The Age of the Vikings. Here it begi The Basics The Orders Phase The Activation Phase Movement Fatigue. Terrain ‘A.complete turn example Mustering the warband. Faction: Vikings Faction: Normans Faction: Anglo-Danish Faction: Welsh Heroes of the Viking Age. Saga abilities Scenarios Clash of Steel. Last words Often overlooked rules. Fatigue markers. Quick reference sheet. INOEX Pages Page 6 Page 8 Page 10 Page 14 Page 16 Page 17 Page 36 Page 41 Page 42 Page 43 Page 44 Page 45, Page 49 Page 59 Page 69 Page 70 Page 72 Page 73, Page 75SA Oark Age skirmishes By: Alex Buchel Development: Alex Buchel with Darren Harding, Rules written by: Alex Buchel, Jean-Baptiste Folley & Andy Sherwell Graphic Design: Fred Machu Pictures: Fred Machu and Wyn Rogers Cover: Fred Machu, based on illustrat by Peter Dennis Figures used in the pictures of this book are made by Gripping Beast, Musketeer Miniatures, Crusader Miniatures and Artizan Designs and have been painted by Dave Woodward, Darrell Hindley, Darren Harding, Fred Machu and Alex Buchel Scenery used is made by Wyn Rogers, Gripping Beast, Rob Broom and Grand Manner. Follow us on our website: www.studio-tomahawk.com Saga Dark Ages krmishes sO by Alexandre Buchel. llrightsreserved. Published under icense by Gripping Beast. ISBN: 9782953805314 No part ss document may be reproduced stored in retrieval sytem, or transmitted any form orby any means electron, mechanical photocopying, recording or atherwise, without the prior permission of Alexandre Buchel and Gripping Beast catalogue record for is books svolaba for te Grit aa Printed by imprimerie Gnter (9582 MARL) ln aout 21ur story begins off the north-east coast of England on ‘the windswept tidal island of Lindisfarne. In 793 the JAnglo-Saxon Chronicle reported, ‘Fierce, foreboding omens came over the land of Northumbria, There were excessive whiriwinds, lightening storms and fiery dragons were seen flying in the sky.’ Sure enough, disaster struck. On 8th June 793, the island suffered a ferocious attack and its monastery looted by sea-bome heathens, Norse warriors whose kin would soon become the scourge of Christian England. The Viking Age had begun. During the three hundred years following the end of the 8th century, a state of endemic warfare developed in England. Not only did the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms fight amongst themselves but they were constantly raided by Vikings, Irish, Scots and Picts. The Saxon kingdoms of the north were under pressure from new and expanding Viking colonies and those in the west from the old Welsh kingdoms. Alliances were made and broken. From the mists of this turmoil come the names of great warlords and hard fought battles: Alfred the Great, Aethelred, or Harold; Brunnanburh, Maldon or Clontarf to name but a few. By the mid-ith century the situation had stabilised somewhat, but in the first days of 1066 the death of Edward the Confessor, King of England, fanned the flames anew. Three pretenders were in line for the crown: Ear! Harold Godwinson of Wessex, Harald Hardrada of Norway and William of Normandy. The day after Edward's death, the Witenagemot chose Harold to succeed and he was crowned King Of England. Upon hearing of Harold’s coronation, both william and Harald vowed to sieze the crown with the blades of their swords. The Norwegians landed in the north, while the Normans crossed the Channel to land in the south, and Harold faced battle on two fronts. He routed the Norsemen at Stamford Bridge only to be defeated at The Battle Of Hastings, at the end of a close fought, day-long battle. This year, 1066, symbolically marks the end of the Viking Age, the end of England and the start of the Norman Era,Steel as paper. Blood as ink. WHAT IS SAGA SAGA is a game in which you tell the tales of the mighty Warlords who fought for supremacy in England during the time of the Viking invasions, SAGA offers you the chance to lead a warband of brave and dedicated retainers, to make your mark on the fledgling English nation. As a Warlord you will stand on the battlefield, facing another lord of battle: steel will clash, blood will spl, but at the end of the day, only one will feast over the corpses of his foe while the other dines in the halls of his Welcome to the Viking Age ! VIKINGS & Q a Tere Ic B © ANGLO-DANISH egins | Your SAGA starts here... WHAT YOU WILL NEED SAGA is a wargame with miniatures, so you will need figures All the pictures you see illustrating this book are of 28mms figures, a5 this isthe scale we use for our own