Peter, Palmer, Brad and I got together at The Sentry Box this morning to get in some games of Sage: Age of Magic. I matched up against Brad who was using his Saga Vikings, with the addition of some Minotaurs and a Giant, against my Great Kingdoms Dwarves.
I had a 6 model unit of Hearthguard, War Machine, Warlord, Captain, Sorcerer, 8 model unit of Warriors, Behemoth, 2 Bipedla Creatures and a 12 model unit of Levy with Firearms.
Brad was using the Horde battleboard and had, IIRC, 2 units of four Hearthguard, a unit of Bipedal Creatures, a Behemoth, a unit of 12 Levy with bows, Warlord, Champion, Sorcerer and two units of 6 Warriors.
I managed to place both my ranged units behind fields to keep them safe from charges. My Captain was positioned behind my Warriors and the Levy while my Warlord took the centre with the Hearthguard and Giant. Finally, my Sorcerer was on the far right with the Earth Elementals facing off against Brad’s Giant, Minotaurs and Levy. After this picture was taken I let Brad move his Warlord and Sorcerer from the left flank to the right.
The game started off well for me. Brad just moved his forces up in his first turn but I took the relative closeness of his Warriors and Creatures to push my own monsters ahead and attack. The Giant’s attack against the Minotaurs was a bit of a disaster. I killed one of his Creatures and exhausted the unit but it left my Giant exhausted. My earth elementals attacked his Warriors and destroyed the entire unit in a single round. I rolled exceptionally well (8 hits from 10 dice) and Brad only got one back in return.
On the other flank I moved forward but made sure I stayed out of immediate charge range. My Levy had a great round of shooting and took out two of the four models in Brad’s Hearthguard. He subsequently moved them back towards his board edge to avoid losing them and keeping the Saga dice they generated.
The next turn was a bit of carnage. Brad attacked my Giant with his Champion and killed it. He then charged with his Giant into my Creatures and levelled them. It left his Giant exhausted though (a theme develops) and I used my Sorcerer to ‘Bolt’ the Giant into ashes. This left my Sorcerer dreadfully exposed. The left flank saw Brad move up some Warriors. I took some pot shots at them with my Levy but tried to keep most of my units out of charge range.
I tried to move my Hearthguard forward to engage his Champion. He trimmed a Hearthguard model off with some shooting from his Levy. I sprinted my Sorcerer across to the centre of the table so she could get some backup from the troops there. I tried to use my War Machine to ‘ping’ his last remaining Minotaur and make sure it stayed exhausted but Brad kept Rallying it to remove fatigue.
The following turn Brad’s Champion and my Hearthguard squared off with me getting the worst of it. I lost two more models and had to retreat.
I managed to take the Champion out with my Sorcerer and moved my Warriors to the left of the Warlord and Hearthgaurd to protect that flank. I moved my Levy forward to try to get more of them in range of Brad’s Warriors. I also slowly moved the War Machine forward as well in case I could get a shot within L. Brad brought his Warriors forward and took some more damage from my Levy.
During my turn, I moved my Captain forward and used Inspiration and then drove my own Warriors forward to engage Brad’s. I think this is the first time I remembered to use Inspiration. Brad counter-charged in his turn and pushed my Warriors back suffering no losses
in return. He took a chance and then attacked my Captain. He ended up exhausted and Brad lost two Warriors. It was a fairly good gamble on his part. The Warriors were no longer generating a Saga dice and were most likely going to be getting charged by one or more units in the next turn so he didn’t have a lot to lose.
On the other flank, I tried to push my Hearthgaurd into Brad’s Levy bowmen but what should have been a deadly attack resulted in me losing one Hearthgaurd to four of his Levy. Not a good trade. In his turn, Brad shot at the Hearthguard and knocked them down to a single model. I pulled them back to save the last model hoping that my Warlord could finish off the Levy.
My Sorcerer used Bolt at Maximal effect two times in the game. The first time I avoided losing the spell (rolling a nine on the Exploding Warlord table) but the second time I rolled a nine again and lost the use of the spell. It was the fifth turn at that point so I wasn’t too distraught considering how well she had done so far.
My Warlord charged the Levy hoping to kill them off but he was unable to do so. Brad brought his last Minotaur back into the game and charged into my Warlord and took him out. Brad then added insult to injury by shooting with his depleted Levy and killing off my last Hearthguard.
On the left flank, I didn’t manage to remove his last Warrior with my Levy and then realized that I had failed to add an activation dice to let my Warriors charge them. The last model in the Warrior unit thus managed to survive the entire game.
The game was a bit of a bloodbath. We both had more than eight Massacre points but Brad only beat me by 2 points resulting in a draw. The MVP for the game was my Sorcerer. She didn’t explode this game and managed to take out two substantial units with the Bolt spell. I think that I need to figure out where to best position her though as I think she would have been a lot more effective with the Giant and not the earth elementals.
My army choice left me with a starting total of 6 Saga dice. I gained none for the War Machine or the Captain and I took my two Hearhtguard purchases and made a single unit of 6 models (after paying for the Captain with two). I was behind the curve against Brad from the beginning of the game. The Enfilade ability was quite helpful in making up for this as I used a single dice, almost every turn, to fire both my Levy and the War Machine.
I have yet to have a game of Age of Magic that I haven’t fully enjoyed. The army building is a bit more complex than I initially thought it would be. Magic is powerful but can be limited by positioning and range depending on the spells you get. It is also quite easy to not roll the dice you want and have to pick a less effective, or wildly more effective, version of the spell.
A really cracking game and I am looking forward to getting the rest of the Goblins done so I can take them to the field and get some games in with them.
Pile of dice 
“She didn’t explode this game” :) Sounds like fun, can’t wait to try Saga.
It is a lot of fun. Having a sorcerer explode is something you have to expect in Age of Magic :-)