Historicon Tournament

On Friday, I participated in a 10 man, 6 point Saga tournament at Historicon put on by Joe Moore (of I95 fame) with prize support from Architects of War

The tournament was to be round Robin with a big "Feast For Crows" at the end for the top 4 places to determine final ranking!

I am notoriously bad at not getting pictures of my tournament games, so I do apologize.



MY NORMAN ARMY:
2 Units of 4 Hearthguard Knights
1 Unit of 8 Hearthguard Knights
1 Unit of 8  Warrior Crossbows
1 Unit of Levy Archers

Joe Moore was kind enough to loan me both sets of ranged units (I quickly purchased my own right after the tournament!)

ROUND ONE
Clash of Warlords vs Anglo-Saxons.

I'm sorry but I forget the Gentleman's name.  He essentially had 2 big beefy units of warriors, 2 units of 4 hearthguard, and one unit of levy bowmen.

Early on, my big unit of Knights raced forward and gutted his bowmen, largely tearing into his right flank.  The knights were bloodied and pulled back with just 1 remaining, but they did their damage.  Meanwhile, my archers and crossbows rained down death on them.

 Near the end of the battle I kept most of my troops in my backfield, electing to let my ranged weapons do the talking since "Clash of Warlords" is won by either killing the enemy warlord or scoring more points.

I had more points, and thus didn't need to risk much.  He had no choice but to approach me, allowing my knights to finish off what the ranged weapons didn't.  It was still a close fought game, though by the end his forces were fairly bloodied.

 ROUND TWO
In round two, I faced Jeff and his Skraelings.  They have an insanely crazy battle board and they're all armed with Javelins!  I learned quickly to fear Javelins in my game with Eric the Shooty.

 Jeff's Skraelings were blob after blob of infantry units with no armor.  But the mission was The Challenge.  His warlord started in charging range of my gigantic knight unit and I rolled to go first.  I'd be lying if I said this was a fun game, but hey- I guess that's the drawback to having no armor right?  We mercilessly rode down his Warlord, unfortunately denying Jeff to even get a first turn of his own.

With that I went into round 3 with 2 wins.  Next up I was to face Brian and his Irish (using the Welsh Battleboard).  The mission was The Escort, which is a bit funny to wrap your head around.  Brian did a great job of writing our battle up, have a look at his post here: http://littlewarsva.blogspot.com/2012/07/welcome-to-latest-of-my-rare-blog.html


(The next few pictures are borrowed from his blog)

Brian elected to do the escorting.  His force was 2 units of levies, 2 units of warriors, and 2 units of Hearthguard, plus the 3 baggage train pieces.  He deployed in a box and set out to get across the board as quickly as possible!

Early on he taunted my big unit of Knights, and mercilessly javelined them to near death.  One Knight survived and ran to the rear of my deployment zone to generate a die for me!

My ranged units came in handy with my knights hanging back ready to strike weakened units.  My crossbows in particular were the men of the match.  For a while it was looking grim for Brian, but he rolled a ton of dragons (aka 6s for the welsh) and was able to get 2 baggage trains off the board by activating them over and over.  He just barely snuck out the win, and it was well earned!

After that, I was totally pooped.  A lack of sleep the night before - Isabelle is experiencing the developmental milestone where she becomes self aware.  As a baby, that makes it terrifying to be alone!  So she's back to not sleeping.  ouch!  So, I was fairly burned out and a little grumpy.  I apologize to my opponents.  I wanted nothing more than to go sit somewhere and drink a beer!

Anyhow, the big 4 way at the end was ugly.  I was up against 2 Welsh opponents and a Skraeling!  I knew my horsies would be mercilessly javelined to their doom, so adopted a "wait till they've softened each other up" doctrine.  It didn't work all that well!

Again, this image is stolen from Little Wars VA- Brian's excellent blog!

Look at that grouch.  In the end Jeff, the Skraeling player from earlier, wound up winning it.  I aided him a bit when I sent my Warlord on a suicide charge into a unit of Skraeling warriors, but hey!  He went out on his own terms, dammit.  Not at the tip of some Javelin hurling towards him!

All in all I had a really great time at the tournament!  Joe and company always do a great job and the prizes from Architects of War sweetened the pot!

More importantly, Saga has held up through my trial period.  Plays well at home, plays well in a tournament.  That's what I like to see!