SAGA Age of Magic - Battle Royale - 23 February 2020

Battle Royale:  4 player game - Sunday afternoon

This SAGA Age of Magic scenario "Battle Royale" was planned for 5 players (although designed for 3 to 4 players)  but as it turned out we had 4 players. Each player had a 6 point warband, the playing surface was a 4' x 6' mat on a table the same size.  We played the game upstairs in my living room rather than in my usual gamming room downstairs which meant  space was a little tighter, but the natural lighting was an added bonus. 

The Battle Royale scenarios calls for players (after terrain set-up) to take turns placing their units one after another until all are deployed, none can be within M (6") of an enemy.  The objective after 6 turns is to have the most points which are based on the value of your surviving units plus a point for each charge you conduct.

A scene from the battle

I set up three 2' x 4' table in my Living room for my 4' x 6' field mat for this game. .

 

Joey supervises the table set-up, but decided to
leave when strangers invaded his space.

Rosters:

Chronopia Blackblood Orcs and Goblins
Master of the Underneath 6 points 

1 Warlord                                                               0 points

1 Magician / Shaman                                             1 point
1 Hearthguard with heavy weapons                       1 point
2 Warriors  units (16 -4 = 12 combine as 1 unit)    2 points
1 Levy unit with 12 spear                                       1 point
1 Levy unit with 12 bows                                        1 point
1 Mobile Warmachine                                          - 4 warriors

Skeletons 
Undead Legion 6 points 
1 Warlord

1 Sorcerer / Vampire on foot                                       1 point

2 Hearthguard / 8 Grave guard                                   2 points 

1 Monster scourge / Zombie Dragon                          1 point

1 Warrior unit / 8 Skeletons with spears                     1 point 

1 Flying Creatures unit / 2 Large bats                        1 point

 

Chaos Minotaur / Beastman army

The Other World 6 points

1 Warlord - Minotaur cleric                                     0 points

1 Monster Behemoth - Giant Minotaur                   1 point

1 Creature unit biped – 2 Flesh Golems                1 point 

1 Creature unit biped - 2 Large Minotaurs             1 point

2 Hearthguard Units = 8 Beastmen                        2 points

1 Warrior unit = 8 Cultists                                      1 point

                                                                                                                

Skaven - Clan Esher

Lords of the Wild 6 points 
1 Warlord with heavy weapon                                0 points

1 Ranger (lieutenant) with heavy weapon             -2 Hearthguards

1 Ranger (lieutenant) with bow                             -2 Hearthguards

2 Hearthguard units heavy weapon (8-2 =6)          2 points

2 Hearthguard units archers (8-2 =6)                     2 points

1 Levy with javelins                                                1 point

1 Levy / Swarm                                                      1 point

Each player had 6 tokens, the player who moved first would activate all his units then discard his token and nominate another player to move his units and he would in turn discarded his token and nominate another player to move and so on.  A turn ends when everybody has moved once, the game ends when no player has any tokens remaining.  

I was running the Skeleton Warband so my report will have more details on that part of the battle. The Skaven and Orc player provided their own miniatures and  I provided the Skeleton and Chaos figures.

Terrain was placed by players taking turns placing a piece of terrain until each had placed two terrain pieces,  consisting of 2 woods, 2 hills, a swamp and rocky ground.

Players alternated placing units and this resulted in the Orcs and goblins facing off against the Skeletons and the Skaven versus the Chaos Minotaur warband. None of the players it seemed wanted to be fighting two enemies. 

Initial set up

Overview

Chaos Minotaur warbamd deployed

Skeleton Legion warband y deployed.

Skaven warband deployed

Nasty rats hiding in the woods!

Orcs and Goblins deployed

Skeletons and Orcs square off.

Skaven and Chaos battel lines

The Orc shaman casts a spell against the skeletons

The Undead line holds.

Turn 2

Goblin Warriors attack skeleton warriors

Turn 3

Turn 3 discarded markers

Zombie Dragon leads the Undead attack
the bats take out the Goblin War machine.

The Minotaurs advance the rats fall back.

Chaos Minotaur army advancing's

The Minotaur giant advances into the rat infested woods.

Fight in the woods

Skaven fall back on the flank

Orcs and Goblins in defensive formation

Giant Minotaur adv advances



 The Skaven send in its swarm against
the Giant Minotaur who brushes them off



Next the Skaven send in their
Hearthguard but they are repulsed

The Skaven Lieutenant attacks the Minotaur giant
with no more success

That was one tough Minotaur Giant.

At this point the Chaos player had to leave, so we tallied up Victory points:

Undead 26

Orc Goblin 24

Chaos 25

Skaven 22

A very close game, that could be won by anyone at this point.

Turn 4

We decided to continue the game, assuming the Chaos forces vanished from the table. This caused an imbalance as it  freed up the Skaven to move to the flanks of the battle between the Skeletons and the Orcs / Goblins and snipe at them from the safety of the woods as the two sides continued to batter each other.

