How does SAGA play ?

[cornonthecob]

I'm interested as it seems reasonably cheap and interesting.

[Stuart-GreatEscapeGames]

Skirmish game. You have a warlord and (usually) 6 pts worth of men. A point buys a "unit" of either:

4 Hearthguard - elite
8 Warriors - average troops
12 Levy - usually missile troops, quite poor

At the start of your turn you roll a number of dice according to the composition of your warband.
These dice are allocated to the battle board, allowing simple activation of units and a load of special abilities, mainly dependant on your nationality.
Dice are expended when a unit is activated or a special ability is used.
Dice may be retained on the battle board to defend against enemy actions or to just mess them up!

Shooting, combat, etc is very simple.
No morale.
Scenarios usually have a victory condition but if your warlord dies, it is over.
You don't need the special dice to play; you get used to using normal d6's after a game or two.

[pigasuspig]

I've only played it once, but I liked it a lot. There is no morale per se, but there is fatigue: making extra actions or fighting makes units tired. You can spend your opponent's fatigue to weak his defense or strengthen yours, or even make his moves fall short. Other than this involuntary way, getting rid of your own fatigue is quite slow.

Further, lower-morale units like levies are much harder to activate.

The "feel" of the game is all about big charges and all-out attacks, but the possibility of reactions and the fatigue mechanic make it strategic and leave lots of room for decision, maneuver, and tactical restraint.

You can make two full warbands for $60 using Wargames Factory's plastics: get one pack each of: Saxon Fyrd, Viking Bondi, and Viking Hirdmen. The hirdmen can take extra Saxon mustached heads and extra two-handed axes from the Bondi to represent Anglo-Dane Huscarls (who were otherwise indistinguishable from Vikings: you don't really need the Saxon Huscarl box). The Bondi and Fyrd can take just enough bows and arrows from the Hirdmen to get a full 12-man Levy unit each, and still easily make two warrior units each. You can make two forces of: 12 hearthguard, 16 warrior, 12 levy, 1 warlord, and still have a dozen or so left for spares and characters. These two forces have the same composition, but would play very differently because of their different battleboards. For Normans, try Conquest Games, though they are more expensive, especially their metal bowmen. The cheapest option is a warlord and his 24 closest friends, all mounted (40 pounds). But that neglects the powerful Norman archery specials.

I like plastic because it's cheap, easy to work, and yields tons and tons of spare weapons to make scenic fatigue markers with.

[Etienne de Beaugard]

To add to the above descriptions, from the games I have seen and the one chance I had to play...

- Combat is simple and simultaneous; and once you know your battle boards, it is fast and brutal. A basic warrior has a 1/3 chance of die with every attack die rolled by your opponent. While a well planned charge will usually favor the attacker, that attacked should expect to get bloodied in the process.

- If you've only played GW games, the activation mechanics can take some getting used to. Any unit can be activated multiple times to move/charge or shoot, the first being free with subsequent activations generating fatigue. However, most activations will cost a saga die. Effectively, the number of actions you cant take in your turn are limited, but which units can perform those actions is less limited. It takes a while to adjust to the idea that you may not be able to act with every unit each turn, but that when needed, you can push a foot unit half way across the board in a single turn.

- Due to the randomness of the SAGA dice, short bow ranges, and the ability to take multiple actions in a turn, SAGA feels more like a game and less like a simulation.

[6mmhero]

Its a great fun game. For me Dark Ages has never been a period that has interested me but this has given me some inspiration. My friends and I tend to play the four way scenario a fair bit and that always provides a really fun game.
It is very cheap with the use of plastic figures. :-)

[sigur]

I strongly suggest checking out the Meeples and Miniatures podcast episodes 85 and 87 both of which have in-depth reviews of Saga and the first supplement book Northern Fury in which people who playtested the whole thing and were involved with the development chat with the podcast host.

Meeples and Miniatures podcast archive