Swiss and English

We had another game of Saga: Age of Chivalry. This time it was my English versus the Swiss. I’ve found the English to be quite a weak faction (a French game company making the English faction underpowered? Never!), but they’ve had an errata which improves several of their abilities. So it was going to be interesting to see how they played out.

In our previous couple of games, I’d beaten the Swiss player’s Flemish army. The pike units suffered from being slow, so they couldn’t achieve the needed objectives. The Swiss army was very different though, and had abilities that allowed their pikemen to really move around the battlefield. Whether it would be enough of a difference we needed to find out.

We started with the Tactical Option for drawing the game scenario. The first player (the Swiss) chose to roll Scenery and Special, so I got to roll the rest.

• Scenery: Unknown Lands (first player selects four terrain pieces)
• Special: A Good Day to Die (no rules)
• Deployment: Refused Flank (we fight down the long edge)
• Length: Pitched Battle (5 turns)
• Victory: Target (massacre points, with a chosen enemy unit giving double points)

So the Swiss put out four small woods, which would complicate things for my English longbowmen.

I had 3 points of warriors with bows (organised into two units of 12), one unit of standard warriors, two units of 4 hearthguard and a warlord. I believe my Warlord is carrying the flag of the Earls of Arundel.

The Swiss had a unit of 12 pikes, a unit of 8 pikes, a unit of 12 levee with crossbows, a unit of 12 warriors and a mercenary unit of brigands. They didn’t have a warlord, instead the Swiss designate a unit of warriors (in this case the 12) as a Gewalthut. This gets the We Obey, Resilience and Determination abilities of a warlord, and is effectively their warlord unit.

Turn 1

The Swiss played Forced March, which meant their pike units could move at M, and all their other non-mercenary units could move and charge normally in uneven terrain.

So they did a fast move forward, closing the distance with my warband a lot quicker than expected.

The English played Loose!, which allows two units to make a shooting attack at range 2xL. This used to allow the targets to increase their armour by 1, but that part has been removed in the errata. Both units still both have to shoot at different targets. So I aimed at the large unit of pikemen, getting 4 hits and 4 kills, and at the crossbowmen, where I got 3 hits (despite their lower armour) and no kills.

In both cases, the Swiss played Obstinate, which gave them +3 defence dice. Obstinate can be played twice in a turn.

I then used With All Haste to move one unit of archers forward, and used Wall of Arrows to shoot at the pikes again, getting a further 2 kills, and at the Gewalthut unit, getting hits but no kills. Another use of Wall of Arrows against the Gewalthut again got no kills.

Wall of Arrows is an English basic ability that allows two units to make shooting attacks. I was left with quite a bit of fatigue on my units, and though I’d done respectable damage to the Pikemen who were my target unit, I hadn’t done much else.

Turn 2

The Swiss played Forced March again, and I played Brothers in Arms to take fatigue off my longbowmen. At this point I hadn’t noticed that Rain of Arrows, which I had a die sitting on, was no an Orders/Reaction ability. I could have played it for another free attack, but I didn’t.

The Swiss crossbowmen moved forward, shooting at one of my bow units (who they had designated as their target unit) and got 3 kills. Their Gewalthut moved through the woods without penalty, but the pikemen didn’t do much.

For the English, it was a chance to rest and then play Loose! again. This time, we got 0 kills against the pike, and 2 skills against the crossbowmen. I was mostly worried about the crossbowmen at this point in time, so wanted to take them down. But I also wanted to go for the points of taking out the large unit of pikemen.

Again, Wall of Arrows was played, but ended up being completely ineffective. So I used With All Haste to try and start backing away. I had a crown on this, so was able to move everyone without fatigue. I moved a hearthguard unit up to defend my right flank.

Turn 3

The Swiss played Forced March, and I used Gruelling Advance to put down some stakes to try and slow the Gewalthut that were now advancing out of the woods towards my right flank.

