SAGA: The Confrontation

My Anglo-Danes faced Dave's Vikings for The Confrontation scenario in our SAGA league. 

In this scenario, the two Warlords have met, confirmed they still don't like each other, and following an exchange of insults, the inevitable occurs.  The set up reflects this, with two Warlords starting close to each other at the center of the table, while the Warbands hang back a respectful distance.  The goal is to score the most hits on the opposing Warlord; if a player has a score that is ten points higher than his opponent at the end of a round, he wins.  Otherwise, the winner is whoever has the highest score after six rounds.  Significantly, the Warlords can only be attacked by each other, except that lesser troops can attack a Warlord who is ahead in points.

 

 

I got the first turn, but had a poor roll of the SAGA dice (no helmets, even after using Noble Lineage to re-roll my dice, leaving me with a mix of four Horses and Axes).  I decided not to activate my Warlord, because in his Pride, he would have no choice but to charge the Viking leader if I did so.  Instead, I moved up his loyal Huscarls to help.

In good Viking fashion, Dave's Warlord struck the first blow, landing two hits on my Warlord.  Score: Dave 2, Me 0.


Having counted coup, the Viking Warlord fell back.  His four Berserkers moved up in support.


Enraged by the affront to their lord, my Huscarls charged, chastising the pagan with ten hits. The mighty Viking shrugged of the first hit (Resilience), and three of his loyal berserkers sacrificed themselves, but he still absorbed a net of six hits.  Score: 6-2 for the Anglo-Danes,


Dave is great at playing in character, and his sole Berserker, ignoring the odds, went after my Huscarls.  He died.


However, Dave's Hearthguard had better luck, slaying eight Huscarls for a loss of six of their own.  Both groups fell back to their respective lines.


Dave and I both rested our troops during the following round...


I moved my Levy archers to harass Dave's left wing.


The Levy shot down three Warriors, then fell back out of easy charge range.


Noticing that the turn limit was almost up, Dave sent four Hearthguard to attack the center of the Anglo-Danish formation.  They eliminated three Huscarls for a loss of one.


My twelve-man Warrior unit charged them in the flank, but scored no hits, and ignominiously fell back, having lost a man.  On the last turn, the Vikings then closed and in quick succession wiped out my smaller, four-man Warrior unit, and finished off the last Huscarl, losing one man in the process.  Dave was in striking distance of my Warlord...but had no more SAGA dice to activate with!


Final Score: 6-2 for the Anglo-Danes.