There’s a lot of Saga being played in the Goonhammer Historicals Star Fort at the moment, but one event (for the UK at least) represents the hardest challenge – the Saga Grand Melee. This year held during Britcon, in the lovely Leicester De Montfort University, the Grand Melee will be a two day test of generalship over nearly 1,000 years of history. After looking on enviously in previous years, this year I’ve bought a ticket to get my ass kicked for two solid days.
Why?
I’m going with the full expectation of taking home the Valhalla award for coming in last place overall, and the win-to-lose ratio of 0:6. While I’ve got better at games generally in my time writing and playing stuff for Goonhammer, I remain uniquely terrible at Saga. There’s something about the battleboards system and the fact that Hearthguard are no harder to kill than anyone else that breaks my brain. I’ve probably played new Saga convert Bair more than anyone else at this point, so I asked him for his opinion on my chances:
Thanks Bair.
But I’ve picked up a ticket to the hardest, sweatiest, most competitive Saga event in the British events calendar because I want to be better. If I can win one game over two days I’ll be a happy man. There’s time between now and then, though, so there’s every possibility I can focus, learn the battle boards, practice (a lot) and make Bair regret his absolutely brutal accuracy when I beat him next time. It’s getting a bit embarrassing being this shit at Saga at this point, so it’s definitely time to fix that.
What I’ll Need
The Saga Grand Melee is the biggest and most official Saga event in the UK, fought over six games, two days and two eras (Age of Vikings/Invasions and Age of Crusades/Chivalry). That means there’s a fairly chunky list of things I’ll need to bring:
- Rulebooks and Battleboards
- Two separate armies, one for each day
- Official Saga dice (and the usual motley assortment of D6s)
- Measuring sticks, tape measure and fatigue tokens
- Terrain
- Three Objective markers
Some of that is relatively settled – I have the fatigue markers, measuring sticks and dice (mostly thanks to Bandua!) and much of the rest is standard stuff. I’ll need to update my battleboards to the newest FAQ, but otherwise the rules are all sorted. What I’ll need to work on is the armies, objectives and the terrain.
I have some very nice 2D terrain from Bandua, which seems like the easiest and quickest way, but I’d like to flex a little with some “proper” terrain, three dimensional stuff that looks good and is simple to transport. Bandua has me sorted there too, but there’s work to be done on that one to make my terrain the best at the tournament.
Objectives shouldn’t be too hard, and is the kind of small thematic project I like to do – three modelled 30-40mm bases. The armies are a bit more complicated.
Age of Vikings
For the Saturday – Age of Vikings/Invasions – the choice of army is easy: the Normans. I painted these up very quickly, but they look pretty good and the battle board is easy. I have at least three points of a six point list sorted out, and a full six painted:
They are, technically, ready to go. I could turn up tomorrow with:
- Two Points of Warriors
- Two Points of Hearthguard
- One point of Levy
- One Priest
That’s not to say that the army is done, by any means. The Norman battleboard really needs some cavalry – ideally Hearthguard and Warriors. I haven’t played the Normans with the cavalry, which sits unloved and unpainted in my medium-term storage for unfinished projects, so if I want to take the Normans (my only option without painting up an entire other army), then I will probably need at least 12 cavalry, if not more.
I know how the Norman board operates (to an extent) and I know I could technically get away with taking only what I have; you can run a footslogging shooty Norman army using three battleboard abilities – Wounded, Superiority and Volley Fire – to do a lot of damage to enemy units from a considerable distance. What you really need, though, is some mounted units to charge in and finish off weakened enemies and that’s something I don’t have.
I’ll also need to practice with a new list – so painting up some cavalry is a matter of urgency.
Age of Crusades
I’m not going to even try to get something sorted with Age of Chivalry, because I have a massive range of options for Age of Crusades. Over the last year I’ve ended up with a huge Islamic army and a fairly sizable Crusader one. That leaves me in a good, if complicated place.
I currently have more than 20 points of Islamic models, in an army that could fit into Saracen, Moor and Mutatawwia battle boards. At most, I’d look to paint just a few more cavalry. The total fully painted stands at:
- 28 Cavalry (Hearthguards/Warriors)
- 45 Infantry (Warriors/Levy)
Both cavalry and infantry have a wide enough range of options that I could do about half and half as bow or javelin armed.
The Saracens and Moors are finesse armies that I find tricky to manage – lots of movement, fatigue generation and relatively complicated abilities. The Mutatawwia are decidedly not, but their battle board is uncomfortably close to bizarre, anachronistic twentieth century jihadism and – to be brutally honest – I’m terrible at piloting them.
The Crusaders might be a more straightforward choice. There, I’ve got an army that could work for the Crusader and Milites Christie factions – a solid block of mounted knights, lots of foot knights, warriors and pilgrims. The Crusader faction is easy to play and I’m confident I could learn it quickly – and importantly, the army is completely finished. The Milites are a bit harder (and I’d likely need more cavalry) and function around shuffling available Saga dice in and out of the Orison ability, something I can barely get my head around at the moment.
To narrow this down from five potential armies to four, I can rule out taking the Mutatawwia immediately on principles alone. If I was to go by the models I like most, I’d take the Islamic army (probably as Saracens), but the wrinkle here is that the Crusaders and Milites can (and should!) take a unit of Turcopoles, which would let me pick my eight favourite Islamic cavalry and use them as a -literally – colourful addition to my otherwise white-and-cloth crusaders.
L: Victrix Crusader Cavalry Credit: Lenoon
As I want to try and win a game (at least), it’s going to come down to playing as many practice games as I can to work out what I’m capable of playing, what I want to play and what the lists look like. This has to be my first priority – at worst, I can learn how to use Norman cavalry effectively in a practice game or two, but starting off with no idea what I’ll be using for a whole day of games is not the best move!
What Next?
Practice. Practice. Practice. Well, that and objective markers because there’s nothing I love more than getting distracted. If you’d like to follow along, or come and beat the shit out of me at Saga and get written about, why not pick up a ticket and come play?
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