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Hey all,

I'm looking to get into Saga but am running into a bit of a conundrum. Basically, I'd love to buy the Crescent & Cross rulebook since it's in hardback and has the updated rules but I'm planning on playing vanilla Saga (aka, the 'Viking' stuff). The problem is that the Crescent & Cross book doesn't contain the battleboards for the factions in vanilla Saga. Does anybody have any suggestions or know of a way I could get the battleboards sans rules for the vanilla factions? (Again, I'm planning on buying the Crescent & Cross rules). Am I just going about this all wrong?

Thanks!

~Grimnoc

The various Saga supplements are mainly faction-information. There's really no legal way around buying copies.

Ah, okay. So in both the main Saga rulebook and the supplements there is faction information that you wouldn't get in Crescent & Cross? I had been led to believe that all the faction information was directly on the battleboards. Is this not true?

It sounds like maybe I'd be better off getting the vanilla Saga rulebook/supplements and then just dealing with the FAQs (I hate, hate, hate dealing with FAQs which is the main reason I wanted to use the updated rules in the Crescent & Cross book as my main rulebook).

~Grimnoc

IIRC, the battle boards describe the various faction powers and the dice needed to activate them. Everything else is in the books.

For reference:

SAGA main book
- Anglo-Danish
- Normans
- Vikings
- Welsh

Northern Fury
- Anglo-Saxons
- Bretons
- Jomsvikings
- Scots

The Raven's Shadow
- Franks
- Irish
- Norse-Gaels
- Stratchclyde Welsh

Varjazi & Basileus
- Byzantines
- Era of the Princes Rus
- Pagan Russ

There are a couple of other factions that have been variously available

- Skraelings (Native Americans), limited edition release
- Steppe Tribes; rules in WGI 311
- Revenants (Undead), this year's limited edition release

The battle boards are the battle boards. They're pretty self-explanatory.

The books include -

Explanations of what each troop type is armed with, and what options are available (for instance, the Normans can take a single unit of warriors as crossbowman)
Detailed explanations of how each ability works, for when the inevitable questions arise over the brief summary found on the battleboard
Historical warlords that you can use to lead your band, instead of the regular warlord.
Swords for Hire that you can purchase instead of one of your regular troop types

So you'll need those books.



Missing from the list of bands in the post above was an Arab battleboard that was also released in Wargames Illustrated. Note that the battleboard in question is set for a far earlier era than the boards in Crescent and Cross, and was not written for a Crusades-era Arab army.

In fact, it might not even have been considered entirely legal in competitive games, even though Studio Tomahawk published it in WI.

If the hardback is the deal breaker there was an original edition of the first rulebook in hardback, might be worth looking on ebay for?

No idea how often it turns up though or how much it would be!

Eumerin wrote:
The battle boards are the battle boards. They're pretty self-explanatory.

The books include -

Explanations of what each troop type is armed with, and what options are available (for instance, the Normans can take a single unit of warriors as crossbowman)
Detailed explanations of how each ability works, for when the inevitable questions arise over the brief summary found on the battleboard
Historical warlords that you can use to lead your band, instead of the regular warlord.
Swords for Hire that you can purchase instead of one of your regular troop types

So you'll need those books.



Missing from the list of bands in the post above was an Arab battleboard that was also released in Wargames Illustrated. Note that the battleboard in question is set for a far earlier era than the boards in Crescent and Cross, and was not written for a Crusades-era Arab army.

In fact, it might not even have been considered entirely legal in competitive games, even though Studio Tomahawk published it in WI.

Awesome! Thanks for the information. This is exactly what I was looking for. Descriptions as to what was in the books other than rules were extremely vague.