SAGA Age of Magic: Iroquois versus Undead August 23

 SAGA Age of Magic Game: Iroquois Warband Versus the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

 After a long enforced break from gaming due to the Covid-19 social distancing rules I got my first game in since early March 2020, on August 23rd.   It was a two player  SAGA AoM game with my Undead Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse warband fighting a friend's Iroquois warband.   With the long lay-off from using the rules we were a bit rusty so it was slow going at first and we made a few mistakes. Nonetheless it was good to get back to playing SAGA and to put some of the figures we has been painting on the game table.   

Fighting toward the end of the battle

 

 The table was set us below by rolling for terrain, each side had 8 points of troops:

The Battlefield

Rosters:

Iroquois Warband  (Lords of the Wild Board):

1 x Warlord 

1 x Lieutenant                                                                            -2 Hearthguard

2 x Warrior units  8 figures each                                                2 points

2  x Archer units  8 figures each                                                2 points

2  x Hearthguard units combined as 1 unit   (8-2 = 6 figures)    2 points

1 x Creatures Flyers unit: Flying Heads                                      1 point         

1 x Creatures Biped unit:  Wendigo                                            1 point

Total                                                                                            8 points

The Iroquois Warband

 

Iroquois: view from above

Iroquois Warband at eye level

Iroquois leaders in the foreground L-R: Lieutenant, Shaman and Warlord

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse    (Undead Legion Board)                   

4 Horsemen: Conquest, War, Famine & Death.  (Acts as Warlord)  2 points

2 Hearthguard = 2 x 4 = 8 mounted Black Knights (1 unit)             2 points

1 Warrior unit foot  = 8 Skeletons with spears                                 1 point

1 Warrior unit archers = 8 skeletons with bows                               1 point

1 Creature unit flyers = 2 Giant bats or Carrion                               1 point

1 Monster Scourge = Zombie Dragon                                              1 point

Total                                                                                                 8 Points

 

The Warband of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

Black Knights: Armoured Skeleton Cavalry, Archers to the right.

Four Horsemen, Zombie Dragon, Giant Bats, Skeleton spearmen

 

For more pictures of the Four Horsemen of the Abpoclypse used in this game as the Warlord see my blog from October 13, 2020 entitled: "The Four / Five Horsemen of the Apocalypse by Reaper Miniatures as used in SAGA Age of Magic."  

The Four Horsemen act as the Warlord and each has a special SAGA ability he adds in. For Combat purposes they are like Hearthgurads.

 

Undead Deployment

Undead Archers and the 4 Horsemen on the Apocalypse

Centre: Skeleton Spear armed warriors in front of the woods

Turn 1:

  

The Undead move first but as such are restricted to 3 dice, but a 4 was rolled on the chaos chart so all units get 1 free activation.

Undead begin to shamble forward

View from behind the Undead lines

The Black Knights take a double move to charge the Iroquois flying heads and while they inflict 3 fatigues on the enemy unit the gamble does not pay off as the Knights are repulsed losing 1 figure.

Flying Heads take 3 fatigue hits

But the Black Knights repulsed, Zombie Dragon blasts the Wendigo

 The final move for the Unead was to send forward the Zombie dragon which used its fire breathing ability to inflict two fatigues on the enemy Wendigo.

Next came the second player (Iroquois) turn and they unleashed a hail of arrows from the woods behind the Undead lines using the ambush ability on the  Lords of the Wild Board killing 5 Unead Black Knight cavalry, in addition to the 1 figure lost in the knights earlier charge. Unfortunately we forgot that the Iroquois Warriors only roll half dice for archery (4 not 8 dice) so the casualties should likely have been half of what was achieved (2 or 3 versus 6 killed).

Black Knights fall victim to Iroquois archers in an ambush

Next the Wendigo bravely, perhaps foolishly, attack the Zombie Dragon and one of them is killed but they do inflict two fatigue hits on the dragon.

Battle between the Zombie Dragon and Wendigos

The surviving Wendigo flee from the Zombie Dragon

Turn 2

During the Undead activation the Zombie Dragon finishes off the remaining Wendigo , take a couple more fatigue hits in the process exhausting him.  Meanwhile the two surviving Black Knights garrisons the woods to prevent further ambushes by Iroquois archers.

Zombie Dragon finishes off the remaining Wendigo

Next the the skeleton archers let lose arrow fire on the Iroquois archers in the swamp killing two of them before the Four Undead Horsemen of the Apocalypse charge into the enemy archers in the swamp

Battle in the swamp

The Four Horsemen suffer two fatigues but kill three Iroquois archers / warriors..

The surviving 3 Iroquois archers flee from the swamp

During the Iroquois phase of turn two they unleash another SAGA ability, a Giant Titan appears in the swamp and attacks the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse who defeat it but not before one of the horsemen (famine) is killed.

Titan (Treeman) attacks the 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse before Famine destroyed

Wrap-up

At this point we timed out  as we had been playing slowly reacquainting ourselves with the rules plus we had tight time constraints to fit this game in.   The Undead lost 6 Black Knights plus a horseman of the Apocalypse (famine) and  the Iroquois lost a full unit of 2 Wendigos and 5 archer warriors.  The victory points worked out to 8 points for the Undead and 7 points  for the Iroquois so a very marginal Undead victory, close enough to be a draw.   While we made a few mistakes it was enjoyable to get back to playing SAGA AoM and we plan a rematch in the near future.