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Hi all. I bought SAGA at SELWG and am very interested in the games that are possible.

As well as the standard Viking, Norman, et al games, I've dug out my GW Lord of the Rings Rohan and Orc forces which I lovingly converted and painted but which were then used with a very dissapointing set of GW rules which I quickly lost interest in.

Has anyone thought of using SAGA for LOTR games? After all, the Rohan 'style' seems to be based on a consolidation of Norman and Anglo-Danish fighting styles and costumes/weapons and the possibilities for games and scenarios fits right in with the LOTR setting.

I'm currently trying to work out which Norman and Anglo-Danish traits to keep on the battleboards to combine into a Rohan one, and maybe base the Orc ones on the Viking board with some changes. I'm really fired up by this idea and would be very interested in any opinions on this.

Apologies if this 'fantasy' setting is out of the scope of this forum, but I'm aiming to play more 'historical style' games with my LOTR forces, rather than ones dominated by heroes and magic.

Regards, Mart

I know what you mean I ditched WOTR but the SBG game is still one of the best skirmish games around.

The problem I am trying to solve for a LOTR version is the orc. I feel that to represent a dark hoard orcs should be classed as Levy to get that feel of overwhelming numbers against you. Now Levy do not generate SAGA dice which is the problem and there are a few options but don't know which route to take.

1. Just allow them to generate dice.
2. Have a specific Warlord that allows Levy to generate dice like that Welsh Warlord. Maybe a Ringwraith or Gothmog.
3. Orc Levy generate dice as long as the Warlord is alive representing the sudden fall of discipline if their leader dies. This will then lead to the Warlord characteristically leading from the rear while throwing meat at the enemy.
4. Use of the SAGA board to move all Levy Orcs, maybe from the use of the Palantir by Sauron.

I suppose there is nothing stopping us from using 2, 3 and 4 as rules at the same time?

Orc Levy bows would be the same as current levy, non bow armed orcs would have armour 4.
Warriors could be represented by Morannon orcs and Huscarls by Uruk-hai.
Would also need to add in single model units of trolls - that might take some thought.
And yes, the Viking board would be the best one to base orcs on with a few name changes and a couple of new specific ones to add flavour.

Dave

I have been thinking the same thing and the Viking board would work the best with maybe a couple of chages.
What about orc warriors just being a larger unit buy say 10 or 12 instead of 8 for 1 point. Bows would still be levy troops. Uruk-hai would be the Huscarls. Trolls would be like buying a hero, say maybe 2 points, Ringwraiths might get tricky though, they should be expensive to buy and hard to kill maybe have the ability to shake off more hits something like that.

Another thouht would be that the orc units are bigger but their exhaustion levels are lower. Orc warriors have 12 man units but exhaust with two fatigue? Something like that.

We have yet to discover the benefits of exhausting a unit, can't see the point, they just spend an action to be unexhausted, maybe we are missing something, its rare for a unit to get 2 fatigue markers with us. As for the more models for your points, I'd prefer to make no changes to a rules system if possible.

Exhausted enemy are dead enemy - ask an Anglo-Dane. They only fight at half dice and can't do anything but rest. Remember you can load more fatigue than the exhaustion level and can only lose one per turn (and have to be activated to do that).

12 man units with 2 hits to exhaust sound like levy without the bow. Levy-without-missile may appear in some standard lists yet but until they do, try allow them to hit with a dice per 2 figures rather than a dice per 3 to compensate (I haven't calculated the numbers on this). So there are lots of them, they die quickly but are still dangerous.
Warrior and hearthguard types are going to be pretty much human equivalent, though for scenarios you might want to insist on a minimum number of levy units to get the horde effect.

Peter

With regard to LOTR I thought of the following basing it loosely aroundnthe various troop types available.

Warlord - Any of the major characters
Hearthguard - Uruk-Hai
Warriors - Morannon orcs
Levy - The bog standard orc

These suggestions are geared around Mordor but would function reasonably well for Isengard perhaps replacing the Morannon orcs with Warg Riders for the warriors to give you a different character.

For the forces of Good perhaps the following

Warlord - Named character
Hearthguard - Kings guard for Rohan, Guards of the Fountain Court for Gondor
Warriors - Riders of Rohan/Gondor Knights
Levy - Rohan Militia/Gondor troops

While I realise this weights the forces of good quite heavily on the mounted forces, I struggled to find a troop type that would be classed as levy so I moved the standard infantry troops down one and filled the gap with the knights/riders.

I suppose the real work would revolve around the battle boards and how to make each one unique. I can see the Gondor one being close to the Norman one with the heavy knights. Rohan equating roughly to the Welsh with rapid hit and run tactics. Mordor perhaps the Anglo Dane and Isengard the Viking one. It would be interesting to see what others can come up with. These are merely my ramblings but perhaps they might inspire a bit more conversation.

Cheers

Don't like the idea that the main troop for Gondor are levy, remember these don't generate SAGA dice and so you will have an army full of guard and cavalry which a force of Gondor should not be. I'd like to see a set up where the Evil side have lots of levy (rules, heroes, SAGA board etc to overcome SAGA dice problem) and the Good side do not, just so that the Evil player has loads of troops against the gallant Good side's few. Classic Good V Evil set up. Do armies have to have Levy, I can't see dwarves and elves being levy and equal to an orc. I suppose Good Man-Levy could always be made up of fiefdom archers or Rohan farmers if wanted.

The main characters and mighty heroes (Boromir, Suladan, Saruman, witch-king etc) should really be named heroes with special abilities like Saga's. Lesser heroes (Beregond, Grishnak etc) & captains could be your normal Warlord.

Any chance we could drop the PJ and GW' inspired lists altogether? Levy and orcs is the first hurdle for me. The Bodyguard of Bolg were just orcs who's actions warrant Hearthguard rating more than any Uruk-Hai exploit, movie or book. Races of men are fairly well served by the existing list and that is only going to get better over time. Elves and Dwarves may be a problem but getting a good old evil orc army into the field is needed before you have to cross that bridge. I like the idea tweaking the levy to where it can melee a bit better and also 1-2 units being mandatory. I also like some sort of Taskmaster hero ( must have a whip ) who could off set some of the dice limitations of levy.

Colin

I used the GW inspired lists as they are the easiest to give some delineation between troop types. If anyone out there has a listing that would allow the use of just orcs for the various 'levels' of warrior in SAGA, it would be interesting to see them posted here. At the end of the day it doesn't really matter what figures are used to represent the different troop types as it is the battle board that will provide more of the character and flavour of the army. In game play, as long as your opponent can readily distinguish between hearthguard, warrior and levy there shouldn't be a problem. Has anyone else got any suggestions for what could be used?