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I have played saga a few times but am no sort of expert and am in need of some advice, please.

I and some friends are going to run a project to raise money for charity and will be making a two player starter set for Saga and really need peoples advice into what forces to run for it, the two forces need to be well balanced against each other and easy to play (thematic is also a big plus). Initial thoughts was Milites vs Saracen or Viking vs Anglo-Danes but I am having second thoughts on this as I am not sure that Saracens are easy to start with and that Vikings are a bit on the weak side.

So if you were to look at getting a two player starter set what would you like to see? I am looking at two 4 or 6pt forces and for ease of learning from the same book.

Cheers in advance.

Hello and welcome to Saga!

A few questions so I can provide a more tailed reply at a later date:
1) Are you intending on using Saga: Dark Ages, Crescent and Cross, Aetius and Arthur or a mixture of these three?
2) Is price a consideration?
3) Do you prefer metal or plastics?
4) Do you mind who manufactures the models?


Anyway, some information to get you started while you answer those and to give you something useful to mull over:

1) Purchase a box of the Plastic Dark Age Warriors, Plastic Saxon Thegns and Plastic Viking Hirdmen from Gripping Beast. Each box provides you with roughly ~40 men. Depending on force make-up this can be used to then make either x2 6pt forces, or x3 / x4 4pt forces. These can be either Viking, Anglo Dane, Jomsviking, Anglo Saxon or Norse Gael. The components for kits are also compatible for kit-bashing. That's between 2 large or 4 small forces for £60.

2) Conquest Games produce plastic Norman Knights, infantry and archers. You can buy infantry and archer sprues off the internet (to save buying a whole box of them). This works out cheaper than buying metal figures and is a very nice contrast to the all-infantry forces mentioned above. You can use these kits to make Normans, Bretons or Early Crusaders.

3) Gripping Beast do a plastic Early Roman box that contains everything you need to make a 6 Point Roman force (no cavalry sadly... but they will be released next year)


Hope that gives you something to work with!


Kind Regards,

Wulfmar


Edit: I will say this, the folk at Studio Tomahawk who designed and play tested Saga have done a very good job of balancing out the factions. Some factions are a little trickier than others to play, but they all stand a good chance against each other. I wouldn't be too concerned with 'tiers' and 'meta' like we have with Warhammer 40K, that gaming mindset doesn't really apply to Saga thankfully. I've seen forces like Saracens and Vikings absolutely flatten a variety of opponents, yet also be crushed - each time the difference was the players skill and to a lesser degree their Saga dice roles.

Footsore Miniatures and Saxon miniatures make some very affordable 4pt starters for foot factions.

Footsore foot warbands are 36 quid:

https://footsoreminiatures.co.uk/collections/saga-warbands

Saxon foot warbands are 33 quid (Danish and Viking, Norman is 50 quid:

http://saxonminiatures.com/product-category/warbands/


Warlord picked up the WGF sprues, although it looks like they just have the Saxon Fyrd right now:

https://us-store.warlordgames.com/collections/dark-ages/products/saxon-fyrd-warriors-frames

Fireforge also makes Templars, Hospitalers, Muslim, Byzantines, and Russians (Christian era):

http://www.fireforge-games.com/webstore/middle-age

Fireforge would easily cover the Crescent and Cross box for the most part, or enable branching out to do the Northern Crusades (Teutonics vs Russians: Milites Christi vs Christian Rus).

ingtaer wrote:
I have played saga a few times but am no sort of expert and am in need of some advice, please.

I and some friends are going to run a project to raise money for charity and will be making a two player starter set for Saga and really need peoples advice into what forces to run for it, the two forces need to be well balanced against each other and easy to play (thematic is also a big plus). Initial thoughts was Milites vs Saracen or Viking vs Anglo-Danes but I am having second thoughts on this as I am not sure that Saracens are easy to start with and that Vikings are a bit on the weak side.

So if you were to look at getting a two player starter set what would you like to see? I am looking at two 4 or 6pt forces and for ease of learning from the same book.

Cheers in advance.

Don't start with Milites, they have a high learning curve and while I've never seen anyone playing Saracens I wouldn't. Vikings are not weak, quite the contrary. The Berserkers are guided missiles that can wreck the other side's units and their regular hearthguard are pretty nasty when loaded up with the right battle board abilities. They are also one of the more user-friendly factions. The Normans are straightforward to play and may or may not be a good starting force, depending on how much previous miniature wargames experience your players have.

As a Norman player, I do not recommend them for starting players. Their abilities are very expensive, and just charging in will not work with them. More than Danes or Vikings they have to be judicious in their timing and use of abilities.

Thanks for the advice so far, I have finally obtained copies of both rulebooks but am still having a hard time figuring this out. It seems that CandC warbands would be the place to start just because the book contains a more complete ruleset but the warbands contained in the book seem to be harder to play, where as the warbands in the Dark Age book seem easier, does that sound right?

Do you think that the Crusader and Milites lists could be made from the same models? It would be nice to be able to give that option allowing a player to use either list or start with Crusaders and after gaining some experience shift over to Milites. Same for the Muslim factions, Moors appear to be quite easy to get to grips with unlike the other two.

The rules aren't different in C&C, just cleaner. Essentially they fixed some verbiage/incorporated some FAQ stuff, and repacked it.

All the core mechanics are exactly the same, just better layout and wording. As to crossing between lists, you can of course do that if the pieces match, but it wouldn't 'look' right per say.