Carolingians, Merovingians, and Capetians: The Battle Board

Last week, I did my overview of the troop selections available to the three Frankish subfactions, so this week, I'll look into their battle board.

Carolingians, Merovingians, and Capetians: The Army List

I'm back with another army list review, this time for the Franks.  In my first post, I indicated that I was interested in playing Carolingians, so these are my preliminary thoughts on the troop options available to the army, as well as those available to the previous and successive dynasties, which use the same battle board.

Carolingians, Merovingians, and Capetians

Charlemagne considers fielding a Priest

The Carolingian battle board can be played with any of the three Frankish dynasties which ruled during the dark ages: Merovingians, Carolingians, and Capetians.  All three variants can take mounted hearthguard, though mounted Merovingian hearthguard must be equipped with javelins.  All the variants can arm warriors with bows.  The Carolingians and Merovingians can field mounted warriors, so they'll tend to have more cavalry, while the Capetians can't mount warriors, but can take a single unit of up to 8 warriors armed with crossbows.  Merovingians can also take a single unit of warriors on foot with javelins.  It seems like the Carolingians and Capetians will be pretty similar combined-arms lists, while the Merovingians will play a game more geared toward skirmishing with their javelin-armed troops.

Mathaga: When the Best Defense Die is a Good Attack Die

Hello again, and welcome to the second installment of Mathaga, where today we'll be talking about when defense dice are better than attack dice, and vice versa.  Lots of SAGA abilities let you choose to throw additional attack or defense dice, and many of them let you choose which kind of die to throw.  Note that I'm only talking about melee here, since for shooting attacks you only ever roll one or the other.

So should you roll attack dice or defense dice?  Is there even a difference?

Well, yes.

Normans and Bretons: The Battle Board

Part of my ongoing tactics series will be exploring the different faction battle boards as well as their combat options.  Since I'm starting off by collecting Normans/Bretons, I'll talk about them first.

A Clash of Warlords: Normans vs. Anglo-Danes

Hello!

This is my very first SAGA battle report.  SAGA is a very different game than the ones I'm used to playing, with positioning changing several times, even within a single turn.  I've tried to take enough pictures to keep up with the action, and hopefully this game will be pretty easy to follow.

If not, please let me know!  The pacing of SAGA is quite different from Warmachine, and if you've got any tips for keeping the report as clear as possible, I'd be happy to hear them.

I'm playing my newly assembled Normans.  At some point, I'll paint them, and at some other, probably much sooner point, I'll come up with detailed backstories and personal heraldry for the warlord and knights.  Until then, the list is:

Normans
Warlord with horse (free)
8 Hearthguard with horses (2 points) - Fielded in 1 unit with a war banner
16 Warriors with horses and javelins (2 points) - Fielded in 3 units of 6, 5, and 5
8 Warriors with crossbows (1 point) - Fielded in 1 unit
12 Levy with bows (1 point) - Fielded in 1 unit

Caleb is playing his trusty Anglo-Danes, and is eager to see how they hold up in the new edition.  I don't know if his warlord and huscarls have names and backstories yet.  I'll have to ask.

Anglo-Danes
Warlord with heavy weapon (free)
6 Hearthguard with heavy weapons (1.5 points) - Fielded in 1 unit
6 Hearthguard (1.5 points) - Fielded in 1 unit
16 Warriors (2 points) - Fielded in 2 units of 8
12 Levy with bows (1 point) - Fielded in 1 unit

Normans and Bretons: The Army List

This is part 1 of a series I'm planning about troop and equipment selection for the Age of Vikings factions.  Most of these are preliminary thoughts.  I don't have a lot of experience with SAGA yet even for the factions I want to play, and I'll probably never play some of them.  However, I have a lot of opinions and a blog, so I won't let that stop me from trying to give advice on all of them.

Normans and Bretons

Duke William going over his army list

The faction I want to start with is Normans, so that's who I'll talk about first.  The Norman battle board can be played using two factions: Normans or Bretons, depending on how your hearthguard are equipped.  Equipping your hearthguard with javelins makes your warband Breton, and prevents you from taking warriors armed with crossbows or levy armed with bows.  Giving your hearthguard horses or no special equipment means you're playing a Norman warband, and gives you more variety in your ranged weapons.  Though I haven't played many games yet, it seems like a significant enough difference that Normans and Bretons will play quite differently despite the fact that they use the same battle board.

Mathaga: Why Not Warriors?

At first glance, SAGA seems like a game with great internal balance, but the core mechanics of the game pose an immediate and tricky list-building question:

Is there a reason to take hearthguard?