Thanks to Rodge and Austin for putting together this long awaited faction review. MC players should also check out the Saga Ohio podcast where Mike interviews Lee Parker. Rather than charging into the enemy, Lee bases his strategy primarily on moving a unit forward and then playing Lions at War + Beauceant + Orison when his opponent charges him.
Great, great review. Makes me want to try the board. Didn't realize its potential to turn small, depleted units into fatigue spreading wrecking balls between auto hits and bumping your armor up 2.
I field an 8 fig HG unit as my "hammer" unit - Deus Vult works great for obliterating levy units in one melee (8 auto hits + 16 dice). One big thing about auto hits that's better than extra attack dice - some opponents have SAGA abilities to allow them to boost their armor or reduce your attack number...auto hits negates this! Lords Harvest I've used when I have multiple melees and already burned Beauceant on the first hit. So, my second attack can be juiced up. Lambs of Peace is great for *after* you launch an attack. On their turn they go after your HG and start using your fatigue to drop you below 5 armor. That's when you use it to boost back up to 6 - so you preload it on your attack turn. I actually use On Bended Knee early sometimes - preload and fill my board with all my SAGA dice and invite an attack from the opponent, but I can see how it would help late, especially if you are counting survival points and you think you are in the lead. I had not thought about Divine Aid for attacking the Warlord - thanks for that! My army is paint as the black with white cross Hospitallers. Turcopoles are a great companion unit for this faction.
Thanks for chiming in, Lee! Great to hear another perspective! Just a clarification on auto hits - these count the same as normal hits as far as defense dice go, so the opponent gets their normal save and extra dice/rerolls are certainly useful. What would bypass the defense dice are auto casualties, which are much rarer in Saga. There are numerous ways to get those in Age of Magic but the only one I can think of off the top of my head for historicals is Allahu Akbar for the Mutts.
@@RodgeRules Yep, completely messed up what I was trying to say. What I meant to say was abilities that help your opponent's armor or penalize your attack number get bypassed. They just get auto-hit. smh, must have needed more caffeine before typing that :) Edited the comment.
@@RodgeRules The other thing I like is on the Orison side. It often devalues your opponents abilities, such as "short range volley" for Mongols, that make you reroll defense dice that would cancel a hit. Hits just go away. No dice are being rolled.
@@RodgeRules yet somehow some guy won the big Poland tournament with them. There must be some kind of way of playing them and just using a few of their abilities that seem to get them through games. They look very defensive to me.
@@ShipWreck68 I won 2nd place twice in tournaments with them. The thing about the board is, it is not vanilla. As in, more thinking goes into what you are doing than just +3 dice or reroll misses. Orison, when handled correctly, makes your units much more survivable and therefore able earn you more points (negating massacre or getting you survival). It also makes your units able to continue to deal more damage longer, to earn SAGA dice longer, etc. Tactics with them can be different, yet highly effective. I make a lot of calculations like "8 warriors shooting at my mounted HG will take 4 shots, average 2 hits, and average 1 kill. I will spend one Orison and hope that the rolls are average or below." If that's true, I may take no damage at all. In reality, I may overspend to protect my HG as every figure is dishing out 2 dice. In a recent game against Mongols, three mounted warrior units (7, 7, 11 figs) swarmed my HG trying to shoot them off the board. I had prestacked lots of Orison in anticipation. By carefully parsing them out, I ended up taking no casualties. Then, on my turn I got to roll all my SAGA dice and the fresh 8HG smashed onto each of the warrior units and decimated or completely destroyed all of them. Beauceant got me +5 attack dice against the 11 figure unit, then Lords Harvest got me +6 attack dice against another (on top of the 16 that I started with). Opponent lost 3 SAGA dice. Had control of the game from there. The key is that you leverage the defense capabilities to earn you ongoing offense. Anyway, I find it enjoyable.
@@DerHund777 Yeah since my first comment, i have changed my opinion of them completely. They are a very fun army to play and can like you say "take away 3 dice" in a round and then its all just fun and games from there. They are a very tough army to beat when someone knows how to play them.
Thanks to Rodge and Austin for putting together this long awaited faction review.
MC players should also check out the Saga Ohio podcast where Mike interviews Lee Parker. Rather than charging into the enemy, Lee bases his strategy primarily on moving a unit forward and then playing Lions at War + Beauceant + Orison when his opponent charges him.
