SAGA, slaughter and a surprise

Summer has not yet caught up with the north of England and I braved the cold and rain to go to the club last night. I was fighting my first SAGA game of the club campaign, my Saxons had decided to attack the Pagan Rus, my Byzantines have raided the Carolingians and this will be fought in two weeks.

Dan who is running the campaign helped with the set up and we had to kill each others Warlord to win the game, I don't think this is easy in SAGA but I may be wrong, I set up with the Warlord and his Hearthguard on my right and Warriors and bow armed Levy on my left, Paul had Javelins and Warriors facing my left and his Warlord, Hearthguard and Javelins on my right. I got nowhere with my archers so had to move them forward while I put my Hearthguard in defensive ground to their front, the Warlord started inching towards my left.

Paul was aggressive and attacked my Levy, his men lost the fight and were then attacked by my Warlord who slaughtered most of them and caused the survivors to retreat, I now had the upperhand on the left flank. On my right the Hearthguard found themselves the target of the Javelins and one of them fell, thankfully after that nothing struck home. Paul now made his move, he played a set of SAGA dice which meant he attacked and defended with 27 D6 against my reduced Hearthguard while I hit back with eight or something like that, it looked like I could call a taxi.

Paul's Warriors advance towards my centre.

Saxon's fatigued but jubilant.

Five of my Hearthguard fell leaving two, then the God's played a foul trick on Paul, he only managed to save one hit with all his dice and my own lone SAGA die meant he took more casualties and in a surprise to everyone his men lost and fled. I could hear a howl of despair. Meanwhile the rest of my army attacked and destroyed the Rus right flank. There was one move left and I felt discretion was the better part of valour and moved my men out of range of the remaining Rus, I had won.

I am new to this as I have said before and have decided to simply attack where possible and hope something goes right, I did however give a bit more thought to this game and held my right back while taking advantage of the disarray of the Rus on my left. Once again I thought the enemy board had far more deadly options than mine, sour grapes from the winner, that's new. I fight Fran next and he is a SAGA expert when measured against my experience, so interesting times. Elsewhere we had a Normandy game using Andy's lovely 20mm stuff supplemented by Rob's I think, a second SAGA game, X-Wing, Bloodbowl and Age of Sigmar, a busy night.

A customer came in yesterday who I have seen quite a bit of recently and I mentioned this and in a roundabout way I found out he was mailing MDF buildings (Laser Models). We got talking and he showed me some pictures, the range has Fantasy buildings which could probably be used for 16/17C and some modern pieces mainly for Railway modellers but again nothing which could not be used for modern wargaming. The detail is very good and I like the way the buildings fit together seamlessly, I admired the Pithead, the old type with the large wheels on top and John very kindly brought me one in, this means I shall have to do a small industrial area at some point to use it. If you go to a show S&A Scenics have them for sale.

The missus and I sat down to watch the latest movie detailing the life of Mary Queen of Scots, well she did while I googled around on my iPad. Mary landed at Leith, Scotland had harbours you morons, every time you see Mary turning up she is wading through surf on to a beach. Then begins the scenic march over hill and glen with majestic mountains in the background, no, Scotland has a lot of flat bits! This ludicrous homage to the Highlands began to get right up my nose as did Mary's posh Jock accent despite living in France from an early age. Why do film makers keep insisting that Elizabeth was so reluctant to kill Mary, the Tudors killed everyone without remorse whom they thought could endanger their tenuous claim to the English throne, why would the execution of Mary have been any different. The 1971 film was better entertainment.

On the Bolt Action front I expect delivery of their new D-Day campaign book tomorrow, appropriately 6th June as I have just seen the Postie head up the street without ringing the bell. I hope to get back to the French cavalry tonight having had to rein back due to map work, but the good news is the 40+ maps for the Battle of Berlin now only await the final OK from the author.

I am grateful to the Yanks for WWII but can't we just once see the British on the covers/stills/newsreel clips.