I wanted to try something a little different and strategic so here is "Sacred Ground". Unlike a scenario like 'Clash of Warlords' where you have to be tactical in deciding how to strike the enemy Warlord at the right time and with certain abilities stacked up in your favour, this mission is a different beast.
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| A Clash of culture - Norman Elite Cavalry smash into Viking Warriors. |
For a start, you need to remember that the game is about getting as many Victory Points as you can after eight turns. Losing your Warlord is not an end to this mission.You can find this scenario on page 64 of the main rulebook.
Each player lines up on each of the long side of the table and then aims to get as many units onto the three hills in this mission. Each turn you occupy a hill you score points for the type of troop you have.
Warlords score three points, Hearthguard one each, Warriors half and Levy a third. After eight turns, whomever has the most points wins. The maximum VP's you can get per hill per turn is eight. This stops a large powerful unit sitting on a hill for the rest of the game. You need to spread about a bit - or that is the theory. You can find the victory point rules on page 61 of the main rulebook.
Easy? No, not really. First you have to decide if you are going to go for one two or all three hills and with what units. Second you need to decide if its better to try and wipe out your enemy early on and stop them in their tracks. Or a combination of attack and hold.
In this game, I played the Normans. The Vikings were out to stop me getting their sacred ground (namely the two hills and the central pile of white rocks.
Here is the game...
The Vikings deployed as per the following image...
pic 2
They got six Saga dice at the start (Warlord two, Berserker one, hearthguard one each warrior unit one each). As they finished deployment first, they got the first turn.
The Normans got to place three dice on their battleboard (the optional rule for the expansions). I like this rule, though it doesn't help the Normans too much. the Normans split their hearthguard into two lots of six and their warriors into two blocks of four. This gave them six Saga dice.
The game got underway with the Vikings rolling their Saga dice....
The Vikings moved out to get to two of the hills....
The Warriors on the left of the picture took the hill by taking a fatigue to move further. The Viking player will get four points for this occupation at the end of the turn.
The Normans then get to roll their six Saga dice...They choose to make use of the Warlord free activation and a lot of melee abilities!
The battleboard shows "Charge", "Crush" and "Pursuit" abilities have been selected. T
The aim is for one unit of hearthguard to reach the central unit of Viking Warriors in no mans land and crush them in turn 1.
The Warlord moves for free and takes the Hearthguard cavalry to his left with him...
The Norman Hearthguard cavalry on the right "go for it".... (there are two activation dice left...)
First dice....
First dice....
and Second dice.... and getting tired (fatigue counter)....
The Normans fatigue is used against them to reduce their armour.
The Vikings try hard to beat them. In melee, the Vikings "Thor" ability is used as well as Norman "Pursuit". The Normans rolled 15 attack dice and the Vikings rolled eight but got re-rolls from "Ullr".
At the end of combat, two Normans are killed as well as five Vikings. The Vikings "Thor" ability forces them to fight on first though and sadly, two more Vikings die for no enemy losses (ouch).
The last Viking takes his fatigue counter and then runs off....
The Norman "Pursuit" ability kicked in as the last Viking backs off, tired.
The Normans decide not to pursue the lone warrior but use their impetus to crash into the Berserkers and start a fresh fight! "Pursuit" does not say you have to Attack the ones you were fighting... and it doesn't attract fatigue either (though they still get a fatigue from the last fight!)
The Normans fail to kill all the Berserkers, leaving one alive. In return the Norman cavalry are killed to a man. (Note: that fatigue did kill them after all - the math says it all - rolling 16 dice to get 4+ means 8 should hit and of those about 5 should fail saves - and there were only four cavalry!). It was in fact overkill from the Berserkers and they didn't even have to use "Valhalla" even if they had it available.
With all dice spent, the first turn ends. No VP's to the Normans as they didn't make it onto any hills.
VP's - Vikings 4, Normans 0.
Next turn the Vikings really mess up with their Saga dice...
Rolling six common symbols. This makes it hard to get much done. The plan has to be simple. Keep what you have on the hills, keep the weakened units at the back alive to give Saga dice and then hope you can get the Warlord and his Hearthguard onto the middle hill and stay there.
This is where the dice went...
The Vikings Warlord moves into the rocky hilly Sacred ground and takes his Hearthguard with him... leaving all those Saga dice on the combat pool, "Heimdal" and "Frigg" abilities.
The Normans roll this...
"Charge", "Terrified" and "Crush". They use "Terrified" to move the Hearthguard cavalry up onto the hill and into a fight with the Viking Hearthguard. With 15 Attack dice plus a fatigue on the enemy to lower their armour and the possibility of doubling hits with "Crush" they seem confident of a victory. The Vikings can only use "Frigg" to spend the fatigue and use the combat pool to bump their 8 attack dice to 13.
The outcome is a follows...
The Vikings are killed to a man, leaving their Warlord to get a fatigue for witnessing the carnage. In return, three of the Norman cavalry are killed.
Next turn and the Vikings roll and place as follows....
The Warlord decides it has to be do or die time to try and remove the threat from the cavalry. He loads up the Combat Pool and the "Frigg" ability as well as getting re-rolls to hit from "Ullr".
He then lifts his sword and charges...
He takes on the three cavalry, doubling his attack dice to 10 from his battleboard and getting re-rolls to hit.
The cavalry get 6 basic attacks.
The cavalry are downed in heroic fashion as the Warlord goes all out to kill, kill, kill....
As he does so one too many sword hits cause him to fall and die from blood loss.....
The mighty Viking can take his rightful place in Valhalla....
From her on in, it becomes a race to Turn 8 for each side to get what troops he can onto the nearest hills...
At the end of turn 3, the Normans are slow to move those Warriors as they only get a couple of useful activation dice per turn after this....
VP's - Vikings 15, Normans 9.
After this, the Vikings and Normans push hard to Turn 8.... at the cost of fatigue as it doesn't matter. Men scramble to hills....
and finally....
The VP' are kept each round. The final totals....
VP's - Vikings 41.5 , Normans 38.
A win to the Vikings by just 3.5 points!
Summary.
There was very little difference in points at the end of the game. Very close indeed. If the Normans warriors had been mounted instead of on foot I think they would have won by a half point or so. As it was, the Vikings getting that foothold at the start just won them the game despite losing their Warlord and many men as well.
For me, the highlight was the "wild chase" of the Knights in Turn 1. They "went for it" to engage the enemy and then managed to purse into another fight that stopped the Berserker threat. For the Vikings, the heroic death of their Warlord bringing down three Knights in close combat was as good as it gets!
I have to say that after playing Normans a good few times now I am really liking the mounted abilities but not the bow and crossbow ones. I find that missiles apart from javelins in Saga do not do a lot for me. Next time I may go with an all mounted Knights and Warriors Norman force!
"Sacred Ground" is a different sort of mission and I am still not sure how much I like it. It certainly plays differently to "Clash of Warlords" and requires a bit more thought. Give it a try!
--Mike.
.JPG)
