Old school (v2) Saga as 6 points of Vikings face Welsh in the baggage stealing scenario from ‘Book of Battles’. The Welsh selected as much terrain as they could get away with as they can use their advanced ability to move through it at normal speed. The cunning plan being to move quickly through rough terrain to grab wagons while the Vikings would be slowed or forced to go around the poor terrain on their side. As an added bonus there was the hope of retreating back into the badlands on their side with their new loot faster than the Vikings could run after them.
No troops start on table but all units get a free activation to move on. The wagons have a 2/3rds chance of moving on each player’s turn.
Moving onto activations that rely on normal abilities and spending dice the Welsh grab the nearest wagon with 8 hearthguard but lost 1 in the combat and are on a sticky 3 fatigue. The wagons are no walkover. They only throw out 3 dice but they are melee armour 5 and have resilience(1) so will take 4 hits to kill. They tend to shed their fatigue each turn so we imagine some pretty tough virtual wagon guards. When captured the wagons are replaced by loot markers. It would have been a doddle to do that, replacing the wagons with the barrels that were already on them. We did not think this through and instead treated captured wagons as markers that could be moved out of the way, counting the positions of the escorting units when measuring for movement. The rest of the Welsh line also moves up.
The Vikings show up and as expected are slowed down by having to go around the terrain on their side of the field.
The Welsh strip what fatigue they can and move up to take the 2nd wagon with a unit of warriors. We messed the resilience rules so the wagons were going down too easily.
The Vikings are in, 4 hearthguard charge the 7 Welsh hearthguard defending the wagon. This should be easy for the Welsh so they decline to evade. The Vikings are buffed up to the eyeballs so go through the Welsh like butter although only 2 Vikings remain to guard the loot. In a similar vein berserkers charge the lead wagon and capture it at a cost of 2 of their number. This was a key example of the Viking versus Welsh army style. The Vikings have a pile of combat benefits, which stack so can really up their combat dice but this is Saga dice heavy so other Viking units stand around and cheer the lads on. The Welsh rely on javelins which give a combat bonus if they charge in but the javelin troops are down 1 on the default armour and the Welsh board has little to offer the defense. It does allow a degree of movement and shooting during the enemy turn, racking up less fatigue and making the Welsh mobile if weak in defense.
The Welsh warlord charges through the woods (Children of the Land, with a rare Saga dice face you even get the die back) and wups the Viking Hearthguard taking the loot back. The remaining berserkers are shot flat by the Welsh archers. With an armour of 3 berserkers rarely last long in Saga games
The Vikings keep on coming. 8 warriors charge the Welsh warlord. He loses the combat but is still alive and backs off (minus booty) into the woods. In a similar vein the Viking warlord boots the Welsh warriors off their loot but their Warlord is sitting on 2 fatigue.
The Welsh are still good to go. A fresh unit of warriors takes the final wagon, losing 2 figures in the process. The Welsh levy shoot at the Viking warlord and miss but the weakened unit of 4 Welsh warriors charge the Viking warlord and take him down with 1 warrior remaining to hold onto the loot.
The final turn and the writing is on the wall for the Vikings. A unit of warriors tries to take the forward most wagon but is driven off. Elsewhere there is little the Vikings can do to reduce the Welsh force, who holding 2 wagons and having most survivors pull off a win.
A final word on the Viking archer levy who rolled up and did no good all game. The Vikings did not have the Saga dice to spare to shift and shoot them and the Welsh saw no good in wasting javelins or arrows on them.
Gaming in Blackshaw Head 