Night Battles

I’d already had a game of Saga against the Scots, and lost badly. This time, I decided to try the Jomsvikings. My Jomsvikings had done well against the Irish, so I thought that maybe they’d do well against the Scots. I wasn’t entirely correct.

The Jomsvikings have some very nice abilities on their board, however, half of them require wrath tokens to use, and the others can be cancelled by your opponent – in which case you get wrath tokens. The only way to get wrath tokens is to get your opponent to cancel your use of abilities.

If your opponent doesn’t cancel my abilities and give you wrath, then there is no way to get wrath. So it’s actually quite easy to cripple the Jomsvikings.

We went for a Battle of Heroes, ending up with a battle of regicide for massacre points at night. In all, we had Uplands, March Column, Regicide, Night Fight and Subjugation.

I had 3 units of 4 hearthguards with heavy weapons, one unit of 8 hearthguards with no special equipment, and a unit of warriors with heavy weapons. My warlord was equipped with a heavy weapon as well. The Scots had a single unit of bow equipped levee, a single unit of hearthguard, one unit of angry monk mercenaries, and the rest were standard warriors.

We could deploy within L of our table edge, so I deployed my Jomsvikings as far forward as I could, planning to perform a fast strike towards the Scottish warlord.

Turn 1

The Jomsvikings went first, using Fury of the Pagans to activate three of my units. Each of these activations could be cancelled by granting me 1 point of wrath. I was allowed to move twice (giving me one wrath due to the third being cancelled), and with my other dice, I charged my unit of 8 hearthguard into a unit of 8 Scot warriors. The Scots used my fatigue to raise their armour, and I used Armour of the Pagans to raise mine.

With 16 attack dice versus 8 attack dice, it should have been a straightforward victory for the Jomsvikings. Instead, it was a disaster. I got 1 kill, they got 4 kills, and my Jomsvikings fell back. I’m not quite sure what went wrong, other than the dice gods not favouring me.

Then it was the Scots to move. They used Diversionary Volley to get 4 hits and 1 kill on my warriors. They then tried to rest, which I stupidly cancelled with Punishment. It was a waste of that ability. Especially because the next thing they did was to use Reach to activate all their non-shooting units for a shooting attack with javelins.

Despite three units shooting at my (once) large unit of hearthguard, they only got 2 kills. However, that was my main aggressive unit, and it now wasn’t in a great shape, being down to 2 men.

Their warriors charged in, and wiped me out. I got two kills myself, but I’d lost two points of my warband, plus my warlord and another unit had fatigue.

Turn 2

The Jomsviking now had to try to recover their position. The Scots played No Respite as an Orders/Reaction, allowing them to roll dice and put them on their board. It’s a really powerful ability, since it effectively gives them an extra set of saga abilities a turn.

I played Fury of the Pagans, and tried to make a full on attack. Without any wrath tokens I was limited in what I could do though. A new unit of hearthguard charged against some Scottish warriors, using Holmgang with my single wrath token to give me an extra defence die, and cancel a defence die for the Scots.

I got 4 kills – a better result than last time, and took a single casualty.

My unit of warriors was moved, and as my final Fury of the Pagans action, another hearthguard unit was charged in against another Scottish warrior unit. I killed 4 of them, and lost three men myself as the Scots used Longspears and Beyond the Wall.

The Scots again opened up with Diversionary Volley against my warriors, getting 2 hits and 2 kills.

Then warriors charged my hearthguard, wiping them out. Then the Scottish hearthguard were brought into combat using Stand Together, and wiped out another unit of Jomsviking hearthguard.

The Jomsvikings were down to three units including my warlord. At this point I conceded the game.

It had been a very brief game, and once again I’d completely bounced off the Scots. They seem to be a really strong faction, and since the Jomsvikings were pretty much denied the ability to use wrath, I felt that there was very little that I could do.

Sigvaldi Strut-Haraldson

We’d barely spent an hour playing, so decided to have a second game. Using the same board and objectives. I spent some time considering how I was going to taken on the Scots, and decided to make a change. I swapped out my warlord for the legendary Sigvaldi, and dropping the unit of warriors.

