Saga: AoH Celtiberians

We played a game today.  Not the first game the Celtiberians have played but I’ve not used them for a while.  In the Age of Hannibal version of Saga there are special additional rules called Ruses.  The Iberian list allows a player to play a Ruse called Celtiberians.  The player picks an Iberian army but starts off the game with the Gaul Battleboard.  At the beginning of one of their turns, before rolling their Saga dice, they may switch out the Gaul Battleboard for the Iberian Battleboard.

Why would a player do this?  Basically, the Gaul board is great for attacking but the issue is your units then get stuck in front of the enemy and can’t get away.  The Iberian board is great for moving, even getting activations during your opponent’s turn.  So get a big attack in early and then spend the rest of the game getting out of the way and trying to pick off the units you damaged.  This works as follows:
The Gaul board is very good at pumping up attacking units by using an additional ability called Fervour.  This is an extra part of each Battleboard rule which improves the effects but at the cost of the unit picking up fervour markers.  Each unit can only have a maximum of 3 such markers and when they get 3 they can no longer use advanced rules from the Battleboard until at least one marker is removed. The advanced ability Gaulish Wave allows you to move several units together but it is quite expensive at 2 dice but this along with Vae Victis can be quite devastating if you hit a unit in the middle of the opponent’s battle line and win the combat, causing all enemy units within S to roll for instant casualties.  As the Celtiberian player you want to max out on the Fervour abilities in this big attack because when you change Battleboards the Fervour markers are all discarded.   Hopefully at this point you will still have enough Saga dice generating units to allow the Iberian Battleboard to work effectively.  This board has additional rules that give the player Guerilla markers.  These can then be spent during your opponent’s turn to activate your units.  They can therefore evade charges or attack vulnerable units.  The issue is you need 2 Guerilla markers for each such action and you usually only get 1 per advanced ability used.
Ideally therefore a Celtiberian player needs to make a big attack on the middle of the opponent’s line using Gaulish Wave and Vae Victis (2 spears and 1 horse dice plus what you need for movement to get into range) and this attack needs to be supported by the Warlord.  Assuming you can survive your opponent’s turn largely still intact you swap boards.  The units that had maxed out on their Fervour are now freed up as these markers are all discarded.  You need to roll at least 2 horses and 1 spears to use Second Wind and Coordination.  Second Wind allows units within M of the Warlord to discard Fatigue and gain Guerilla markers for so doing.  Therefore excess fatigue built up from getting units into combat can be cleared allowing the commander to use Coordination which allows a mounted unit to carry a foot unit away.  This should help you get your damaged units out of the way and prevent the usual problem of Gaul players who have very few defensive boosts on their Battleboard and get their attacking units chopped up by the remaining defenders on their next go.  From then on you can be Iberians, running away from the enemy charges during their turn and hoping to concentrate on the eliminating the units you damaged during the big attack during your turn so you keep generating Guerilla markers.

Very complex but that is part of the “fun” of playing Saga.  That said even for Saga this is very complicated and relies on lots of things going your way.  You need to get the timing of the big attack right and not take so many casualties that you lose too many Saga dice, or you won’t be able to use enough abilities on the Iberian board to get enough Guerilla tokens to keep your units out of trouble in the opponent’s phase.

This force has been built specifically with this Ruse in mind and is usually fielded as 6 points as follows:

Mounted Warlord
1x 4 Mounted Hearthguard
2x 8 Mounted Warriors
1x 8 Warriors
1x 8 Warriors with slings
1x 12 Levy Javelins

The mounted units are used to deliver the initial attack and then bus the foot units around after the switch of boards.

Deployment and Turn 1

The Celtiberians are on the left.  Romans on the right.  The Romans have their Consul backed by his hearthguard and the three units of warriors infantry in the middle.  They have levy javelins on the right and Cretan archers in the ruins on the left.  The Celtiberians have the Warlord, Hearthguard and a mounted warrior unit in the middle, enough here for the big attack.  Slingers opposite the Cretans supported by the other Warrior infantry.  The Levy javelins are in the rough ground on the left and out of shot above them are the other Warrior cavalry unit.

On turn one I went first and got distracted by the Cretan archers who I’ve faced before and are a bit like going up against a machine gun nest.  I tried to get the two foot warrior units to start to deal with them, not wanting the main attack to get showered with arrows.  The Levy Javelins moved up to tempt the Roman right into breaking out of their line.  My shooting hit but failed to kill any Cretans or Levy.
The Romans duly obliged and managed to reach the Levy with their Levy and a Warrior unit using the extra charge distance they get.  They used all of their Battleboard to smash up the Levy and also made all of their saves in the combat.  The Cretans shot up the foot warriors a bit.

Turn 2

Levy got duffed up some more, dice built up to get a Before The Wave attack off on the Cretans didn’t help as they made all their saves again.  Units are ready for the attack next turn but will need to move twice to get into contact so will have fatigue on them going in.

Romans now in a strong position threatening the flank of the cavalry in the centre of the Celtiberian line.  So far the Romans have only lost 1 Levy figure having made a succession of saves.

Turn 3

The main attack went in, sadly without the Warlord as there weren’t enough dice available.  We played this part of the turn twice.  The first time the attack failed as both the Hearthguard and Mounted Warriors lost their combats – more poor dice from me and good ones from the Romans.  Therefore couldn’t get Vae Victis off so didn’t do enough damage and the Roman counter attack would have eliminated both units.

On a second go we engineered a win for the mounted warriors in the second combat who could therefore get Vae Victis off and three out of four Roman units rolled a 6 and took a casualty, including the Consul.  With the Romans finally having taken enough damage I had hoped to keep both of my units alive but by the end of the Roman turn the Hearthguard were eliminated and the Warriors were down to 2 models and had 2 fatugue.  Without the Warlord there wasn’t any way to use Second Wind and with only 4 Saga dice left we called it.  A Roman victory.

Reflections

The plan of the Celtiberians had no answer once punched in the mouth by the fighting power of the Romans.  This is exactly what happened last time we played.  Everything needs to go right for the Celtiberian plan to work and I got distracted, again, by trying to deal with the Cretans first.  If I just ignored them, took my medicine and hoped they missed a bit, then maybe I could have got the big attack off in better style.  Ultimately,  this Ruse doesn’t work against the Romans, they are way too powerful in combat.  Perhaps against another block army like the Graeculi it might have a chance?  The Thracians and Numidians are too mobile so the initial attack wouldn’t have as much of an effect.  The Indians and Carthaginians with their Elephants to counter attack would also be too powerful.  Pity.  I’ll keep playing this army but probably just as Iberians from now on.