Ottawa Miniatures Gamers Club annual Christmas Dinner Meeting
This is my After Action Report (AAR) on the most recent SAGA age of magic (AoM) game I played on December 20th which was at my local games club (OMG). We started with the traditional festive feast from a local Indian Restaurant then began our games around 7:30pm, as I recall there were 5 or 6 games and 10 to 12 players.
I had prepared a Christmas themed 8 point SAGA AoM warband for the occasion called Santa's Great Kingdom warband. It consisted of the following:
Warlord - Santa and Sorceress - Santa's assistant
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| Santa and his Lovely Assistant |
Creature unit - 3 Reindeer
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| Moose and Reindeer |
Monster - Behemoth - Giant Santa
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| Giant Santa |
Levi - 12 rifle armed troops - Mix of Santa's' Elves with Mary Claus and Mounties
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| Elves and Mary Claus |
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| Mounties |
Warriors - 10 Elf Warriors
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| Christmas livery |
Hearthguard - 6 Clockwork Soldiers
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Micro Universe Doctor Who Clockwork Soldiers.
Need to finish those bases
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Paladin - mounted - Sergeant Renfrew
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| Renfrew and his Incredible Dog Cuddles |
My opponent had a hoard army made up of Ogres, Orcs and Goblins, hereafter known as the Hoard.
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Orc hearthguards and goblin warriors. |
The
scenario was called "Confusion" where you have 6 turns to attempt to get your units close to the other sides board edge while taking as few casualties as possible. The board was
divided diagonally from corner to corner with Santa's army (first player) deploying first in their choice of triangular area M (6") distance from the dividing line then the Hoard army deployed on the opposite side of the dividing line M away. Since the Hoard army deploys second (as second player) they move first but only get 3 SAGA dice.
Initial set-up
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| The initial set up, Santa's army in the foreground |
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| Two units of Ogre creatures |
Turn 1
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| The Hoard Ogre creatures advance |
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The Reindeer engage the Ogres but suffer 4 fatigues
despite outnumbering the enemy |
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Two Reindeer are lost and the
remaining Moose is exhausted |
Despite having two more dice to roll in the combat the Santa's Reindeer lost the battle, having rolled poorly. This leaves an opening in Christmas Warband's left flank.
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| Overview, left flank open. |
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| The Moose is forced to retreat |
Turn 2
The Hoard army exploits the situation on the left flank.
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| overview |
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Ogres finish off the lone Moose
who once again rolls poorly. |
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| Goblins move into the opening on the left flank. |
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Santa's Levy on the hill
now must hold the left flank |
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The Giant Santa anchors the centre of the line
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The Giant Santa anchors his armies centre and Renfrew advances into enemy territory.
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| The Giant is not immune, he has taken 3 hits. |
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| Overview, each side has managed to exploit a flank. |
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| Santa's Army holds the centre |
Turn 3
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Renfrew battles the enemy Goblin heroes
but he is repulsed and exhausted
|
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| The Giant Santa is killed by Goblin Hearthguards |
Turn 4
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Goblin creatures attempt to push Santa's
sorceress and the levy off the hill |
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| Goblin warriors advance into the open flank |
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| Overview |
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The Levy and Sorceress survive
the attack and still hold the hill |
Turn 5
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| Santa's troops are pushed off the hill |
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The Sorceress attempts to use a lightning
bolt spell to stop the enemy advance
but it does not cause enought damage |
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The Goblin Heartguard and Santa's
Clockwork soldiers do battle. |
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| Goblin creatures control the hill |
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Santa's elf warriors advance to try
to find an enemy to fight |
Turn 6
In the final turn I took some calculated gambles and made a series of attacks with Santa's army to try and turn the tide as I was clearly behind in victory points.
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The Clockwork soldiers attack
the Goblin Hearthguard |
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It is a bloody battle and the Clockwork
soldiers are destroyed. |
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Goblin warriors maul the remaining
Levy of Mounties |
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Santa fights the Goblin Warlord and pushes him
back, but he need to kill him to secuare a victory |
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| Santa glares at the Goblins! |
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Disregarding his fatigue Renfrew attacks a Goblin
hero to gain some victory points and is killed! |
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| Goblin and Elf warriors clash |
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The Goblins are pushed back but it is not a decisive
enough result to change the course of the battle. |
The game ended at the end of turn 6 with Santa's warband being defeated (on points) - no Christmas in Whoville this year!
Conclusion:
This game was a good learning experience as I discovered I had been misinterpreting a few rules, in particular the resilience for a creature unit is per unit not per figures. That means a two figure creature unit has 4 not 8 resilience points it can use to convert hits into fatigue markers before figures start being removed as casualties. That makes creature units much less powerful.
My army had a good chance but the lose of the reindeer in turn 2 hurt and the tide really turned against them in turn 4 when they suffered too many casualties and could never really recover. Valuable lessons were learned.
It was an enjoyable game and a great way to end the year and celebrate Christmas at the club.
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