A new SAGA begins........

Again this was played a week or so ago. Paul had picked up a copy of the new SAGA rules. You can see a more detailed review of the changes on his Hobby Horse Blog. I am not planning on rushing out to get the new rules as this seems an unwarranted expenditure. The changes are for the most part fairly sensible and simplify some aspects of the game. What became apparent as we played through the game with Vikings and Saxons is the board had been tweaked and the Saxons boosted quite a bit. Now this can been seen as a good thing or not depending on your approach to gaming. The SAGA game as a whole remains one of our favourites although the system in a true oxymoron doesn’t in my view lend itself to campaigns.

Anyway here are a few shots of the game we played 🙂

Saxons on the right the rules encourage the Saxons to have larger units to get various bonuses

The Vikings use their first turn to rush forward, they proved to be over eager and with a slightly more aggressive Saxon board they paid an early price

A unit of the Saxon warriors has rushed across the open ground decimated a unit of Vikings and run through to attack the lightly armed Viking bowmen

Eventually around the cross the Viking elite troops charged knocking the Saxons back and almost killing the Saxon Warlord but he clung on just

A lone Viking awaits his fate !

He is duly despatched to Valhalla 

And in true saga style the two warlords clash on the open ground

Take that Viking scum......😀

So we had a good game and it was interesting to see how the new boards had altered the balance of the game. There was nothing wrong with the original rules. Some of the changes are sensible for example a slight simplification of fatigue, I suspect the majority of changes have been driven by competition play which is not always good. But we’ll keep playing 😀