Pillage

After something of a break from Saga (I think it’s been about two months), we decided to try out one of the Legends scenarios from the Book of Battles. We’ve played Catch Them All a few times, so this week we went for Pillage.

The setup was a small Anglo-Saxon village of four buildings – two large and two small, with some stone walls and fences for defence. As the attacker, I also got to add a small woods and a village pond just outside the built up area. There were some livestock, as well as four groups of civilians. I think this is the first time we’ve had buildings out on the table as anything other than a bit of blocking terrain.

The aim of the scenario was for the Vikings to come onto the table and perform as much raiding as they could. The Anglo-Saxons would start with only civilians – their army would come onto the board gradually over the course of the game. Each building contained random loot which was worth points, plus buildings could be burned down for further points.

The Anglo-Saxons got points for killing Vikings.

Turn 1 started with the Vikings pouring onto the table from one end, and the civilians asleep in their houses. I actually remember to use Manoeuvre to move my entire army up, plus pushed some of my units into getting fatigue. At the end of my turn, the Anglo-Saxons got to roll for reinforcements. Since they were still dozing, they rolled a D3 for +3. Reinforcements would come onto the table at every multiple of 7. The game would end when it reached 30.

On the Anglo-Saxons turn, they got to roll a minimum of 3 saga dice, so could do something even with no military units on the board (Civilians don’t generate Saga dice). The women in the main building tried to call for help, and the monks left their building to shuffle the sheep to safety. The kids were also sent out to get the pigs to safety. At the end of their turn they got another +3 on reinforcements, bringing their total to 6.

On turn 2, the Vikings used Njord to get rid of some fatigue, but continued to push forward. I left my Warlord mostly unprotected, but wasn’t expecting any serious threats from the civilians at this point. I was mostly setting things up for an attack on the main (white) building next turn.

The Anglo-Saxons by now were rolling D6 for reinforcements, got only +1. This brought their total to 7 though, which was enough to bring in their army.

The Anglo-Saxons came in with a double sized unit of 8 Hearthguard, a group of Levee archers plus their Warlord. They began to move up along the Eastern flank of the village to counter my attacks, and rolled +4 at the end of the turn, bringing their reinforcement total to 11.

Turn three, and the Vikings attacked the building. Again, an initial use of Njord to remove fatigue, and then my Hearthguard charged in. The building was heavily defended by four women, some of whom were equipped with frying pans and hot buns they could through at us. Since I really needed to make sure we took control of the house before the reinforcements got there, I went overboard and used Thor and Frigg to boost my attacks.

I managed to get five hits and four kills, slaughtering the women folk and occupying the house. Another activation was used to search the house – which found some dirty clothes (worth 1 point) and an old crone. We killed her, but she had no loot on her. At the end of it all, the hearthguard unit was back up to 2 fatigue and we had only scored a single point for the sack of clothes.

The Anglo Saxons rolled a 4, bringing their reinforcement total to 15, and brought in another two units.

The monks and children continued to herd the animals out to safety, but now the unit of 8 Anglo-Saxon hearthguard charged the building the vikings had taken. They used Clash of Shields and Closed Ranks, dropping my attack dice to 2, and giving them 21. I should have closed formation at this point (it would have made a difference), but forgot to.

Despite their huge advantage, only two vikings were killed, and we killed an Anglo-Saxon in turn. The vikings were pushed out of the house though. The Anglo-Saxons decided not to occupy it though.

At the end of their turn, the Anglo-Saxon reinforcement total went up to 18.

Turn four, and the Vikings set fire to the main building. If I’d closed ranks, I would have won the fight and retained control of the building. However, it turned out that since the Anglo-Saxons had decided not to occupy it, it was now empty allowing me to burn it for only one activation (you can’t burn a building if anyone is in it – especially if you are still in it). This gave me +4 points – considerably more than I got for looting the place.

On the Western side of the village, Vikings warriors took control of one of the smaller buildings and found a box of poor quality jewels worth 1 point. My archers shot at the Hearthguard, killing one of them.

The reinforcement total went up to 21, and more Anglo-Saxons came onto the table. Their archers, who were now occupying the woods, rained death upon my own, slaying 4 viking levee. Not much else was achieved though, and the reinforcement total increased to 23.

By turn five, it was clear there were maybe one or two turns left in the game. The Vikings wouldn’t have time to do much more raiding, and the other buildings were empty. So we set fire to more of them. Some hearthguard took on fatigue to burn down the second land building (+4 points) with any loot still inside it, and the warriors left the small building, carrying the jewels, and burned that one down as well.

My levee archers were useless though, since I didn’t have any suitable dice to activate them with.

The reinforcement die got a +5, bringing it to 28. The Anglo-Saxon turn could well be the last turn. For the first time in the game, they got a Helmet on their Saga dice.

Saxon warriors poured into the village, attacking my Viking Hearthguards, getting a single kill. The oversized unit of Hearthguard (now down to 6) charged my levee archers, wiping them out. The Anglo-Saxon warlord came out by himself to attack one of my warrior units, killing four of them, but taking no damage himself.

We rolled for reinforcements, and it was the end of the game.

The Vikings has burned down two large buildings (4 points each) and a small building (2 points). We still had ownership of the jewels (1 point) but had lost the clothes. This gave us a total of 11 points.

The Anglo-Saxons got massacre points, and their total came to 10 points. So the Vikings had one by a single point! This was a close game, plus a rare victory for me.

It was an interesting scenario, with each side having very different objectives and victory conditions. It was nice to get some buildings out on the table.