPDATED: Playtesting Burn & Loot by FireForge Games

Deus Vult in skirmish?

In our Nopat & Taktiikka gaming club there are few Deus Vult and we have been in communicating with FireForge -games. Previously we playtested their armylist for Mongols and when Francesco contacted me for play testing their skirmish version of Deus Vult - Burn & Loot - we were more than ready to accept the offer.

As a disclaimer(before reading on), please consider this:

•  rules are still in beta and they can change in any moment
•  special rules for the armies need still to be modified for this new ruleset.

So anything in this blogspot is my subjective view and subject to change.

Unboxing Conquest Games' Medieval Archers

Archers for Vikings, Anglo-Saxons, Crusaders...

Visited London last weekend with my daughter and besides doing everything Harry Potter -related I managed to sneak into good ol' Orcs Nest store and found what I was looking for new Medieval Archers from Conquest Games.

After getting back home I couldn't resist for long and had to try and put few of them together and naturally do some kitbashing as well...

Crescent & Cross campaign to be concluded today!

Siege!

"Building" a demolished castle wall section

As part of our excellent Saga: Crescent & Cross -campaign we played a big team game last weekend in Ropecon. The game was a team game of 2 vs. 2, where us, the attacking saracens had 2 X 6 point Saga-warbands and the defenders had 2 X 4 point armies - and the castle.

It was really a great game (see plenty of pictures in Mika's blog here) and since we demolished a wall section in it, I just had to build (= demolish) one. Now I'm hoping to be able to use it soon.

I'll probably write a report about the game as well, but this blog is about constructing that piece of scenery.

Unboxing Gripping Beasts new plastic Saracen / Arabic Cavalry

Christmas came once again... 

...and my gaming buddy Herkko acted as the Santa by bringing me one box each of the new plastic sets from Salute - THANKS HERKKO! (and your wife)

So let's see what I got...

Crusades campaign: Battle of Hattin (Deus Vult -rules), report by Mentor on Miniatures

Last Saturday we played a rather huge battle as part of our Crusades Campaign.

Juha was faster than me in writing a report, so let's utilize that:

Mentor on Miniatures: Deus Vult - Battle of Hattin: Last weekend we had one of the main battles of our Holy Land Crescent & Cross campaign. The battle of Hattin 1187 which sealed the fai...

Saga: Cross & Crescent campaign round 4: Teaching Crusaders a lesson

So round 4 started and I was eager to keep playing!

I wanted to play the scenario Assault at Dawn (C&C page 112) and got Mikko (a rather newbie on Saga) and his crusaders as my opponent. 

Table is set and unit counters deployed - good to go! (Myself on the left)

Saga: Cross & Crescent campaign round 3: tight victory to my saracens

Battle at the Jordan river (ford)

Third round continued on a second evening of gaming. Our muslim side had been so cunning that no muslim armies arrived for the game night and we got the christians to fight amongst themselves (as they historically also did).
Last night it was the right time for the saracens to make their moves as me (aka Mullah Nicodemus ibn Yahia ibn Aymaan al-Zugag) and Kalle (aka Amir Azad ibn Aijaz ibn Arman al-Manna or Kallah in short) moved to encounter Aleksis' (aka Baron Alexis du Rich d’Ibelin, le seigneur de Nablus) crusaders and Sami's (aka Hochmeister Samuel von Hauck von Der Orden der Brüder vom Deutschen Haus Sankt Mariens in Jerusalem) Milites Christi. Yes we have cool thematic campaign alter egos ;-)

Deployment done

Crescent & Cross Campaign in full swing!

Story so far...

So far our campaign has seen the big battle  of Kerak (Deus Vult -rules) - see report here and two rounds of Saga: Cross & Crescent. See summary reports of the games below. Some pondering on Saracen factions potential included...

Nopat-club Holy Land Campaign started - Battle of Kerak

Nopat-club Holy Land Campaign started - Battle of Kerak

Long waited Crusades campaign finally started yesterday, when 5 players gathered to play the battle of Kerak with Deus Vult rules set

CROSS & CRESCENT -PROJECT STARTED

Cross & Crescent -project started

Check the WIP-pictures and what's going on from the project page!