The Old Geezer Saga Club

This past Saturday (Sept 16th) the Old Geezer Saga club got together for a 6 point mini tournament. My very good and long time friend Skip drove 13 and a half hours from Georgia just to game with us!!! Well in truth he was coming to see his nephew's new baby and we used that as an excuse to get together and do some hardcore Saga gaming. Let me introduce you to the Old Geezer boys....

From left to right, Mark "The Merciless", Rob "The Luckless", Skip "Torok the Terrible" (nickname based off his Steppe Nomad army), Kevin "Old one Eye", Dave "The wise one", and Harv "The Faithful".

Our day started at 10 AM and we played three scenarios. Each scenario was to have a two hour time limit, and counting breaks in between, only supposed to last until 6 PM. We ran over by an hour and a half.... hmmm I gotta fix that next year. The three games played in this order where "Champions of God", "God will recognize his", and finally "The Challenge" (not realizing the special rules and victory conditions had changed for the better!).

I should not have, but somehow, ole Skippy used Jedi mind tricks on me to get me to play the Mutatawwja. One should never play in a tournament environment never having played the army before, I know that, I've told him that, but somehow he got me to jump on the "this is a cool army board train".

The armies involved were as follows:

Vikings - Harv
Pagan Rus - Skip
Normans - Rob
Welsh - Dave
Irish - Mark
Mutatawwja (which should have been my Franks) - me

My first battle using the Mutatawwja was a learning experience. I had my Army setup as follows:

Warlord (was a Priest, the Enlightened one, definitely not a fighter)

3 points of Warriors (made into four six man units)
2 points of Hearthguard (four man Camels, four man horse)
1 point of Naffata (one given to each warrior unit)

Now this setup works, I think really well against Cavalry armies, but against foot I would ditch the mounts and go with foot Hearthguard. Rob had his Normans all mounted except for 1 unit of foot bows. His army was made of the following:

Warlord
1 point of Levy bow (used as a 12 man unit)
5 points of Warriors ( 2 X 10 mounted Warriors, 2 X 8 mounted Warriors, and 1 X 4 mounted Warrior)


The Mutatawwja are a fun army to play, you have to be really thoughtful about when to sacrifice a model, like pace yourself. Having the Enlightened one really helped give me that combo dice ability punch, and the Naffata were instrumental in causing fatigue on an enemy unit that I could then follow up smacking with a different warrior unit and using that fatigue to my advantage. The Camels were just awesome against his horse. I walked up with a naffata unit, caused a hit on an eight man mounted warrior unit which placed three fatigue on him, and then smacked him with my Camels. If was glorious! But in the end I got a little greedy and lost my camels and my units were whittled down and I had used way to many sacrifices so ended up being defeated by Rob's Normans.

What I took away from the game was some good lessons learned and I used those to my advantage in the next two games. If you're looking for that "fun factor" army the Mutatawwja are for you. If you're thinking of taking them to a tournament I would highly recommend playing them quite a lot and against many different opponents to learn them really well. If you go to a large tournment there will be a higher likely hood of more experienced players there and you will get your butt handed to you most likely with these boys, BUT, it will be gloriously fun!!!!

I'll show a few pictures here, and would love to share more about the battles but my friends notes where like reading doctors notes (unreadable scrawl) so I'll just post a few pictures and tell you how they finished below..

[above the Champions of God scenario]

[above God will recognize his]

I am sad to say that after a full day of gaming and lot's of questions, and trying to be a good host, I was completely worn out by the end of the day and completely forgot to take photos of our last game "The Challange".

The final results are as follows:

1st Place = Mark's Irish (and until the next tournament we all have to call him "The Boss".... sadly)

2nd Place = Skip's Pagan Rus 

3rd Place = Harv's Vikings (and a great job for only his third time playing!)

4th Place = Kevin's Mutatawwja (I just know I would have won playing the Franks;))

5th Place = Dave's Welsh (Dave had a grand time and learned alot, but more importantly this is his first army he completely painted for a gaming system in like 20 years, and they look great to boot!!!)

6th Place = Rob's Norman's (Rob is a great guy and a good player but somehow always finishes last, now you know why he is called the luckless;))

Top slaughter points honor's went to Harv who tied with Dave with 61 points. Well done gentleman. 

In all we had a grand time, and we ate, drank, and gamed. What more could a gamer ask for!

Cheers

Kevin