SAGA Age of Magic - Clash of Warlords - Norse versus Chaos Minotaurs

The Game that Almost Never Got Played

This was a 2 player SAGA AoM game played on Sunday afternoon March 8, 2020.  It almost never happened as my power went out on the Friday evening and did not come back on until Sunday morning.  It was not clear when the power was going to come back on (the outage was caused by a fire at a nearby substation) and I was thinking I might have to cancel the game.  But when the power came on Sunday morning I got to work prepping and after a lot of last minute rushing to get the game ready but we had to bump the start time back an hour.  This was a battle between Ted's newly painted Norse / Viking warband (Grate Kingdom faction) and the Chaos Minotaur / Beastman warband (Other World faction) I had prepared for my friend Bernhard to use last game. Since Bernhard was not available I decided to try out the Chaos Otherworld warband myself as I have never used this faction or the miniatures.

Initial deployment - overview

This was a 2 player 8 point game on a 4' long by 3' wide gaming area, using my Cigar Box early winter mat with terrain consisting of 2 woods, a hill, a swamp and the Chaos Sacred ground an Unstable Portal, represented by a large rock surrounded by mist. We played the basic Clash of Warlords scenario from the main SAGA II rule book with the objective of trying to destroy the enemy side.

Rosters:

Norse Shield Maiden Warband  8 points (numbers in brackets = SAGA dice)

1 Warlady on armoured beast said to be Odin's Mother-in-law (1)

1 Paladin - Norse Goddess Hel on foot

1 Sorceress - Fire Witch with giant snakes

1 Unit of 6 Hearthgurads  - Valkyrie  (1)

1 Monster - Large winged Golden Dragon (1)

1 Creature unit - 2 Dire wolves (1)

2 Unit of Warriors - 8 x 2 = 16 shield maidens fighters (2)

1 Levy unit - 12 girl archers (1)

 

Norse Fire Witch with giant snakes

Golden Dragon in foreground

 

Chaos Minotaur / Beastmen Warband  8 points (numbers in brackets = SAGA dice)

1 Warlord - Minotaur cleric on foot (1)

1 Sorcerer - Minotaur Shaman

1 Monster Behemoth - Giant Minotaur (1)

1 Monster Scourge (flight) - Green Dragon (1)

2 Biped Creature units = 2 x 2 Large Flesh Golems (2)

2 Hearthguard Units combined as one = 8 Minotaurs / Beastmen with swords (1)

1 Warrior unit = 8 Cultists with hand weapons (1)

                                                                             

Chaos Minotaur warband

Set-up

We took turns deploying terrain and I opted to use the Chaos sacred ground (rock with mist around it) placing it in the centre as it would launch short range attacks against any enemy units nearby. This way it would become a good base of operations for my leader and sorcerer.

We rolled to see who the "first player" would be and the Norse player won.  Therefore the  Norse player deployed half t their units, the Chaos player deployed all their units and then the Norse player deployed their remaining units.  The Norse archers and Warlady occupied the hill.

Overview: Initial deployment

Turn 1

The Norse moved first as they had they were the first player but only got a maximum of 3 SAGA dice on turn 1 because of that.

Norse Player advances some of their units.

On the Chaos turn I moved most of my uinits using 6 SAGA dice.  My shaman cast a spell to create mist limiting vision to M (6 inches) which mainly impacted the 12 Norse Levy archers on the hill.

Norse levy archers on hill have 
their vision limited to 6" by mist

Overview end of turn 1.

Turn 2

The Norse player begins his turn by flying his dragon behind the Chaos lines and pulling back his archers that have their vision limited by the mist to prevent the Chaos Beastmen from charging them. Meanwhile their leader moves off the hill to a central position.

Golden dragon flies behind enemy lines.

Norse Archers pull back

The Norse Sorceress casts a powerful spell on the Chaos Warlord / Minotoar Cleric that inflicts a fatigue on him, but the spell backfires and she also suffers a fatigue.

The Norse sorceress and Minotaur 
Warlord both suffer fatigue hits

Overview: end of Norse turn.

 The Chaos forces react to the Norse moves by sending their Green Dragon to confront the Golden Dragon behind their lines (he can't quite make contact) and the Shaman casts an elemental barrier spell (wall of ice) around his Warlord to try to protect him from further attacks.

