Battle of the Pigsty

Now that normal service has been resumed at the Guildford club I was looking forward to playing a game of Imperial Assault, the new game from FFG, that Andrew had acquired.  A couple of days before he realised that he wasn't familiar enough with the game and it's rules and contents to comfortably run the game this week.  Having had a chance to have a look at his set of Imperial Assault I can well understand why!  It's a hefty box of stuff which hopefully we'll get to grips with soon.

                                     

A couple of emails later I agreed to come up with a quick alternative and following a quick rummage in the loft came I emerged (somewhat dusty!) with Saga.  I haven't played this in ages so it seemed like a good opportunity to dust it off

Andrew hadn't played Saga before and I have a feeling it may have been a bit too 'gamey' for him but hopefully he enjoyed it.  We played out a straightforward clash between two 5 point armies with Andrew leading the Anglo Danes while I took the Viking army.

The game opened with the Vikings milling about looking suitably mob like while Andrew's Anglo-Danes had very neatly dressed lines  (I think he plays too much Napoleonics!).  The  2 Warlords advanced, targeting the enemies slightly weaker Warrior units (neither of us fielded the frankly rubbish Levy troops and neither had missile armed warriors either...this was a straightforward hack).





The neatly arrange Anglo Danes



I tried to be cunning and swung half my forces out wide to the left to try and force Andrew to react but he pulled back, refusing to be drawn out from the village which he'd quickly ensconced himself in.

The Viking flank attack

The initial clashes came from the Warlords, backed up by Hearthguard, attacking enemy Warrior units and not surprisingly causing devastation.  I managed to completely destroy one unit while Andrew left one with a handful of survivors.  I think he was a bit surprised by the level of destruction a unit can cause and by the lack of morale rules as heavily damaged units continued to bravely fight on.

My Warlord was caught out by an enemy Hearthguard and nearly died but luckily I remembered the rule that allowed my to sacrifice a brave Viking who was standing nearby and gallantly through himself on the enemies swords, allowing his leader to withdraw.  Warlords are very tough to kill....

My flank attack was still proving a bit rubbish but I did manage to wipe out a second enemy unit, reducing Andrew's dice total further.  Andrew continued to pick on my damaged unit eventually reducing 2 of them to 1 man each.  I'd also lost a Warrior unit by this point so was also losing activation dice.

We then realised that both Warlords had got too close to each other and had to engage in combat.  I had a cunning plan to use some of my vital dice to activate the Viking 'Loki' power which would have destroyed one of Andrews units and crucially preventing him using it to soak up some the damage to his Warlord as I had done earlier... I then realised (having committed the dice) that I'd misread the power and it didn't apply to Hearthguard...bugger!  The Warlords clashed and I came off worse, losing my Warlord and at that point conceding the game.  My lone Hirdman from one of the units Andrew had battered continued to hold the high ground however

Before....

...and after!



Good fun and an ideal quick 'filler' game for a club evening.