Age of the Wolf : Saga Campaign

To kick the year off and to encourage some more Dark Age gaming in the dungeon we have started an Age of the Wolf campaign. I bought the book sometime last year but hadn't really gone through it in detail.

 Without going into every detail the campaign system provides a fairly open structure to allow standard SAGA battles to be played and the result of these to develop your Warband as appropriate. Like some other campaign systems you start off with a standard Warband and warlord which is then modified with a range of randomly generated traits and motivation. The system then has a fairly neat way of setting the Warband against each other to generate the battles as each Warband chooses to Raid, Campaign or Defend in a particular campaign season.

To give some variety we created 4 Warbands, Anglo-Danes, Normans, Saxons and Vikings, each with their own Warlord. We then set up the first campaign season and our first battle was a Raid between the Normans and the Anglo-Danes. As both warbands were 'raiding' the battle randomly generated was a scouting encounter. This allowed both warbands to have a single unit on the battlefield and other units would only enter gradually over the next few turns.

The Normans in their usual style charged ahead with heavily armoured knights.....ordered forward by their leader Duke Baldwin de Mesniel. As they scout around the wood in the centre of the battlefield all they can see is a small group of bowmen, hugely over enthusiastic they charge forward but some well aimed arrows bring three of them down.......it is possible Baldwin had forgotten the difference between Lion Rampant and SAGA !

Duke Baldwin then enters the battlefield with more knights and brings forward his warriors, one units of which is armed with cross bows.

On the other side of the battlefield Aelfrick the Anglo-danish Warband takes a more careful approach keeping his Warband together. He is accompanied by his personal priest (a special rule allowing the removal of some fatigue if needed). By this stage in the battle the bowmen have been whittled down.

Duke Baldwin is determined to get his armoured knights into the battle but can't quite make up his mind which side of the wood to charge. The delays allow the Anglo-Danes to build up the fatigue on the Norman cavalry which gradually starts to limit their mobility.

Eventually, almost exhausted with horses blown Baldwin has worked his way around the rear of the enemy but just as he is about to order his knights into the charge his horse stumbles exhausted, and Aelfrick notices the danger, turning around he charges in with his Hearthguard. Despite his armour Baldwin is taken down, in the end his seriously wounded body is carried off the battlefield.

A good win for the Anglo-Danes....we then rolled up some new troops and the usual end of turn campaign type actions. Our next battle in a couple of weeks.......😀 for those who are interested here is a copy of the roster sheet which is available free from Gripping Beast, I am keeping these electronically so we can update them.