Age of Magic ~ A SAGA Battle

I've been looking for a fantasy game that I can play solo. I've had a few games of Dragon Rampant and that works pretty well. Because of the activation system it makes it very uncertain who, when & where units are going to activate. So by simply playing each side to their maximum capacity the game is unpredictable.

But I wanted something with a bit more depth. I use to play the original SAGA and I got turned off it when they brought out a 2nd edition. This attitude was due to the expense I had already forked out and the cash I would again need to part with. In Australia the 2nd edition rules plus era book and scenario book would cost in excess of $200. Not a small outlay. But I recently discovered that if I ordered the same stuff from the UK I could get the rules, Age of Magic book, and 3 sets of dice for just over $100AUD. It took a while to get here but now I have it.

So I tried out a solo game...

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Lords of the Wild vs The Hoard

I read the rules. I read Age of Magic. I made up two warbands. I didn't really know what I was doing but this was just a practice game so it was a mater of learning what's what.

Lords of the Wild ~ lead by the Lunalunda (Ogress Moonhead), with Hellebore the Fairy (sorceress), The Green Knights (hearthguard), Faun warriors with spears and bows, a troop of Centaurs (quadruped creatures), an Ent (Monster/Titan). and the Forest Walker (lieutenant ~ the guy with the horns).

The Horde ~  lead by the half orc Grimskrote, with a troop of the order of the bull (hearthguard), two troops of orc warriors, an orc champion, a mountain troll and a troop of cave orgres and an orc shaman (sorcerer).

Grimskrote observes his enemy from atop a low ridge: "Kill them! Hew their flesh and grind their bones."

The Horde got the initiative. I rolled only three Saga Dice for their first turn but they got an extra one due to the rolls. This enabled every unit except for the orcs on the left to move forward.

 Grimskrote's plan was simple: Charge the center and break his enemy.

 "There they are. Slay them and drive them from the sacred woods." The forest folk advanced. I intended for them to use a Saga ability "Ambush," which would have allowed the faun archers to shoot the orcs on the left from a nearby wood. But the wood needed to be empty and the orc shaman had taken up position there, thus thwarting the tactic.

In their second turn the Horde rolled well and managed to get extra S of movement to the charges as well as combat bonuses especially for charging as their first action. In SAGA all measurements are made using pre-determined lengths - Long - Medium - Short - Very Short - or L, M, S, VS.

 So the center charged: The orcs crashed into the faun warriors killing three and driving them back.

The Order of the Bull charged the Green Knights. One figure in each group went down so the Bulls had to fall back S distance.

Grimskrote charged Lunalunda. The combat was one sided with the orc rolling well and the ogress rolling poorly.

The result was that Lunaludra cancelled only one out of 4 hits and that was due to her Resilience (1) rule. The 3 remaining hits were taken on the Green Knights, reducing them to 2 figures. Grimskrotes plan looked to be working.

In retaliation the centaurs, who had moved up in the previous turn charge the mountain troll. The troll went down hard taking all three centaurs with him.

On the right flank the Ent had moved up slowly as did the Grimskrote's ogres. In the centre Hellebore the fairy was threatened by the orcs and Bulls so she pulled back and cast a spell...

The orcs deprived of their preferred target, instead crashed into the faun spears again killing more and throwing them back again.

The ogres, having cleared an area of woods now charged the ent. The great treeman held his own and pushed back the ogres, killing one of their company.

The spell (mentioned before) cast by the fairy Hellebore, brought into existence a small area of rough ground. This was enough to prevent Grimskrote from again charging the ogress Lunalunda. This action proved decisive.
The bull's charged the remaining Green Knights destroying them.

In the previous turn the Forest Walker had shot his bow at Grimskrote. In retaliation, and because he couldn't charge the ogress, the half orc decided to charge the Forest Walker.

Unsurprisingly the fighting went against the forester but when it came to defensive rolls the dice went the other way. The Forest Walker rolled a brace of 5's & 6's and the Half orc rolled 1's and 2's. Too late, I realized, the Horde commander was out of range of his hearthguard and could not transfer any successful hits on to them. Thus Grimskrote was laid low by the Forest Walker. A fatal blow to the Horde.

The initial success of the Horde was now looking precarious. In the center Hellebore positioned herself to cast a Beam of Light spell. It passed through the Bulls and into the orcs in the center. The spell was cast with maximum energy and both troops suffered. This entailed a roll on the Abuse of Power Table which turned out okay for the fairy sorceress. The remaining bulls were finished off by Lunalundra with mighty blows of her club/staff.

The orc shaman, who's main role was to boost the aggressiveness of the troops was now under threat. Using a double activation the Forest Walker moved forward and charged in one quick move that easily slew the shaman.

On the right the mighty tree-man lumbered forward and crushed the ogres before they could regroup in a mighty battle of the giants.

 As he stood over the body of the slain shaman, the Forest Walker failed to notice that the orc champion emerged from the far end of the woods and charged. He was no match for the orc's ferocity (and the two Fatigue tokens he had didn't help) and so he was slain in a one sided contest.

The three remaining orcs in the center huddled together in fear as the great ent lumbered towards them. They put up little fight and were crushed beneath tree-man's heavy tread.

In the end one troop of orcs that had be shot up by the faun bows and the orc champion remained. There was little they could do to prevail so they fled the forest in order to plot revenge.

Hoom homm.

Grrrr...

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Conclusion:

The game worked well. Not everything worked as it should have but I did play both sides to their best ability (well, my version of their best ability!). With the initial couple of turns I thought the Horde had it won. But the loss of the warlord really knocked the wind out of them. 

The ent really was a big hitter and I expected the ogres to stand more of a chance. On the other flank, the mountain troll didn't have armour as good as the ent and was more vulnerably as a result. But his big pool of Aggression Dice is what enabled him to kill all three centaurs in one fell and violent swoop.

All in all, I think this is a better alternative to Dragon Rampant for a similar sized game. But it ain't a big battle game. Maybe it could be scaled up to 10 points or, at the very most, 12 points. But you couldn't go bigger than that unless you went multi-player / multi-warband on each side.

One thing I do need is something better for hearthguard on both sides. I just got some Mantic orcs riding on boars (I don't know what they're actually called) so I've got that part covered. But the Forest folk will be more of a challenge.Maybe the centaurs would be better in the hearthgard roll and some other creatures for the Creature roll.

I already have plans for an undead warband using a bunch of GW undead figures that I picked up cheap last year. All I need to do is add a few extra elements and they'll be ready to go (after I paint them that is).

I can also do several Great Kingdoms warbands so that gives me a bit of variety.