The two main abilities of Sigvaldi is that all his hearthguard have an armour of 6 against shooting attacks, and that I can choose to take wrath tokens by cancelling my own abilities. This would give me a lot more control of gaining wrath. My opponent can still choose to cancel as well, but it prevents them from denying me wrath.

This time I deployed a lot further back – right at the edge of the table. I wanted time to build up wrath before getting into battle.

Turn 1

The Jomsvikings went first again, and at this point I realised that Fury of the Pagans is a basic ability. This means that I can put multiple dice on it, and each dice could give me wrath points.

So that’s what I did, using manoeuvre to move my units forward and ending the turn with a lot of wrath.

The Scots advanced their monks (barely used in the previous game) and mostly stocked up on abilities.

Turn 2

The Jomsvikings used Fury of the Pagans again for movement and wrath, and a mixture of dice and we obey/determination to start heading towards the Eastern flank, where the Scottish levy were located in solid cover.

The Scots used Diversionary Volley, which I cancelled with Punishment.

Turn 3

We were already at turn 3, and the Jomsviking were ready for attack. The Scots interrupted with No Respite, and then I used Fury of the Pagans and Song of Steel to move my entire warband and give javelins to them. They moved up, and rained javelins down on the levies, killing 2 of them. Being in solid cover really helps.

I was wanting to charge them, but needed to get Legends before doing that. I figured that getting that next turn would be easy.

The Scots used Diversionary Volley, and killed one of my unit of 8 hearthguard, then began moving into my flank. They used javelins, with four units scoring a total of zero kills. The armour of 6 against shooting attacks was turning out to be useful.

Turn 4

The Jomsvikings really wanted Legends in this turn, but rolled a straight set of ‘wealth’ runes. Deciding not to go over the levies in the solid cover, I turned my focus on the warriors approaching on my flank.

I cleared the way a bit with a unit of 4 hearthguard against a unit of warriors. With Pagan Faith I got 5 hits but only a single kill. But they got no kills on me, and were forced back.

My double sized unit of hearthguard then charged in, getting 10 kills (with Hammer of Thor to give 4 automatic hits, and Jomsborg! to re-roll 3 each of attack and defence dice) and losing 2 men. Their unit was wiped out.

The Scots used (you guessed it) Diversionary Volley, charging my large (but now whittled down) unit of hearthguard with their hearthguard. Hold At Bay (and 3 defence dice) and Counter Attack (gain 2 attack dice for each defence dice) were used. Both units were wiped out.

Stand Together was then used to charge a fresh unit of hearthguard with some warriors. 2 hearthguard were killed, and 1 warrior. The hearthguard were forced back.

By now, the Scots had also brought up their warlord to help manage actions on the front line.

Turn 5

The Jomsvikings rolled a straight set of “birch”. Since I was out of wrath tokens, I put three dice on Fury of the Pagans to bring me up to 9 wrath.

Then I used We Obey and a normal activation to charge the Scottish warlord. Once again, Hammer of Thor and Jormsburg were used to get automatic hits and re-rolls. The warlord was slain, though I lost 3 hearthguard in the process.

With a warlord dead, the Scots had one final chance to even the score. They slew the one remaining hearthguard who had killed their warlord, and moved on to a second unit of hearthguard, killing 2 and losing 2 warriors themselves.

And that was the end of the game.

In total, the Scots had killed 13 of my hearthguard, giving them 13 points.

The Jomsvikings had killed a warlord, 4 hearthguard, 12 warriors and a couple of levee, giving them a grand total of 15 points.

It was a close call, but the Jomsvikings had scraped in a win.

The use Sigvaldi as a warlord really changed the dynamics of the game, giving the Jomsvikings a lot more control over when they gained wrath. To some extent, it almost felt abusive. Being able to stack up on lots of wrath at the start using Fury of the Pagans is a really powerful ability. It allows some quite powerful turns. Whether Sigvaldi is overpowered I don’t know, but I only barely won the second battle.

Since I was equipped with heavy weapons, Song of Steel is limited in use, since I can’t be considered to have both javelins and heavy weapons, so I lose the former if I make use of the latter. For making mass movement which doesn’t generate fatigue, and then a free shooting attack, it’s really useful though.

Overall, I give the win to my opponent. He managed his saga abilities much better than I did (though forgot one crucial Orders/Reaction right at the end) in both battles, clearly won the first battle and only just lost the second battle.