The Guns of August Convention is one my favorite local cons in a good location that my whole family enjoys. I was able to take the kids to Busch Gardens
in the day and play SAGA all night so
everybody was happy. The SAGA Tournament
was 4 point armies and run by the Williamsburg Legati. I cannot say enough good things about the
Williamburg Legati they are a super bunch of guys who really know how to run a
tournament. They had Architects of War
support and everything a gamer needs provided on the table.
At the tournament I was running Welsh: 1 Levy and the rest
Warriors. I had one unit of mounted
Welsh Warriors.
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| Battle with Skraelings |
My first game was against Mark Mckinley a Skraelings player
and all around great guy. I had never
played the Skraelings before and was not sure what to expect. It started out with missile exchanges
because the Skrealings are just like the Welsh and "Throw Sticks" the
only difference is all his troops are one less armor. So we were winning the exchange and Mark's
horrible dice were not helping him. I
was killing tons of Skraelings but little did I know these guys have an ability
to regenerate dead skraelings into new units so it was like fighting a zombie
horde. My thought now was the only way
to stop the zombies is to kill the warlord.
I got lucky with the initiative roll and had two turns that were back to
back and mark could not recover from that and I was able to ride the Cavalry
to the back and kill his warlord. I
killed 27 warriors 6 Levy and his Warlord so going into round two I had a lot
of points.
Editor's Note: The tournament was using a modified "initiative" roll where each player rolled a die at the beginning of each turn to see who acts first
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| Welsh Warriors vs Skraelings |
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| Skraelings |
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| Skrealings |
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| Welsh Warlord |
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| Battle in the middle |
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| right before the Skraeling regenration |
My second game was against Peter from the Williamsburg
Legati, an actual Welshman who was playing Normans. His list was 2 heathguard, 1
warrior crossbow, 1 levy bow. He taught
me a lot that game. One of my favorite lessons was him teaching me how to say my armies
names... Teulu..sounds like Tilly...
Priodaur.. sounds like PruTHEour... Bonnedig like.. BonThieg.
at least thats what it sounded like to my Okie-from-Muskogee ears. Peter deployed his two units of Heathguard in
the middle with his Warlord and the Crossbow on the left and Bows and on the
other flank. He opened with some
serious long range bow fire while his leader and heathguard watched. I could see where this was going he was
going to soften me up as I walked towards his bows and then finish me with a
heathguard charge. It's an excellent
tactic for the Normans and I was worried. My only saving grace was I had a unit
of mounted Welshmen. I learned I needed
these guys in my army after Steve shot the crap out of my Vikings with Norman Crossbows. One mounted unit can cross
the ground fast and stop the pain. So that is what I did. My mounted Welsh took
a fatigue and hit his levy bow, but it was a dismal attack that killed very little
but did get his attention. On his turn
his Heathguard and Warlord slammed into my mounted Welsh with a bazillion dice
which should have wiped me out, but I rolled waaay above average and two guys survived. This brought his unit out in front of his
army where my slow moving foot could catch up and "Throw Sticks". It
was at this critical point that the rules of initiative came into play again and I
got two turns in row and was able to kill his Warlord and Heathguard unit. I was so busy during this game I forgot to take pics which is a shame Peter's army was one of the best Norman armies I had ever seen.
My third game was against Chuck Cary who I've known for
years from FOW and prior to the tournament I trashed talked him with a "I am coming for you Chuck!"
little did I know that I was actually going to fight him. Chuck ran Normans: 1 Bow levy, 1 Warrior Mounted,
2 Heathguard Mounted. This game was a
blood bath in the middle of the board with no quarter given. It was endless beating on each other with
little tactics so I can sum it with I took 97% casualties and he took 100% casualties.
After three rounds I came in first place with 60 points but it was close and I could not have won without Chuck's blood bath game and probably the change to the I go you go rules that were in place for the missions. Thanks again to the Williamsburg Legati for great run tournament.
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| Normans vs Welsh |
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| Chuck Normans |
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| Nothing left hardly |
.JPG)
