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Dan M
United Kingdom
Worthing
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I visited Beast Towers a couple of weeks backs to try out their new rules, Saga. I had a cracking trip and the full write up will appear in the next issue of Battlegames magazine.
Saga is an enjoyably playable set of rules with lots of period flavour. If you've followed my design notes for Dux Bellorum, or read Song of Arthur and Merlin or Glutter of Ravens: Warfare in the Age of Arthur, you'll know that I want my Dark Ages battles to have a distinct feel to them. Saga does that and therefore manages to stand out from most other Dark Ages skirmish games.
How does it do this? Well, other than not overburdening itself in complex rules (which would be so unsuited to the period's feel), three things make the game stand out for me:
* Battle boards: each faction - Norman, Anglo-Dane, Viking, or Welsh - has a choice of tactics suited to the historical army, rather than all armies acting in the same way.
* Saga dice: this is clever ... The command choices you have each turn are a game within a game. Choosing tactics based on how the dice roll is seldom seen in miniatures games and more akin to resource management boardgames: a game within a game. And they're collectable, as each faction has it's own icons on it's dice; we all like new collections of shiny stuff...
* Fatigue: not entirely new, but put to good use in Saga. Each unit can be pushed to do more in a turn, but becomes more vulnerable by doing so. Most importantly, your opponent chooses how to exploit your unit's weariness. This makes the game nicely interactive between the players.
Aside from that, game mechanics are pretty simple: easy movement by group, simple combat rolls (roll to hit, roll to save, die - or be wounded for better warriors), and so on. Saga works well for me as it combines elements common to boardgames (Saga dice and Battleboards) with the visual appeal of a miniatures game. You can read more about the rules in the next issue of Battlegames, I don't want to steal the article's thunder here.
The best Dark Ages games I've played in the past have captured the feel of heroic combat as portrayed in the poetry and, erm, sagas of the era (whether that's accurate of not): Blades of Crimson, Age of Arthur, and curiously enough, The Lord of the Rings: Strategy Battle Game and Song of Blades and Heroes, both of which were designed for fantasy skirmishes. One of the weakest games I've played really tried to capture the feel of the period but fell well short for me: Pig Wars: When Men Were Men and Pigs Were Money, the mechanics of which could be used for any spear & shield skirmish rather than giving a unique Dark Ages feel. Saga very definitely fits into the former group, and I'm looking forward to the printed rules and Saga dice being released. I'm already painting up my new Welsh army.
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