I’m retired. I have many gaming buddies who are mostly retired. We all play SAGA. It’s a sickness.
It’s actually a pretty pleasant sickness because the game is interesting and fun. It’s the only way someone could sucker me into playing some form of ancients. The game, by Studio Tomahawk, is a skirmish game and an army requires no more than 80 or so figures and many are much less. I have three armies I’m working on. There are several “period” guides and mine are all from the Dark Ages book, “The Age of Vikings.” I am finished with the Norse Gaels and the Irish, which are sort of the same. I’ve always been intrigued by the Battle of Clontarf in 1014. Both of the these armies have representatives from that battle in Dark Age Ireland.
While all the armies are basically similar, their national characteristics make them unique, and using those characteristics effectively is the challenge in the game. For those not in the know, every SAGA warband is allowed six SAGA points, and the basic troop types in the game are worth one point each. A hearthguard unit, typically the best units in the warband is four figures. A warrior unit is often the backbone of of an warband is eight figures. A levy unit, often missile troops, but sometimes not, is twelve figures. Without getting too far into the weeds, sometimes two units of the same type can be divided or combined to create larger or smaller sizes, but you’re limited to six points plus your Warlord figure who has his own badass attributes.
The number of units is important because they generate SAGA dice. This is an orders based game. In order to activate units to move or shoot you gotta have SAGA dice. In addition to the simple activations, every nationality has a Battle Board that allows different abilities to that army. My Irish army has a board that enhances its ability to activate its mostly crappy units, fight in rough terrain and maximize the effectiveness of its levy slingers. My Norse Gaels are encouraged to be more aggressive in melee. Everybody has something special. The challenge is to make the most out of what you have and what you can do.
Beginning game play as a noob is not super simple. It’s important to know the basic rules of the game that apply to all. Sometimes this is complicated by the fact that Studio Tomahawk is a French company and a little gets lost in translation. I wouldn’t say this could lead to verbiage confusion of Phil Barker’s writing, but there’s a lot to remember, and it isn’t unusual to change our understanding from time to time. It’s also really important to know what your army is, if it has any special attributes but even more important, learning how to make best use of your Battle Board. Just starting out, it’s easy to look at the Board, read your ten SAGA abilities and just think, “Hunh?” Some play, some experience is the best teacher even if it means getting your brains beaten out a time or two.
What makes SAGA fun? Once you’ve figured out your Battle Board and your army characteristics and the flow of the game feels more natural, the mechanics are pretty easy and the game flows well. I’ve enjoyed single player and four player games, plus the game system has some great scenario ideas in the Book of Battles. It doesn’t feel to me that one warband has a decisive advantage over another. There are no “killer” armies that I’ve seen so far.
That warbands are small, my friend Eric is building an Arthurian British army that has something like 22 mounted figures, means painting a playable army can be pretty quick-depending your level of commitment to painting stuff. Games don’t take long, and win or lose I’ve always had a good time.
Are there some things I wish were different? Well, of course, and I feel that way about most rules sets. SAGA is an industry. In some ways that’s good. It has miniatures companies like Gripping Beast and Footsore catering to the game, and they drag along Little Big Men Studios to make flags and shield transfers. But in some ways it drives me crazy. SAGA has a rule book, a scenario book (The Book of Battles,) plus there are four historical variant books from Alexander the Great to the Crusades at $42.00 a throw, special measuring devices and dice (which one could create given the inclination.) Plus the rules were just revised, and of course I got those. Though the warbands aren’t large, there is a fair entry cost by way of official stuff.
The other peeve is the temptation to resort to the one on one match-ups. I think my SAGA buddies have noticed this and have increasingly tried to turn to scenarios from the Book of Battles. However, they tend to devolve into one on ones anyway. That may be resolved as more folks figure things out and can take on more complex games. My big giant fear is that we’re moving toward some kind of tournament play and I just don’t love tournaments. I don’t have that competitive fire.
Big picture-wise, however, SAGA has had an incredibly positive effect on our gaming community. When I observed my first SAGA game about 15 months ago, it was at an old friend’s house. It reunited me with a second old friend and I met somebody new. Today those same old friends are still playing, but altogether the SAGA group that meets twice monthly at Silver King Games in Tacoma numbers a dozen with potential for more. Almost all are retirees. All have at least one SAGA army, some have many more. And everyone is having a good time.
A Gamer's Tales 