SAGA!

 

So I recently turned my attention to Saga, a medium-size skirmish historical tabletop game that focusses on the Viking incursion in England during the dark age, a near-medieval time of struggle on the great island of Britain after the departure of Rome.  The game recently got an expension along with a revised rulebook in the form of The Crescent and the Cross, this time bringing the players to the Great Crusades.
I never was fond of historical games; too narrow, more about reconstitution than actual gameplay, and to top it off the models themselves; short and stubby legs and arms, huge lance poles, etc.
A friend of mine was looking at some historical models lately and seemed very interested. Other players were starting gathering Saga armies and giving good reviews. I still was meh about it all but I'm not the kind of guy not to give a game a chance, so about three weeks ago I watched a game between the Franks and the Vikings. Both players had fully painted armies and I must admit they were gorgeous. The Frank player even made all his helraldry free-handed !!!

Not so bad aren't they?!

Both players seemed really absorbed by the game, thinking hard before dispatching their army dices on their BattleBoard (more on that later). Combat seemed bloody and a bunch of crazed Vikings even made short business of some Frank knights cavalry! They were nice enough to tell me more about the game and I had to take a deeper look into it.
After reading about the game here and there, looking at the different models and reviewing my dark age great Brittain history. I was always fond of the Welsh culture, wrapped in mystery and old lore so my choice of army was an easy one. They are a Guerilla-type force, much like my WFB wood elves. They traditionally carry all sorts of javelins to battle and wearing nothing but rustic clothes and rags to battle for most of them. The cavalry is riding strong and stocky welsh poneys, like the ones found back then in this mountainous region of England. They are expert at taking advantage of the land and are very good javelin throwers.

The Welsh emblematic red dragon

My opponent was playing the Vikings and brought enough models for me to play the welsh fully painted. We went for a 6 points clash game, kill as many as you can 6 turns confrontation.
The first thing that strikes out about Saga is the special dices; every faction have to use a specific set of special dice on top of your usual D6, much like these:

Welsh Dices

 They vary in colors and symbols but overall eveyone gets his set of special dice!
Those dices are to be used with the battleboards, which goes something like this:


Basically, you roll the dices and then matches the symbols with the different options and possible combinations on your battle board, basing your strategy on the resulting possibilities. This my friends is what makes this game unique.
To be honest, the rest of the game is a lot like your standard skirmish game à la GW; you activate your whole army then pass the turn to your opponent. When you activate a unit, you first need at least a die in the corresponding activation pool and then make it move, shoot, fight, rest, etc. You can also activate a unit multiple times but you have to keep a close eye on the fatigue; this is represented by tokens and every unit has a certain treshold over which they become less performant. Your opponent can also interact with your unit by using your fatigue tokens, either by slowing you down, getting a bonus on your armor (reprensenting your overall defense, not just your physical armor) or a malus on your opponent's amongst other things.
Terrain is pretty classic also, but we wouldn't want it any other way considering the setting; woods, hills, marshes, rocky formations, weatfields and more. The rules for terrain is pretty straightforward, slowing models down, giving them cover and/or armor bonuses.
Now the models; I told you I don't like historical minis much; paying such games as 40k and Infinity, I am used to a certain level of quality, the latest being the best looking sci-fi models out there. I also recently found what I consider to be Infinity's medieval's equivalent with Red Box miniatures. The stakes are high to say the least! I was surprised at how good looking the models were when I first saw the actual game. Of course, they are not on par with the above-mentioned games but they are fine and the heraldry brings an extra aspect to the Saga minis. Gripping Beast, the main Saga mini producer, even sell some specific, historically-accurate decals and to me these are a must, considering that Saga is a game that simply have to be played full painted.
Back to my first game, I really enjoyed the srtategic value of the game and was not disapointed by the elusive Welsh; the Vikings hitted hard when they got the chance but raining javelins suddendly flying from out of the woods caught the northern raiders flat-footed, resulting in a draw.
This is a good game for campaign, with the historical background richness and overall simplicity of the game. I recently got quite disapointed by another game's campaign and might go for a smaller-scale one this time around but I definitely think that this game offers this possibility.
So that's my first Saga impression and most likely not my last, stay tuned!

Here is a few pics I took from my game, note that they models are 15mm as my opponent doens't have enough 28mm for 2 armies:

The final melee!

The Welsh warband taking advantage of the land!

A Viking levy back there taking cover in the rocks in front of the welsh.

The Vikings are coming!