RogerBW's Blog

Jon, one of the organisers of Wycombe Warband, lives locally, and I had a couple of games against him. With images; cc-by-sa on everything.

I'd expressed an interest in trying out Saga, a skirmish game based in the Dark Ages. I took Normans (mostly cavalry plus some bowmen) against Vikings.

The thing that threw me is just how fast units move. One lot of Viking hearthguard descended on the crossbowmen and slaughtered them.

My knights went in against the main Viking troops and did some damage…

But were slaughtered by the reinforcements.

In the end it was just the warlord and a lot of unenthusiastic archers.

…and he didn't last long. Now I'll admit I had some truly terrible dice luck, but mostly I was there to learn something about the system, and I did. I'm not going to start collecting this, but I wouldn't mind playing again; it's horribly unrealistic (like the way a unit can move from outside archery range into melee combat too fast to be shot at) but still enjoyable if one can accept its limitations.

Then on to X-Wing. I took my current Rebel force:

Ten Numb / B-Wing
 Marksmanship
 Autoblaster
 Advanced Sensors
Tycho Celchu / A-Wing
 Push the Limit
 Assault Missiles
Red Squadron Pilot / X-Wing
 R2 Astromech

and Jon had a pair of Aggressors:

IG88-B
 Push the Limit
 Advanced Sensors
 Heavy Laser Cannon
 Inertial Dampeners
 IG-2000
IG88-D
 Push the Limit
 Advanced Sensors
 Heavy Laser Cannon
 Inertial Dampeners
 IG-2000

The initial furball went reasonably well.

Once we started to break up, I just kept missing firing opportunities.

And when I could fire, I didn't do more than scratch the shields.

The B-wing went first, then the X-wing.

And the A couldn't survive for long.

It's a tricky list to fight; I suspect I should have held the B-wing back slightly from the furball for better shooting opportunities. The problem with my squadron here is that the B-wing is the main hitting power, and if it gets blown up the game is effectively lost.

Still, an instructive battle…