Reply To: Saga… why?

[dugthefug1644 30188xp 0]

Evil scarred Norman.

Why can’t I beat the Normans? Why are the Pagun Rus Filth?

I can’t beat the Norman’s because I don’t know my battleboards. I rock up to the club with my painted Normans and my painted Vikings and Saxons / Danes and just throw down 6pts of whatever my opponent fancies that day. I am an awful tactician and roll dice and read my abilities at the table and hope I have picked something useful. That is not the way to beat some of the better factions in the game. The Norman list I have built and painted is able to use the majority if not all of the abilities on the battleboard. Whereas I think that I have one levy unit in my Saxons list, where perhaps having a 2nd unit would be better. The ability to suddenly change Levies to a warrior stat line (or at their least attacking stats) for the Saxons is really useful and I am not utilising it fully.

All that said, there is a consensus that some battleboards and factions are easier to play and have a marginally improved chance of winning in most people’s estimations. Hence… “Rus Filth”.

With my typical lazy way… I don’t know the Pagan Rus abilities and why they are considered filthy, but I know that people rate them highly and don’t find beating them easy. The fun has been that Gerry the Giant has been making the “Rus Filth” statement in his fun matter of fact way for so long that I and others love to hear him say it as a running in-joke. So much so that I and others say it whenever the faction comes up or whenever talk about balance and the best factions gets discussed.

On our Facebook page I have often asked what factions people find hard to beat and I think the fact that the answers are fairly diverse, probably means that the game isn’t that unbalanced? For example, one person’s top tier / hard to beat factions for each Saga book looked like this.

AoV (Age of Vikings): Pagan Rus, Welsh, Scots
AoC (Age of Crusades): Crusaders, Pagan People, Ordensstaat
AoI (Age of Invasion): Goths, Picts, Huns
AoM (Age of Magic): Lords of the Wild, Undead, (Horde)

The only one I would add would be the Normans for AoV and that view is shared by plenty of people. This person’s list seemed to be supported by various other people in the facebook group, but there isn’t outcry to change the game. The majority of the player base seem to revel the chance to get the best out of their army and beat a faction that in most people’s estimation would normally beat your faction board vs board. Plus the battle board dice rolls can be a great leveller. You can have amazing abilities on the board, but if the wrong dice fall you have to change your tactics on the fly or delay, waiting for the dice to hopefully roll your way next turn.

Being as I don’t play to win at any costs to enjoy the game (luckily), or whether the Pagan Rus are Filth or The Norman’s are evil kaniggets, I will still enjoy this game. Easy to get into and hard to master is usually a winning formula and that is probably part of Saga’s success as a skirmish game.