A couple of questions about Saga: Age of Magic (one more question re: Creatures)

[fred]

I think another thing to consider when adding to factions, is there is a risk they all become a bit samey if they have access to all the different equipment options.

[Hobgoblin]

It's your game, so do what you and your group agree on! No harm in modifying the rules to suit your own taste.

But in the grander scheme of things, equipment limitations tend to be 1) to preserve historical flavour as you said and 2) balance. Some Saga Battle Boards have abilities which are contingent upon the kind of equipment a unit has (e.g. mounts) or give bonuses that may be a little overly strong in tandem with some equipment options (e.g. heavy weapons/javelins).

Experiment with it and have fun, it's your game, but don't be surprised if a couple lists suddenly feel a bit out of balance

Thanks! Yes, quite. I'm really just thinking about keeping things straight WYSIWYG-wise when friends come round with their own troops - rather than a frantic rearrangement of available battleboards and dice to try and match things up. And there might be combos that don't exist anywhere in the rules: hearthguard with crossbows might, I suspect, be something that crops up, given our friends' Sigmarines.

My sense is that the weapons rules are quite self-contained, in that they usually trade a bonus for a minus. So great weapons make a unit more damaging but also more easily damaged, and so on. Javelins, as you say, might be one to watch, given their combination of missile and melee effects.

From reading some of the lists/boards we haven't used (Normans, Carolingians, Byzantines and Welsh), I get the sense that the easiest way to unbalance the game would be to select a very atypical force from the list. For example, you could select a Norman force that's entirely on foot - but then you'd miss out on all the cavalry-related functions of the board, which wouldn't be great.

I suppose what I'm seeing on re-reading the rules is that the lists and boards can mostly operate independently of each other. So, if a lack of the appropriate dice meant that someone with an Anglo-Dane force had to use a Viking battle board, you'd probably still get a decent game - but less so if the Anglo-Danes had to use the Norman board. And if - say - a Viking force has heavy weapons for several hearthguard units rather than just one lot of Varangians, it's unlikely to matter very much.

Still, time will tell!

The small minimum size of hearthguard units is a real incentive to get on and get more painting done. The smallest 4-point army from Age of Vikings seems to be the Irish with nine figures (four groups of Curaidh and a warlord), so those old Golfag's ogres might just have to emerge from the lead pile!

I think another thing to consider when adding to factions, is there is a risk they all become a bit samey if they have access to all the different equipment options.

Yes, that's a very good point. Some of the distinctions seem to be there just to differentiate factions (e.g. Vikings and Jomsvikings and their access to heavy weapons) rather than to reflect historical reality - and that's a good thing.

[Knight-Captain Tyr]

Thanks! Yes, quite. I'm really just thinking about keeping things straight WYSIWYG-wise when friends come round with their own troops - rather than a frantic rearrangement of available battleboards and dice to try and match things up. And there might be combos that don't exist anywhere in the rules: hearthguard with crossbows might, I suspect, be something that crops up, given our friends' Sigmarines.

My sense is that the weapons rules are quite self-contained, in that they usually trade a bonus for a minus. So great weapons make a unit more damaging but also more easily damaged, and so on. Javelins, as you say, might be one to watch, given their combination of missile and melee effects.

From reading some of the lists/boards we haven't used (Normans, Carolingians, Byzantines and Welsh), I get the sense that the easiest way to unbalance the game would be to select a very atypical force from the list. For example, you could select a Norman force that's entirely on foot - but then you'd miss out on all the cavalry-related functions of the board, which wouldn't be great.

I suppose what I'm seeing on re-reading the rules is that the lists and boards can mostly operate independently of each other. So, if a lack of the appropriate dice meant that someone with an Anglo-Dane force had to use a Viking battle board, you'd probably still get a decent game - but less so if the Anglo-Danes had to use the Norman board. And if - say - a Viking force has heavy weapons for several hearthguard units rather than just one lot of Varangians, it's unlikely to matter very much.

Still, time will tell!

The small minimum size of hearthguard units is a real incentive to get on and get more painting done. The smallest 4-point army from Age of Vikings seems to be the Irish with nine figures (four groups of Curaidh and a warlord), so those old Golfag's ogres might just have to emerge from the lead pile!

Yes, that's a very good point. Some of the distinctions seem to be there just to differentiate factions (e.g. Vikings and Jomsvikings and their access to heavy weapons) rather than to reflect historical reality - and that's a good thing.

In honesty, you might want to start looking more seriously at Age of Magic then given that the Magic factions have a lot of options. Also war machines, firearms etc are all good ways to represent very fantasy units.

[Hobgoblin]

In honesty, you might want to start looking more seriously at Age of Magic then given that the Magic factions have a lot of options. Also war machines, firearms etc are all good ways to represent very fantasy units.

Oh, yes - I'm certainly going to get hold of it within the next few months. I very nearly bought it the other day, but most stockists seemed to be short of one or other of the necessary components, and I didn't want to double up on postage to get all the dice. So I've gone for more AoV dice as a cheaper and quicker way of getting more and bigger games in straight away; after all, four-player AoM is the best part of £100 once postage is factored in - at least, if you go with official dice. I suspect our friends will love the game, though; and if they do, I won't need to buy five or six sets of dice!

In the meantime, I think we're essentially going to be playing AoV rules as written - but probably with the odd bit of profile-bending to cater to the models that people turn up with. That's all I'm really thinking of in that regard - hearthguard with crossbows or great weapons when the list indicates otherwise.

I've always liked low-fantasy games, and the AoV level of 'magic' is about the level I'm most comfortable with. But we'll almost certainly drip-feed in some bigger beasties from the AoM QRS as a stepping stone to getting the full book. I suspect we'll follow your lead in mixing historical and fantasy lists when we do have all the rules at our disposal; the exaggerated Dark Age flavour of the battle boards is great - and just right for the motley assortment of orcs, hobgoblins and beast-people that make up the bulk of our miniatures!