Sing while you're Winning?

And after another extended break I finally return :) I had the whole week off with the Jubilee and didn't manage a single jot or iota of hobby. I did manage to pick up a head-cold though.

Returning to the Enfield Gamers on Tuesday night Charlie was, erm........lucky enough?.....to be facing off across the table for the latest round of the Fantasy SAGA campaign. So it was Viking Orcs versus Anglo-Danish Khemrian Undead....as you do.

As something slightly different Charlie had taken a Shaman / Liche Priest as one of his units. I have access to one myself but hearthgaurd sword-arms have served me well so far and it was extra rules to learn. Was interested to see how they worked.

Rolling up the river crossing scenario I deployed my main strength of  two units of six hearthgaurd plus my recently skalded Warlord, Gonk, on the right, as an obvious Hammer, with my warriors and levy on the left as an obvious Anvil. No points for subtlety but his name's Gonk and he's an Orc!

Early doors I piled across on the right, spending arm-ring bonuses with abandon, to crash in early and target the Khemri Warlord. Route 1 all the way! My initial foray was quickly nullified by the dice gods but thankfully Charlie's reply was across the board rather than quite so blunt as mine and my HGs weathered the storm.

In all honesty Charlie seemed to get the rub early on, especially with his SAGA dice and seemed to succumb to the temptation of spreading his resources about. It sometime seems that when you have less to work with you're forced to pay more attention to what you're actually doing with it.

Throughout the game as a whole quite a few dice went into his Shaman and, probably because it was a new thing, the return didn't quite seem to be so effective. Surely a case of playing it through a few times.

Generating just 5 SAGA dice myself I spent the first few turns putting everything into my Hammer. Charlie tried slowing me down by using one of his abilities to place extra Fatigue across a couple of my units.

This actually helped me at times as I repeatedly used Frig to burn it off AND gain extra attack dice. Additionally Charlie was spending two SAGA dice where I was spending one. Continuing the Route 1 approach my dice rallied and despite losing a number of Hearth-Gaurd I tore up Charlie's left and hacked down his Warlord in typical Orcish fashion.

As such Charlie was now generating two less SAGA dice and forced into trying to get something from his Shaman. He had chewed through the majority of my HGs but was facing the last few and Gonk with a handful of Levy whilst I transferred the majority of my SAGA dice into my left flank and pushed up the Anvil.

My last couple of HGs could be run by Gonk, for whom they finally fell as the Anvil rolled over the final Khemri Warrior and the Shaman, though not without cost. Generating ZERO SAGA dice and a single Khemri levy remaining my own scum-horde brought proceedings to a close with a single volley.

Despite wiping Charlie out it was a close run thing, losing 3 points of troops myself including all of my H-G's and their arm-rings which are now lost to me permanently. I honestly feel that a few dice here or there could have made a huge difference to the result. I had less SAGA dice and they weren't rolling nearly as well as Charlie's but my extremely focused use of them along with that necessary touch of luck saw me through......but not by much!

Gonk however simply doesn't care as he's attained such status amongst the Skalds that they're already writing him into legend. There's just one catch........to attain such status he must find himself a glorious death next time out.

Ian's Norse Dwarves and Stewart's Welsh Goblins have also reached similar status. Ian and I are keen to give it a go (it's the shield-biting bit I think!) so that looks like a match-up. Stewart has decided to retire into grace and comfort............well he IS Welsh!! :)