Returning and The Game

I've been away from this blog for a while.  I've been away from gaming and painting just as long.  I blame Games Workshop for releasing Age of Sigmar and ruining wargaming for everyone.

During my parents' visit, my father and I did get to play SAGA, albeit only one game.  Travel and gaming don't mix.  One long learning game.  It may have set the European record as the longest game of SAGA ever played.  During the course of it, we may have read the rule book four times trying to clarify what special abilities did and how one could cross a river.

Game length and general confusion aside, it was a lot of fun.  Now we just have to fly them back for a re-match.  Lord knows, I need something during these long dark German winters and one can only stomach so much Tatort and bourbon.

I'd written previously about my unhappiness with the green gaming mat I'd ordered from Hobbylink.  After playing on it for several hours, I came to dislike it slightly less.  It held up and books on the edges flattened it pretty quickly.  Unfortunately, someone else had a stronger opinion it and it is no more.  I'll come back to that later.

There aren't many photos of the actual game.  We started out in the afternoon, but didn't finish up until fairly late in the evening.  By then the light was rotten, especially for such a demanding cell phone photographer as myself.

The setup was pretty much your typical SAGA game.  A few buildings of various sizes, a river, some stands of trees, and one lazy cat.  She counted as high terrain for the purpose of line-of-sight.

We did get the cat to move eventually, but she got her revenge in the end.  Nature finds a way, or something like that.

The Irish faction set its dogs on the furry beast.

The Irish assaulted the farm where the Normans took refuge.

We played the Homeland scenario with the Normans defending against Irish raiders.  What this meant, was that ranged units sat back in the buildings and shot at the Irish as they slowly made their approach.  

The faction dice also weren't my friends in this game.  Turn after turn, I'd fail to get a single helmet on the dice, which ruled out nearly every single special ability.  If it weren't for sturdy walls in that village, my Normans would have been slaughtered.

In the end, the Irish failed to take out the Normans, which was hardly a rousing victory for the Norman soldiers, who saw their knights smashed by their Celtic foes while the archers and crossbowmen took potshots from inside the farm buildings.  Yup, the epic poetry just writes itself.

Shortly after that game, we were all off to train and fly around Europe, seeing Posnan, Hamburg, Berlin, Amsterdam, Brussels, and Bruges.  I did pick up a Gripping Beast Wandering Bard at Battlefield Berlin, which was nice.  I'll have to paint him up for my next game so he can sing the praises of Normans who valiantly hid among the chicken coops and fired an angry band of peasants and dogs.  Huzzah!

Upon returning to Germany, we got to see what the cat had added to the game.  She vomited on the river and the mat and shed all over the rest, rubbing the hair into turf.  The river was cleanable, but the mat was a total write-off.