Challenging warlords and tasty Federweißer --- A SAGA game report.

A couple of weeks- actually months - ago my friend Christian and I met to have a game of SAGA. Although it is widely known as a nice beer and pretzel game we decided to follow an old German tradition and had Federweißer (young wine) and Zwiebelkuchen (onion pie).

Federweißer is a delicious, sweetish, slightly sparkling, young wine which is available in October. It has very little alcohol and is very palatable. It's traditionally accompanied by Zwiebelkuchen which is a kinf of pie or pizza with steamed onions. For me a must have every autumn and a sure sign that winter is coming. Most of the time Mrs Monty and me combine this meal with a gathering of friends and so this time Christian showed up and brought his SAGA warband.

This time we decided to play the Challenge scenario and set up the table in cooperation rather then using the rules from the rulebook. Once more I noticed that I really have to improve my terrain stock:

Anyway the stage was set and thus both warbands entered the field. Five points each because I haven't managed to finish another unit of warriors yet.

Immidiately after the game started both warbands strove to the middle of the battlefield. First our warlords clashed in close combat and we gathered the first victory pouints. By the way we interpreted the scenario in the way that the warlords aren't removed as casualties but deliver victory points for each unsaved wound they suffer.

However Christians Anglo-Saxons rushed forward with all their power but I held back my Vikings slightly. Actually I wanted to bring the berserkers into his flank and see how much grief they could sow there.

The first units that clashed were warriors. Christian chose to field his warriors in two units of 12 men rather then three units of 8 and so they were hard nuts for my smaller units. But my boys made him pay too dear and caused more casualties then they suffered.

Only his second large unit was able to erase the remaining warriors of this unit.

During the next turns the game wobbled hither and thither. My bowmen prickled his levies and on the other flank my berserkers and my second warrior unit advanced.

Finally Christian sicked his warriors on my warlord and collected a lot of victory points. Actually I thought that might be the decision...

But I was able to strike back during the last turns of the game. First my berserkers rushed out of the woods and hit his warriors hard. Although two of my daring followers fell they were able to slay five Saxons.

Afterwards Christian slaughtered the two remaining berserkers with a warrior unit which was in the majority.

But the decision came in the very last turn of this exciting math. Christian was in the lead with one point and there was a heavily battered warrior unit of his which was in movement range of my warlord and which was wirth one and a half points (three warriors worth half a point each). Thus I staked everything on one card and let my warlord rush into melee once more. Luck was with me and so he smote all three opponents with his sword. The day was mine by an eyelash !

As for the game and the evening I must say it was gorgeous. As for the scenario I'm a but undecided. On the one hand it is a good choice for people want to come into the SAGA rules. It has no game ending conditions and you can try all the basic rules and become familiar with your battleboard. But on the other hand it was rather unusual for me to play without a real mission...

Anyway we had a great time and I'm looking forward to our next SAGA match. Maybe I'll manage to have some more terrain finished to garnish my rather empty board.