games. fplaying with smaller or larger models, you might need to adjust the ‘movernent and shooting distances given inthe rules, but this should not prove too diffcut. You'llalsoneeda surfaceto play on. The standard board size for a good game s 48" x36”. You might need a larger surface once you get used tothe rules and want to field more toy soldiers on the table, but we must admit that we lke this small siz for our weekly games. It can be played on the kitchen table, making, any cleaning of spilled blood easier after the game! ‘You willalso need dice. Two kinds of dice ae used inthis game. ‘The frst ae the regular sixsded dice, easly available and that you probably have by the bucket load at home. The other are the SAGA dice. These are also shsided, but witha symbol on| each face. Each faction involved n the game has his own of SAGA dice with different symbols (as illustrated below) Each player should have his own set of dice for his faction (You can buy a set of SAGA dlce as pictured in this rule-book ‘or you can see ater inthe book fora Do It Yourself solution for SAGA dice!) a0 NORMANS Ay x WELSHSAGA You will also need something to measure distance SAGA uses four different measurement : Very Short (VS), short (S), Medium (M) and Long (L). You can either use a tape measure or sticks cut to the right length. Obviously the material your measuring sticks are ‘made from wl impact the performances of your figures fon the table. Don't expect your I a pt 1 soldiers to fight iy when moved with a wooden stick, real warriors vithn the book you wil have found four laminated colour sheets. These are Bat with the SAGA dice. Allyouneed to kn that, atthe start of his turn, each player rolls his SAGA dice e Boards and one is provided for ch faction. The Battle Boards are used in conjunction 3 the moment is and allocates them to boxes on his Battle some effects. T each player should have toproduce Battle Board should be placed beside the asily accessible tothe player. As with the di is own Battle Board, ‘SAGA uses only one typeof in-game marker and that is used to fight for long or who are asked to do too much by thei warlord. These present Fatigue. Fatigue effects warriors w ‘markers can be photocopied from the page atthe back of the book, or canbe printed from the downloadable pdf we provide fn our internet website at www studi. tomahawk.com. In our ‘own games we use casualty figures as markers because they look more pleasing on the tabletop. Finally you will need some scenery. Good scenery does ustice d worthy of being tol looking trees and ta ures, and you can’t expect to write a SAGA g battle amongst avvful y pieces of cloth to represent a marsh. tonicey pain if you are do SAGA leaves you relative freedom in the amount of scenery to bbe used, so even if your own terrain collection is limited, it \d be enough fora start OBJECTIVE O1 ‘SAGA i a scenario based game, Later in this book you wil nd reoutine pls player's objectives and any scenario specifi special rules. For the time being, all you nee ‘a chapter of scenarios, each with adescript know is that the death of your Warlord often heralds the end of the game. No warband would ‘continue fighting wth ther leader face down in their. Remember this advice: never the tte of our watlord without thinking. twige, Cemeteries are full Of the: old but impetuous SANS)Luck is one thing, brave deeds another. UNITS In SAGA figures are arranged into unis consisting of between 44 and 12 models. No uni or more than twelve, We will se in the chapter dealing with an start with less than four Figures Movement how these figures move and behave as units. Figures will need to be based. There are no fixed rules for basing in SAGA. To be honest, during the development ofthis game we have used figures bas thingasf around and don't sufer any penalty for fg jon round washers, on square bases and even some multibased. Also there is no such ingin this game, we assume that the models see all ito thee sides. You shouldn't get any advantage from y rule of thumb, no base should exceed 3ems in length or width mounted models t should not exceed 6cms in length or \vith) although we allow Warlords to be based on larger bases (up to 4cms for foo than life characters! ur basing, and, as a ims for mounted) as befits such larger ‘See some examples of basing below ‘Che Basics Grettir’s Saga Each figure has a class. There are four classes in SAGA, each representing a different kind of warir. ‘The four classes are: + Hearthguard: The most powerful retainers at your dlsposa