View from the Grave Guard /
Skeleton Hearthguard line



Skeleton Hearthgugad repulse
attack by  their Orc counterparts

Orc / Goblin warriors attack the Skeleton Warriors
inflicting heavy losses on them

The Orc Shaman adds further casualties to the Skeleton warriors.

Goblin Levy bowmen bring down
the last Giant Bat.

The Vampire Sorcerer suffers 3 fatigues from 
an Orc attack and is exhausted and 
the Orc Warlord is looking at him!

Luckily for the Vampire the Orcs are more interested in polishing off the Skeleton warriors

The 2 Graveguards attack a lone Goblin 
Hearthguard but are repulsed losing
 one of their number.

The remaining Skeleton Warriors
 are wiped out by the Orcs.

Skaven warriors use their ambush ability and open fire on the Goblin Warlord from behind the safety of stone wall

Skaven Hearthguard ambush the Orc 
Warlordand killing  him  with missile fire.



Turn 5

The Zombie Dragon faced the choice of attacking the Orc Shaman or the Goblin archers, and decided the latter were more of a threat to him.



The Zombie dragon breathes fire on the
Goblin archers destroying them



The Orc Shaman succeeded in escaping  the dragons wrath but he will not be around much longer.  In the meantime he casts a spell against the Undead  targeting the Warlord, and dragon but with only a minor result.

The Orc Warriors attack the Undead
Warlord and are repulsed, but the
Warlord is exhausted now.

The Vampire manages to cast a spell inflicting some damage on the Orcs and removing all his fatigue markers.

Towards the end of this turn the Orc Shaman was killed by bow-armed Skaven Hearthguard but unfortunately I missed getting a picture of that.

Turn 6

The Undead Vampire and the lone Graveguard retreat away from the combat to rest and avoid Skaven sniping and the large Unit of Orc Warriors. Nonetheless the Skaven launch ambush against the Vampire but it fails to eliminate its target.

The large Orc Warriors unit threatens 
the last surviving Graveguard trooper
so the Vampire casts a precognition 
spell to try to protect it.



As the commander of the skeleton warband I was very tempted to attack the Skaven that had been inflicting wounds on me from the flanks, but they had been more of a menace to the Orcs. The best unit to attack the Skaven would have been the Zombie dragon as he had both a breath weapon and a powerful melee attack however the Skaven were out of range and I would have had to move through the Goblin archers.  I could have flown over them but doing so would have left me open to arrow fire, something dragons are vulnerable to.  As in historical battles disengaging from one enemy to fight another is not easy and often not practical.

The Zombie dragon prepared to deal
 with the remaining Goblin archers
while the Undead Warlord rests.

Skaven sniping from the woods

Skaven Levy on the hill.

In a bloody battle the Orc Goblins

kill the Undead Warlord.

At this point the battle ended, both the Skeletons and Orcs / Goblins had lost their warlord and all the tokens were spent and the sun had set.

 

Conclusion

It was a bloody battle between the Skeletons versus the Orcs and Goblins, that did not impact the Skaven much in the second half of the game.   The final victory points were

Skaven 22

Skeletons 12

Orc and Goblins 9

This was a technical win by the Skaven, but since they were able to operate without much danger of attack in the last 2 to 3 turns of the game it is somewhat skewed.

It would have been interesting to see how the Battle Royale scenario would have turned out if all 4 players were able to complete all 6 turns.  Likewise how it would have played out with 3 or 5 players from the start.   We must try it again.

I was a bit mystified as to why the Chaos player did not use his teleport ability to put a unit behind the Skaven to sandwich them when they used their hit and run tactics.  Apparently the Chaos player did not get the SAGA dice he needed for this.

It was a enjoyable game and lessons were learned such as:

1. Skeletons need at least 2 units of warriors to take advantage of the resurrection SAGA ability in case you lose one of them as I did.  Plus a second warrior unit can have bow fire.
2. Monsters like Giant Minotaurs and Dragons are really tough and powerful
3. War Machines need protection and are vulnerable to flyers.
4. Skaven are sneaky nasty little rats, especially when they can use the ambush ability! :)

We also had a few rules questions:

1. Can a Sorcerer cast spells when he is exhausted?   Answer is NO

2. Does an exhausted Warlord generate SAGA dice?  We think the answer is yes.

Future considerations:

 In this game the Orcs and Goblins used the Masters of the Underneath board as they were non-GW (Chronopia Blackblood Orcs and Goblins) but typically they would use the Hoard board, and the Clan Esher Skaven used the Lords of the Wild Board but typically Skaven should use the Masters of the Underneath board.  In fact GW Skaven and Dwarfs fit best with the Masters of the Underneath board.  Furthermore the GW Dark Elves while not fitting any board perfectly seem to best fit the Masters of the Underneath board, see:

SAGA Forum Dark Elves

With 3 factions using the same board there could be problems such of lack of differentiation making warbands too similar and not having enough of the same board (but we can make copies).  It might be necessary to make some house rules to customize boards, for example the Dark Elves using the Maters of the Underneath would lose gunpowder and biped creatures, gain flying creatures and a legendary fanatic / berserkers type unit to represent Witch Elves.