Beach Party
A couple of new gaming mats turned up today from Deepcut Studios. The first is an ‘ash wasteland‘ mat for use in SciFi gaming. The second is a beach, which is well suited for some historical gaming. It’s a convenient 120cm by 120cm size, with the sea taking up about 30cm, leaving a suitably Saga sized 120x90cm area.
I’ve had my new Age of Invasions Roman army ready for a couple of months, so it was also a chance to get them out to defend a small fort from Saxon sea raiders. Last time my Romans saw any dice action they got utterly crushed, so I was hoping that my new army design would work better.
I’ve gone for a much more warrior and levee focused army, including a manuballista. Previously I was focusing on melee hearthguard, but the Romans have some abilities which are best suited for a mix of missile and melee troops.
The Saxons are really just my Anglo-Saxons with a bit of a name change. The two units of levee become three units of warriors, with archers and two hearthguard units. I’m aware that the ship isn’t particularly Saxon in style, but it’s all I have. I’m also not entirely certain how all the Saxons fitted on it.
The Saxon objective was to get a couple of their units through the gates of the hill fort. I haven’t used this building set for well over ten years, and I’d like to make more use of it. I got it (I think) from Grand Manner, though checking their website I see that they have pretty much closed down. Initially I had planned for a six turn game, but it was decided to limit it to four turns, a decision that benefited me I think.
The Saxons deployed their ship first, then the Romans deployed around the fort. I didn’t have anyone in the fort to keep things simple. Then the Saxons deployed around their ship, and started the game.
Turn one saw the Saxons charge off the beach and up towards the woods and steep hill. They were worried about the Manuballista on the Roman’s right flank, so were trying very hard to keep out of its line of sight. It has a range of 2L – twice that of bows – and is reasonably nasty with +1 to its attack dice. It rolls attack dice equal to half the number of figures in the target unit, so it’s good against levees, not so good against hearthguard.
They did put a dice on Vivacity, which allows them to move two units as a move action at the end of the Roman’s orders phase.
The Romans went, and managed to roll no Chi-Rho, which limited their options. After I’d set down the Roman saga dice, the Saxons invoked their Vivacitity and moved two of their warrior units further forward.
With a single activation of levee, I fired a manuballisa shot at the archers who were hiding in the woods, getting five hits but only one kill. I had wanted to send my horsemen down through the middle and around the back of the woods to threaten the Saxons there, but couldn’t go a manoeuvre in that direction, so decided to head around the hill instead.
My melee warriors headed down towards the beach, keeping clear of the manuballista. I had really wanted to align my levee unit in from of my archers, but didn’t have the right saga dice to do it.
Turn two, and the Saxons move again. Their archers shoot at my front warriors, getting four hits but we defend against all of them. We must have magic shields.
Then it’s the Roman’s turn, and I plan to finally move my levee spearmen. Instead the Saxons use Vivacity again and charge two of their warrior units even further forward, blocking me in. Saxons can be fast moving when they want to be. And also really annoying, since I can’t do what I was planning to.
I use missiles to try and wear them down. The Plumbatae from the levee spearmen get one hit and one kill (and they receive a fatigue from the Saxon’s Jeer ability). Not very effective. My warrior archers shoot, getting just three hits and again just one kill. Finally, my manuballista gets zero kills.
I’m trying to move my warriors back in, so though I haven’t done much killing, I have the Saxon spearhead surrounded, especially since my hearthguard have turned back as well.
Turn three, and it’s the Saxons to go. After they specify their orders, it’s my turn to interrupt, and I play Foedus, spending an extra point of Impetus to place a marker on the two front Saxon warrior units. Any melee or shooting actions they take part in will cause them an extra fatigue.
The archers shoot at my warriors, but our magic shields continue to protect us. Then it’s time for melee as the Saxons charge in despite Foedus. They attack my levee spearmen, killing two of them, but suffering four casualties themselves and are forced to fall back and take two fatigue.
The Saxons move up a third unit of warriors, then use The Storm Breaks which allows them two activations without fatigue. This is used to attack my levee spearmen, killing two more for no deaths themselves. The second unit also uses Insignificant to give themselves bonus attack dice against my warrior archers. 7 archers are killed, versus only 3 Saxon casualties.
It’s the Roman’s turn, and things aren’t looking too good. However, I’m in a good position and the gods of fate are about to look kindly on me. My saga dice though are bad – no chi rho, and only a single dragon banner. But then…
My manuballista fires and gets three hits and two kills on a warrior unit. I’ve had Combined Formation hanging around since the start of the game. This is a nice ability, that allows a unit of warriors with missile weapons to fire using the line of sight and range of another close by unit. My plan had been to keep my archers being the levee spearmen, using plumbatae from the spearmen and combined formation for the archers to attack anyone getting close. I’d never been able to use it, and was now down to a single archer, who had a clear line of sight himself.
However, I had the saga die still sitting on the board, so it was effectively a free activation. It missed.
My warrior spearmen charged the nearby Saxons, getting ten hits (using Ardour for bonus attack dice) and 7 kills. In return, the Saxons did nothing. It was helped by the fact that the Saxons had two fatigues on them, so I was able to drop their armour to 2.
My levees charged, and got a single kill, losing three men themselves. My hearthguard were now also in position, and charged in against another set of warriors, killing three of them for a cost of one of their own.
It had been an expensive turn, but the brunt of the Saxon attack had been broken. Their warriors were pretty much done for, and they were down to four saga dice.
Turn four started, and the Saxons decided that this beach wasn’t as good as they’d expected and that they’d be better off going elsewhere. They still had two units of hearthguards, plus a unit of archers, but they didn’t feel like sticking around.
So the victory went to the Romans.
My javelin equipped levees never got a single activation, so their only use was to provide a saga die. This was because I never had the spare dice to use on them, or there was nowhere to move them to when I did have the dice.
The manuballista was interesting. The long range made it a threat across a large portion of the table, but it didn’t do a lot. Even against the large levee unit it didn’t really make much of a difference due to them being in cover. However, the psychological effect of it had been quite large. Whether that would be true in a second game I don’t know.
I’d been able to fire it every turn, even though it may have been more useful to spend the die on other units. I really wanted to see how well it worked as a unit. It had its uses, but I’m not sure that it’s worth the cost of a saga die (it’s a unit that generates no saga dice). Given that it also activates like levee, it’s also taking a die that could be useful elsewhere.
Despite all that, I’m reasonably happy with the way the Romans performed. We’re still getting used to Age of Invasions and how the different factions play out. I find that it takes several games to get used to how a faction plays. If you’re just looking for a quick game of something, then this can be a disadvantage. But if you’re looking to play lots of games of something, I consider it a benefit.