usually the household troops of your lord such as Anglo Danish Huscarls or Norman knights + Warriors: The bulk of the fighting men gathering when their lord asks for their service. They are usually non-professional fof parttime warriors and are less well armed and trained than the Hearthguard. As such, the term Warrior can cover a wide range o troops such as thegns, ceorls or bond. + Levies oF peasants Give them a sing, 2 bow or even some stones and you might be surprised. Might + Warlord: Leading these warriors the Warlord. Unike other ‘models, he fs unit in his own right and acts separately. Hes considered a Hearthguard, but has some special abilities and cd characteristic, improv Each class has two different characteristes: Movement and ‘Armour. With a few exceptions, all figures that belong to 3 single class will share the same characteristics. For example ‘an Anglo-Danish Huscarl (from the Hearthguard class) wil have the same Movement and Armour as his Viking Hirdman counterpart. But we will seein due course that there are some extra faction specific rules that can make them diferent, and that they will behave sightlyciferently on the battlefieldMovement Is usually Mf (see below what it means) or L. for ‘mounted models, Armour goes from 2 to 6 and is the target number that your opponent will have to score tohit you with a ranged or hand-to-hand attack. An Armour value may never be lower than to or higher than 6, no matter the modifiers being, used, DISTANCES [As we mentioned earlier, there are four different measure dlstances in SAGA. They are: + Very Shor Distance, referred as VSiand thats 2" (5cms) ong, + short Distance, referred as S and that is 4” (cms) long + Medium Distance, referred as Mand that is 6” 1sems) long * Long Distance, referred as La d that is 2” (socms) long We will use the abbreviations above in this rulebook so, you see thata bow can shoot at a maximum range of Lit means thatitcan shoot up 012", f we state that a Anglo-Danish Hearthguard has a Movement of S, his movement is actually 4”. We eannot recommend enough that you use sticks (either self made or bought 2s they are far handier to use than a tape ‘measure! See below an example af measuring sticks used during the development of this game: All distances canbe measured at any time during the game, Sometimes you will se written that a “unit must be within x" 'S,M or IL). t means that the aforementioned unit must have at le fulfil the requirement. You don’t need to have all models cally written. (°x" being ether V ne model within x to within "unless 5 THE TURN ‘The game tum alternates between each player. Turns can be rather short compared to other games (a least once the p ‘are used to the mechanisms of SAGA) and ths keep anice flow. \With the exception ofthe first action a player takes in his turn, the turn structure snot as fixed as isin many ather wargames he tur starts withthe player whose tum ts roling the SAGA, dice and then allocating the results to his Bat phase is know asthe Orders phase). After that, the players free to activate his units and to use the abies he has paid for with his dice on the Bat le Board (this e Board in any sequence. When that player Wg units and spe Battle Board, his turns over. is opponent then takes his SAGA (tL Gover, Uneven Ground Brushes | Low Area Tein, Soft aaa ET cropfelds | Cover, Uneven Grind . | Rody | tow Area erin, Hard 7 Ground | Cover Uneven Ground orstone | tle Bling | High Area Terai, Hard > TM [rere [corer Unevencround | [ange | High Area erin, Hard 7 |e Bulking _| Cover, Uneven Ground [ees Eevation |HighAreaTersin nocoe,| 1 | L Open i Steep | Higharea erain,nocover | >| Etevtion_| Uneven Ground | Marsh | Low rea Ternin,noGover,| 1 | M Uneven Ground Please note that any scenery that cannot be deployed onthe table is dscarded without effec. Example: Darren and Andy are ready for their week grudge match They both secret) write down how mary terrain fectres they wan fo the game, Darren goes for tree and An fortwo, leavingus wth afnl result of three scenery items (the averageresut between their choices, rouncedup). Darren gets to chose wo these ites and Andy one Darren stars by deciding whet scenery features he wants. He goes for «Lage Bulg and a Wood. Andy would have fed to pick a Large Bling but as they are ted to ane he has.a moan an then has hse another te, rally decdingon a patch of rocky round Darrenstrt by rolirg D6 forhisfistitem. Herolsa2, meaning thatno prtofthe bung may be set within. of ny tableedge. He places the OB Dy =F = S OSE 4) OE