The crossbowmen shot at my bowmen, getting 4 hits and 2 kills. Then the Gewalthut charged my hearthguards. I used Herce to give myself +3 attack dice, and the Swiss used Wall of Pikes get cancel 2 hits on a roll of 6 on their defence dice.

We both got 8 hits, but I got zero kills and they got 6 kills – completely wiping out my unit of 4 hearthguard, and putting fatigue on my archers. The dice gods were not favouring me today.

The English played Brothers in Arms to shuffle around more fatigue, then Loose! again. I was down attack dice with my second archer unit but it really didn’t make a different – neither unit managed to get any kills against either the Gewalthut or the crossbowmen.

So I retreated again with With All Haste, and a final use of We Obey managed to get some shots off which finally killed 2 more crossbowmen.

Turn 4

The Swiss played Forced March, and finally I noticed that Rain of Arrows was an Orders/Reaction ability. Previously, it gave either +1 attack if the target were within M, or +2 attack dice. But it had been changed from a Shooting activation to Orders/Reaction, and instead made terrain uneven for units that it inflicted casualties on. The old bonuses were better, especially against the Swiss who ignored uneven terrain, but the Orders/Reaction activation was useful.

Maybe my luck was turning, because I shot at the crossbowmen, and got 4 hits followed by 4 kills.

The Gewalthut charged my bowmen, who were now down to 7 men. The Gewalthut had 12, and had higher armour. I had Dieu et Mon Droit! to play, which gave me an armour bonus, plus I spent the Swiss fatigue to increase my armour again. However, we both got just one kill on the other.

So the Gewalthut fell back, then charged in a second time. This time, they got 8 hills, wiping out my unit. I didn’t even manage to score a single hit, let alone any kills.

It was back to the English to active. I played Brothers in Arms, moving fatigue from my archers to my infantry. We played a shooting attack against the Gewalthut, and got nothing.

Then I played Mauls to charge them in. Technically the Gewalthut were exhausted, but the Swiss played Unshakeable, which removed a fatigue from them before the combat began. It’s also another Swiss ability that can be played twice a turn.

I used Dieu et Mon Driot! and Herce gave me some bonuses, but the Swiss played Wall of Pikes for extra defence bonuses. I got 11 hits and 6 kills, which was a good result, and they got 3 kills on me. So the Gewalthut were forced backwards.

Being down two units meant I was feeling the lack of Saga dice, and was now quite limited in what I could do. My units of Hearthguard and Warrior infantry were still sitting at the back not doing much other than taking on fatigue. I had planned to try and bring in my infantry if the pikemen moved forward, but they were also sitting at the back not doing anything.

Turn 5

The Swiss played Oath of Covenant, taking two figures from their crossbowmen (bringing them down to 2) and refreshing their Gewalthut.

Though the lack of a Warlord weakens the Swiss to some extent, their Gewalthut is a pretty powerful unit. It has a lot more durability than a standard Warlord, and can regenerate lost figures.

Their remaining crossbowmen shot at my archers, but didn’t kill anyone. Then the Gewalthut charged in again, getting 4 kills and taking any casualties from my archers.

For the English, this was the last turn, and their last chance to get some extra points. It was Brothers in Arms on my Warlord, a We Obey to rest my archers, and then my Warlord charged the Gewalthut. We both got 1 kill at each other, which we both used resilience on.

Then my remaining archers moved forward, and use Loose! against the pikemen target unit. I got two hits, but no kills.

And that was the end of the game.

In total, the English scored 13 massacre points. The Swiss scored 22.|

So it was a clear victory to the Swiss.

I’d had some bad luck on the dice rolls. The Swiss has also made good use of being able to flank me and then roll along my line. I should have moved more units up to engage them, but I hadn’t expected them to be quite so tough or aggressive.

The revised English board is a lot more playable I think, though I need to get used to it. The Swiss do seem to be tougher than the Flemish. I think the Flemish would be a great defending army, but their pikemen can be easy to run around. The Swiss have no such problem.

It was an interesting game, and it has got me interested in playing the English again.