 Tradition of map based campaigns continues with another era of antique campaign - previous having been played in 2015! Rule set for this campaign is Saga, utilising three relevant books: Age of Hannibal, Alexander and the recently released Age of Caesars. |
The goal of the campaign is to build a mighty empire to last for a thousand years. This is measured in Might Points (MP), which are gained in the course of the game by conquering lands and raising vast cities. In the end, the player with the most MP will win the campaign. The campaign will last from four to six rounds based on random rolls, which means that the players have to plan their strategies accordingly during the campaign. You can read the rules here
Relevant things to know
* Gold, buildings on the map and campaign events can be used to increase your army size
* Armies start with 5 points
* Campaign events (chosen during the planning phase) impact both the actual Saga games as well as the map aka conquering areas and building buildings. One can even raid gold from the enemy
Campaign start
Each player got two regions to their kingdom, first one was the capitol area, based on faction played and the second was chosen by the player. In addition to Parthia, I chose Aquitania to be located also closer to the middle of the map and next to the strategic territory of Hispania (areas marked with a star yield an extra point to the might of the kingdom). See the starting map above.
My Army
Parthia and Rebels against Rome were the armies I had most anticipated, as my painting project for Parthia was far ahead compared to rebels, I chose to play with them.
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| Most of my models in this army are 3D prints, design by Scropha Miniatures |
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| 3D prints came out a bit larger then Scythian mounted archers by Victrix |
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| Parthian mounted archers by Warlord Games are quite diminutive compared to the above, so no mixing. They usually take the role of Nomad mercenaries. Characterful models! |
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Scropha Parthians
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 Plastic Parthian Horse Cataphracts by Gripping Beast | ||||||||||||
Dedicated terrainI had backed a kickstarter on STL files for Assyrian themed terrain with my eastern armies (Persians, Parthians, Palmyrans) in mind and my friend Timo printed them with his excellent resin printer. Painting them was fast and results quite nice, even if I say so myself. KS
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Round 1.
Planning phase
- I was challenged by Ilmo, playing Dacians
- Ilmo chose Incited Rebellion event to buff his conquest
- I chose the Raiding party event to rob gold from Ilmo's treasury (to use it for increasing my army size and to buy Ruses)
- I played with a 6p. army, with 5p. of ruses, while Ilmo had a 6p. army and some ruses
- We made an alliance with Sarmatians, played by Marko
Game vs. Dacians
Scenario: Clash
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My 6p. army and deployment
- Warlord
- Arrow bearer
- elephant (via a ruse)
- Nomad mercenaries
- 6 Camelphracts (I have found them too slow…)
- 18 warriors - deployed as 9+9 mounted with CB
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| All mounted, except the elephant. I've painted 100+ mounted models this year |
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| R1 |
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| Left flank soon became the choke point of the battle, whily Dacian Warlord and levy archers stood in the right flanks woods |
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| My cataphracts staying out of the archers' range - not an ideal deployment |
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| Dacian cataphracts made a mistake charging my elephant... |
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| R4 |
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| Only my elephant had died, and my mounted archers had devastated loads of Dacian warriors... BUT most of my army was still within L of my table edge and would be destroyed, should the game after 5 rounds. Dacians moved to block both routes to salvation... Once again I trusted too much on the 6th round being a thing... I placed too many dice on warriors activations - my mounted archers did destroy a one more unit of Dacian warriors... but I should have had more activations for my HG and warlord. I started my 5th round with a charge of Camelphracts, whom did destroy the two remaining enemy Cataphracts, but it took too many SD. One of my nine mounted archers were able to slip away, but I ran out of HG activations to push them and my HG out. |
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| On my left flank my other 9 man mounted unit was trapped and they shot and charged Dacian warriors whom closed ranks and held the line, at least few more massacre points for me |
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| Well, you guessed it - there was no 6th round. Which caused me to lose the game.¨ With 6 rounds it would have been a crushing victory for me instead... |
Conclusion of R1
- Ilmo chose not to conquer any of my territories
- We made an alliance with Dacia
- I claimed neutral Persia into my kingdom
Round 2.
Planning phase
- I was challenged by Mikko, playing Republican Romans. He had his eyes on Aquitania
- Mikko chose Mercenaries event to increase his army by 1p. and to make a merc unit loyal
- I chose the Raiding party event to rob gold from Mikko's treasury (to use it for increasing my army size and to buy Ruses)
- I played with a 6,5p. army, with 6p. of ruses, while Mikko had a 7p. army and also 6p. of ruses
Round 2. Game vs. Republican Romans - REPORT WIP
Scenario: To settle a grudgeMy army 6.5p
- 1p. Mercs: Nomad riders
- 1p. Elephant (via Ruse)
- 1,5p. HG
- 3p. Warriors, 22 warriors 9-9-4
- Arrow bearer
= 15 gold used to increase the army size to 6,5p. and 6 golf for ruses: Lost Legionaires (3), Elephants (2) and Forced March (1)
Roman army 7p.
1p Samnites (Loyal)
1p Cretan archers
1p Heartguard
4p Warriors
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| Deployment: most of the Romans deployed in the middle and countered them with my armour 5 warriors and cataphracts. Mikko played the Refused flank ruse and redeployed Cretan archers and Samnites to face my mercs and the elephant... exactly what I had tried to avoid in my deployment... |
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25-12 Victory for Parthia
Round 2. Conclusion
* I chose not to conquer any terrain from Rome, but instead conquered Syria, India and Chorasma neutral territories
* This expansion lifted me to the leading position of the campaign
* We made an alliance wit Rome
Round 3.
Planning phase
- As the challenges went, we ended in a situation, that the only option for Ilmo was to challenge me and hence break our alliance.
- Ilmo chose Elite army event to get some rerolls for the game
- I chose the Raiding party event to rob gold from his treasury (to use it for increasing my army size and to buy Ruses)... I now had a whoopinmg 36 gold...
- I played with a 7p. army, with 5p. of ruses: elephants, refused flank and forced march, while Ilmo only had 12 gold, fielding a 6,5p. army and having some ruses
Game vs. Dacians again
We rolled Winter Warlords scenario
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| Took these ruses + forced march, total 6G |
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| Wonky deployment to screen vulnerable units from the Dacian manuballista - Dacians had the 1st go |
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| New 3D printed terrain was taken into use... 10 Dacian warriors with 2handed wpns moved through ruins without being slowed down (veteran ability from the campaign rules) |
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| They clashed with my Paragon-elephant couple of times and both units ended being destroyed. Unfortunately Ilmo forgot to use his rerolls (from the event) on a whiffed attack roll on the elephant!
 Before playing my last round (I was P2) we calculated VPs and I was surprised, that I had not won yet... so I made a plan to kill few more levy archers to gain the needed points, but there was a risk... I managed this and THEN we remembered, that we had not counted the destruction of the manuballista. So I had won already at the start of my last round. 26-20 Victory for Parthia Round 3. Conclusion - TBC |