A wall of Ice protects the Chaos Warlord and the 
Green Dragon moves to confront is opposite number

The Chaos forces then use their Astral portal ability to teleport a unit of 2 biped Flesh Golem creatures behind the enemy archers on the hill while the Hearthguard Beastment and a unit of Minotaur Biped creatures advance on the hill. My plan was to trap the enemy levy between the two forces and destroy them.

Chaos forces advance on the archers from both sides.

The Chaos Shaman casts another mist spell that will last into turn 3 in hopes of limiting the range of any breath attacks of the wounded Norse Golden Dragon.

Turn 3

The Norse react to the chaos threat by sending their Warlady to attack the Chaos Flesh Golem creatures unit and force them to retreat and suffer 2 fatigue hits.  This lessens the Chaos threat to the archers but it has pulled the Norse Warlord / Warlady out of the main battle in the centre.

Chaos Warlady repels the enemy creatures.

Next the Norse attempt to destroy the Chaos Cultists / warriors in the centre of the board using their sorceress and quadruped creatures / dire wolves.

Norse Sorceress casts a lightning bolt spell 
on the Chaos Warriors with little result.

The Norse wolves then attack the warriors 
killing half of them but suffering 3 fatigues
 in the process.

The Norse Valkerie then attack the advancing Chaos Beastmen.  It is a clash of 6 Norse Hearthguard versus 8 Chaos Hearthguard.   The dice gods favour Chaos who only lose 2 Beastmen while the Valkyrie lose all but 1 of their number and the unit would subsequently be destroyed.

Norse Hearthguard attack is repelled 
and most of the Valkyrie are killed

Next the Golden dragon attack the Chaos Monster (giant Minotaur behemoth) from behind. But this backfires the dragon is pushed back with 3 fatigues.

Golden dragon attack Giant Minotaur

The giant Minotaur turns to face the dragon

And send the dragon packing with 3 fatigues

The Chaos forces now respond sending their Beastmen to finish off the archers. This leaves the Beastmen exhausted but the enemy archers are wiped out and the hill is captured.  The Chaos shaman attempts to cast a bolt spell at the Norse sorceress but it does not kill the enemy mage.

Chaos Beastmen clear the hill of enemy archers.

The Golden dragon is now very vulnerable being 1 fatigue away from exhaustion and 2 from death.  All the Green dragon needs to do is breath fire on him and he is destroyed. It was almost a shame to kill such a beautiful, creature, ALMOST....

Green Dragon kills the Golden Dragon

Meanwhile in the Centre the Chaos cultists warriors kill the nearly exhausted Dire Wolves.

After a bloody battle the Chaos cultists
 defeat the Dire Wolves.

At this point we had to end the game but it seemed clear the Chaos side was victorious.

End of game Victory Points:

Victory points are calculated based on what each side killed.

Chaos points = 22 points:

6 Valkyrie Hearthguard = 6

1 Golden Dragon Monster = 4

2 Dire Wolf Creatures = 4

12 Levy Archers = 4

4 Units  = 4

Norse Victory points = 5 points:

2 Beastmen Hearthguards = 2

6 Cultist Warriors =  3

Conclusion

The dice gods smiled on Chaos more than the Norse. While the Chaos gamble to send the Flesh Golem creatures behind the enemy archers failed to kill the levy archers  it did pull the Norse Warlady away from the main battle that the Norse subsequently lost. Plus with the support of the Beastmen Hearthguards the levy archers were killed at the cost of  Flesh Golems becaming ineffective due to the fatigues inflicted by the Warlady.  So in the end the Chaos plan worked, if not exactly as planned.

Conversely the Norse plan to send the Golden dragon behind the Chaos lines did not pay-off as unsupported it could not kill two enemy monsters (giant Minotaur and Green Dragon) alone.  The Dragon could have used some support possibly from the Warlady or the Paladin who surprisingly played little role in the game.

It was certainly clear from this game you have to be careful about allowing units to gain too many fatigue points as they become ineffective and either need to rest at least 2 turns away from danger or they are easy prey.  However resting for 2 turns in what is at most a 6 turn game is a big price to pay.