SAGA: Revenge of the Old Gods

Hello Everyone! My Blogging seems to occur when I play one of my quarterly gaming sessions. My painting and terrain building output has been in overdrive but I have no blog posts to show for it. Only the gods know if I'll get around to it.

At any rate, here is some pics of a Saga battle: Revenants vs. Vikings. It was the first outing with both factions for their respective players.

We played the Scenario from the Revenant Rule Supplement Get to the Ships. The Warbands Deploy on opposite short edges of a 3x4 table and the non-revenant faction has the mission of bringing four loot tokens to the opposite short board edge. Instead of Loot tokens we used people. Ansgar, his wife, his son, and his priest.

Jarl Ansgar was sent as an honored guest to Hamburg at an early age. There, he was taught the Christian way, and was arranged to marry a Christian Noblewoman from Denmark. In his absence, his family's lands became openly hostile to a Christian lord. A pagan usurper took claim to lordship.  When Ansgar came of age he took a company of German and Danish warriors to take back his rightful lands in the name of Christ.  The usurper was easily removed, and Ansgar set upon his new mission of Baptizing and converting his subjects.  

The Old Gods' looked on with horror as one of their most devout lands gained a Christian ruler. The Gods' sent their earthly messengers to commune with a nearby shaman. They told the Shaman that he would bring the Gods' Justice to the Land by removing Ansgar from the Earth. The Shaman made haste raising an army of the dead to defeat the traitorous Ansgar.

Thormund Stout Heart, a famous viking warlord, was on his way to Greet Ansgar and honor Ansgar's victory over the Usurper. Thormund did not approve of Christianity but he did not concern himself too much with what the High Lords believed. As long as he and his warriors were free to raid in the Glory of Odin, Thormund was content.

A thick fog fell over the land and the stench of death filled the air. Thormund and his warriors exited the Great Hall and realized the God's were bringing their wrath upon Ansgar. But Thormund felt honor bound to protect Ansgar's bloodline. So Thormund took Ansgar, Ansgar's priest and his family, and arrayyed his warriors for battle. 

Vikings:

2 HG 

1 Beserkers

3 Warriors

Revenant:

5 Revenant Units

1 Grave Pit

Deployment

Pre battle Layout

The Dead Have Risen

Viking Deployment: 2 units of 12 warriors 2 units of 4 hearthguard and 1 beserker unit. 1 hearthguard unit took Ansgar and one 12 man warrior unit took the remaining 3 Civilians.

View forward for the Vikings

Revenants get the first turn, followed by the viking advance

Viking Beserkers and Warriors come charging forward toward the dead like madmen. The Necromancer takes the opportunity to shoot his spells at the unarmoured beserkers but the viking's have protective magic of their own.

The Warriors and zombies are soon to Collide

2 warriors charge forward to gain Valhalla while the rest of the unit does their best to fight honorably and marginally win the combat. Elsewhere the beserkers charge a unit of Dead men and are themselves wiped out felling many of the walkers....Sadly the dead will rise again. However, the vikings call upon the gods for intervention and the gods answer by removing the 3 remaining undead that clashed with the warriors. 1 Revenant unit destroyed.

As the Revenant Units swarmed the remaining warriors the rest of Thormund's forces began to merge and attempt to punch a hole through the center of the field.

Thormund and his guard charge forward in a brave attempt to fell the dead.

Here they come

Ansgar and his Guard

Here's where the pictures stop. Thormund charges some revenants with hearthguard they fail to remove an entire unit and some hearthguard are slain. Fresh revenant units than return charge Thormund and remove all the warriors around him.  

Thormund is all alone, swarmed by zombies and killed.

The vikings had 1 12 man warrior unit left and 1 hearthguard unit left against the 5 full strength Revenant Units. So we called the game.

My opponents initial strategy and confrontations were uncoordinated and left him seriously vulnerable for the remainder of the battle.  The revenant units have to be completely removed or the models can be replaced and the units can get back to full strength. So the living must really concentrate on one or two revenant units per turn with multiple/melees a turn. Otherwise the revenants will absorb wounds too easily if they are not quickly wiped out. We both wished my opponent took Jomsvikings instead of vikings, because he was too unfamiliar with the board. 

I received the revenant ruleset for free from Gripping Beast because I asked after years of the limited Revenant Box Set not selling out if they were ready to sell the PDF rules. They told me I could have the rules and I was free to Disperse the PDF. So to my few followers that see this, comment below and lets figure out a way I can email you all the Revenant PDF!