I took some time to re-read some of your battles. I must say that the prosaic style makes for nice reading, but it's incredibly difficult to garner what's happening as far as game mechanics. As such, I'll have to go mostly on my impressions to start.
If there's one over-arching piece of advice I could give, it's to make sure you don't play Saga like it's Warhammer (or Hail Caesar or whatever). The point is this: don't think each of your units is supposed to "do something" each turn. There's an instinct to want every one of your troops to have its turn to move and shoot and fight, and that is absolutely not what happens in Saga. You do not spend dice to maneuver your troops, you spend dice to accomplish things. I had a hard time with this at first, as did some friends until I pointed it out. We'd have a conversation like this:
Me: "Ok, stop right there. Why are you putting your dice down like that? What do you want to do this turn?"
W: "Well, I want to move my archers up to a better shooting position, and I want to jiggle my hearthguard around so they aren't so exposed to..."
Me: "
NO. No, no, no. What do you want to DO this turn? Like, if you had your way, what one goal would you accomplish here? What are you maneuvering toward?"
W: "Well, I guess... kill that unit of Warriors. That's what I'm trying to do."
Me: "Ok, well then you should just go DO it. Put those five dice on those two Saga abilities and two activations, and make your hearthguard pound the everliving stuffing out of those Warriors. Then your archers don't need a better shooting position."
Now, maybe you've grasped this more than I gather, but the other part is to make sure it's effective. Here's your Turn 1 from this latest game:
I pushed forward a unit of levy and stacking a number of dice on extra shooting attacks I let rip.
Before I dissect this, let me make sure I have it right.
You spent one die to activate the levy to move, then another to activate for shooting (after which they get a fatigue!). You also had a few (2? 3?) more dice in the Combat Pool, which you used for extra attack dice.
On the surface, that has the spirit of what I said: choose to do something, and concentrate your resources there. That sounds good, but I see several problems.
First, you've clearly bet your money on the wrong horse. This will sound harsh, but... what in the bloody hell did you expect to accomplish with half a dozen farmers with bows? There's a reason you get 12 of them for a point, you know?
As a bit of math to back up my heckling:
You only get one attack per two levy, and shooting hits are cancelled on 4+, which means your volleys effectively begin at 1/4 strength, before you even consider armor or cover (which will trim another 1/3 or more).
Second, I think combat pool is a very poor exchange in terms of getting the most effectiveness out of Saga Dice. There are almost always better ways to get combat dice, or at the very least, better things to do with your Saga dice. As far as I'm concerned, you should only have dice here if a) you "desperately need that *one* more" attack die in a certain combat, AND b) you truly have nothing else to spend the dice on.
Third: levy generate no Saga dice, yet still require them to do stuff, which means levy are dice sinks. Therefore, you generally want fewer units of them, not more. Splitting them doesn't make them better at attacking or taking casualties, but it takes you double the number of Saga dice to order them around.
So, on the first turn of the game, when you wanted to be maneuvering into position with your army, you spent 4-5 Saga Dice - half or more of your pool - to take a pot-shot. And what did it get you?
All my arrows missed.
Hrm.
Some of that is bad luck, of course, but as I mentioned, you shouldn't have expected much more: with six levy rolling three dice, plus three more from your pool, you can only expect one or two warriors to drop, even on average.
The other big question I have is if you're playing "in character" for your faction. Anglo-Danes are about wearing their opponent down; you shouldn't need to worry about hitting early, or crossing the board quickly. Take two or three turns to close the distance while he racks up some fatigue, either from your Saga abilities or from sprinting across trying to hit first. You should use Trapped almost every chance you get. Use Intimidation every single turn, and try to be unpredictable with it. Between Noble Lineage and the Activation Pool, you should be able to manipulate your rolls such that you can power any ability besides Trapped any time you want. The rest of the abilities are all designed to make your opponent pay dearly for engaging melee, so don't be afraid to receive a charge with the goal of simply surviving (or sacrificing) and exhausting the enemy, so you can counterpunch next turn.
That's about it for the broad, general bits, but it's getting late again, and I ought to be off to something a bit more restful.
- H8
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April 28, 2024, 05:19:22 PM
