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I'm thinking of starting SAGA, and I would like your take on the system.

I think it looks pretty good, and I've read some reviews, which all seem good...

Anyway, any advice? Thanks!

I played it a few times. If you're interested in the dark ages and you want to play a platoon level game, it's by far your most popular choice.

I wasn't as thrilled by the dice combo for actions mechanic as some were, but it's well done and it definitely makes each faction fight a bit differently. It also has the advantage of being well supported. New "Battle Boards" (The faction's board where you allocate different combo's of dice) come out with some regularity, it's been expanded into the Crusades era, and it even has tournaments.

There's some fans who have made battle boards for fantasy races. If we hadn't discovered "Dragon Rampant" -which presently meets our need for a fast-play fantasy platoon level ruleset- we'd probably be using Saga for fantasy.

Lastly, it doesn't take a ton of minis to play so it's easy to paint up multiple factions which makes it easy to provide both sides of the game to newbies and/or to sample the playstyles of different armies.

Thank you! Anyone else? I'm interested in all opinions, so please feel free to ad something, good or bad.

Eilif, can you link me to the fantasy stuff for SAGA?

Absolutely love the game. Give anyone of it a try and they will like it to, it has such clever gaming mechanics and is quick to learn but with depth.

Very cheap to play now if you want thanks to the GB plastics, but also there are a nice range of miniatures from other manufacturers that you can use. Of course, the standard GB sets are very useful and get you straight into the game.

The new campaign system book Age of the Wolf looks like great fun, although haven't had a chance to give it a go yet.

Great game. Pretty simple rules, but the Saga dice add a lot fo flavor. I've got 6 points of Vikings, Welsh, and Anglo -Danes, and 8 points of Normans.

LIke Pacific said, the new campaign supplement seems pretty cool, especially if you've been inspired by shows like Vikings.

Great game quite popular in my area in the UK. I enjoy the Saga dice and order card mechanic.

I mostly play The Crescent & The Cross which is based on the crusades.

I run a Milites Christi army using models from the Deus Vult range which I really like and are not that expensive.

Love it.

You do not even need to get historical minis to give it a run through. All you need is fellas without armour these are you Levies. Fellas with helm and shield these are your Warriors and fellas with armour and big weapons these are your Hearthguard.

I tried painting my Vikings in a more historical style and barely finished 1, so I painted my Normans in a more fantasy style and find I can actually get models painted.

I'll likely post something more in-depth at a later point on this topic.

I play SAGA a heck of a lot. I have a number of (fully painted!) 6 point armies and 4 point forces. I've been playing with the Dark Ages series but expect I'll move into the Crusades (Crescent and Cross) when I leave University again and start earning some meaningful amounts of money.


In short - it's an excellent gaming system that is relatively well balanced, has a fair deal of strategy and can be played in 30min - 1hour. If you have specific questions I'll do my best to answer them

What would be the easy 2 armies to get that I can introduce my friend to the system?

bound for glory wrote:
What would be the easy 2 armies to get that I can introduce my friend to the system?

What models do you already own?

Some armies are a bit trickier than others. Normans, Vikings and Anglo-Danes are all easy, Welsh are a little bit harder.

The only army I avoiding because of its trickiness is the Franks.

Personally I'd suggest Vikings as the first army (you can get a very cheap plastic start set from gripping beast) and then either Normans (pricier but give you experience with a fast, mobile and ranged force) or Saxons (another very cheap plastic starter set available but is also an infantry based army like the vikings)

I've gotten my group to start playing Saga. It is a very well done set of rules. The boards cover 'special rules', and give a lot of flavor to the factions. Learning said boards is the core of the game.

I have 4 pts of Anglo-Danish (with one more point in the works), 6 pts of Normans, 6 pts of Vikings (well, about to wrap up my 6th and 7th point of them), and 4 pts of Milites Christi (Templars).

We like it enough that I am working to build out a Spartan and Athenian army to use for Ancient Greek themed Saga (some other folks have done this and labeled it Epic!)

Not to brag, but here is my mostly saga (some Ronin and WMA):

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/474587.page

Also, try out:

http://studiotomahawk.freeforums.org/

There is a lot of saga material there that is useful.

That's some fantastic looking terrain you have there, must be great fun to play on.

Some interesting notes on the games and historical context as well, certainly helps add depth to it.

 Maniac_nmt wrote:
Not to brag, but here is my mostly saga (some Ronin and WMA):

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/474587.page

Wow, which miniatures are you using for Ronin?

Thank you both for the kind comments.

My Bushi are a mix of Perry, Wargames Factory, and a Kensai Warlord.

My ninja are random ral partha stuff with a few others mixed in, and my Sohei are all Dixon.

I strongly recommend against Dixon. They are not particularly nice looking models.