Monday 6 April 2015

SAGA - Byzantine Vangarian Guard

Having recently been smitten by the SAGA system bug, this last Thursday was an opportunity to dust off some very old (for the most part badly painted as well) figures stored deep within my loft.  In the 1980s John Savage ran a medieval campaign which prompted many of our gaming group to invest in armies to use with the Lance rule set.  Myself I invested in a Byzantine army.  Some years later around 2002 this army after some re-basing and re-organisation was used for several large WAB games.  Now in 2015 the figures are being used again ! :)  Being such a noob to the rules and still very unfamiliar with the Byzantine battleboard I decided to keep things easy for myself and opted for the simplest possible army I could come up with.

1 x Warlord - Emperor Basileus  (mounted)
2 x Units if Heathguard (8 men in each) - Vangarian Guard with their trade-mark double-handed axes.
The battleboard gives a total of 15 order options, depending on troop mix.  By restricting myself to the selection above, only 5 of the 15 were open to me.



So how did I do, I hear you ask.  Well the answer is 'fine thanks'.  I locked horns with Theo and Anglo Saxon warband in what was a slightly chaotic but enjoyable 6 player game.
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Basically I got lucky in that Theo was very restricted space wise on an over-crowded table, plus I screwed up with the rules and in retrospect realise that I awarded myself some bonus hits with the Strategikon order that I shouldn't have (not all troops were within Short).  Against an enemy with more movement and or missile weapons I think I would struggle badly with this unit mix, so I'll be thinking of a different set-up for this next week.
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2 comments:

Paul O'G said...

Always fun to start playing with a new army, and great to see some old school figs out on the table!

Vulture said...

Hi Paul
Yes, some of the figures are so old I'm not sure whose they are ! LOL
That said, the General is an Irregular figure, and some of the axemen (the larger ones) are Essex.
Doing the bases up at the moment, and will add a bit more paint to figures over the coming days, time permitting.
Ian