Thanks Perry! I'm still honing my tactics to have a couple of options. But that one still works well. - Lee
Thanks for chiming in, Perry! I listened to that one when it came out and thought it was great! :)
Placed 3rd in a field of 24 at the tournament in Springfield, OH.
Awesome, glad to hear!
Thank you very much! I've been waiting for this review :) Very interesting
Thanks! Hope you enjoyed it!
Nice!!! I was waiting for this one for a while!
Huzzah! Thanks for watching! :)
Great, great review. Makes me want to try the board. Didn't realize its potential to turn small, depleted units into fatigue spreading wrecking balls between auto hits and bumping your armor up 2.
I think they're definitely worth looking into! :)
I field an 8 fig HG unit as my "hammer" unit - Deus Vult works great for obliterating levy units in one melee (8 auto hits + 16 dice). One big thing about auto hits that's better than extra attack dice - some opponents have SAGA abilities to allow them to boost their armor or reduce your attack number...auto hits negates this! Lords Harvest I've used when I have multiple melees and already burned Beauceant on the first hit. So, my second attack can be juiced up. Lambs of Peace is great for *after* you launch an attack. On their turn they go after your HG and start using your fatigue to drop you below 5 armor. That's when you use it to boost back up to 6 - so you preload it on your attack turn. I actually use On Bended Knee early sometimes - preload and fill my board with all my SAGA dice and invite an attack from the opponent, but I can see how it would help late, especially if you are counting survival points and you think you are in the lead. I had not thought about Divine Aid for attacking the Warlord - thanks for that! My army is paint as the black with white cross Hospitallers. Turcopoles are a great companion unit for this faction.
Thanks for chiming in, Lee! Great to hear another perspective! Just a clarification on auto hits - these count the same as normal hits as far as defense dice go, so the opponent gets their normal save and extra dice/rerolls are certainly useful. What would bypass the defense dice are auto casualties, which are much rarer in Saga. There are numerous ways to get those in Age of Magic but the only one I can think of off the top of my head for historicals is Allahu Akbar for the Mutts.
@@RodgeRules Yep, completely messed up what I was trying to say. What I meant to say was abilities that help your opponent's armor or penalize your attack number get bypassed. They just get auto-hit. smh, must have needed more caffeine before typing that :) Edited the comment.
@@RodgeRules The other thing I like is on the Orison side. It often devalues your opponents abilities, such as "short range volley" for Mongols, that make you reroll defense dice that would cancel a hit. Hits just go away. No dice are being rolled.
yesss i was waiting for this to!
Thanks Claudio!
For what it’s worth, I pulled another 2nd place in a tournament with Milites Christi.
Huzzah, glad to hear! :)
Seems like there are a lot of useless features on this board. And others very circumstantial. I think this would be a very difficult board to play.
That does seem to be the general consensus!
@@RodgeRules yet somehow some guy won the big Poland tournament with them. There must be some kind of way of playing them and just using a few of their abilities that seem to get them through games. They look very defensive to me.
@@ShipWreck68 I won 2nd place twice in tournaments with them. The thing about the board is, it is not vanilla. As in, more thinking goes into what you are doing than just +3 dice or reroll misses. Orison, when handled correctly, makes your units much more survivable and therefore able earn you more points (negating massacre or getting you survival). It also makes your units able to continue to deal more damage longer, to earn SAGA dice longer, etc. Tactics with them can be different, yet highly effective. I make a lot of calculations like "8 warriors shooting at my mounted HG will take 4 shots, average 2 hits, and average 1 kill. I will spend one Orison and hope that the rolls are average or below." If that's true, I may take no damage at all. In reality, I may overspend to protect my HG as every figure is dishing out 2 dice. In a recent game against Mongols, three mounted warrior units (7, 7, 11 figs) swarmed my HG trying to shoot them off the board. I had prestacked lots of Orison in anticipation. By carefully parsing them out, I ended up taking no casualties. Then, on my turn I got to roll all my SAGA dice and the fresh 8HG smashed onto each of the warrior units and decimated or completely destroyed all of them. Beauceant got me +5 attack dice against the 11 figure unit, then Lords Harvest got me +6 attack dice against another (on top of the 16 that I started with). Opponent lost 3 SAGA dice. Had control of the game from there. The key is that you leverage the defense capabilities to earn you ongoing offense. Anyway, I find it enjoyable.
@@DerHund777 Yeah since my first comment, i have changed my opinion of them completely. They are a very fun army to play and can like you say "take away 3 dice" in a round and then its all just fun and games from there. They are a very tough army to beat when someone knows how to play them.