SAGA – Guide to SAGA Dice

Having now played SAGA Age of Vikings several times, I felt it would be beneficial to provide a guide to possibly one of the most confusing elements of the system, SAGA Dice, their use on Battle Boards and their various states.

The basics –

• SAGA Dice all share the following
  • All SAGA dice in a set are identical
  • Each set of dice is made up of 8 dice
  • Each die will have 3 different icons
  • They will have 6 sides
    • 3 with one icon (the common icon)
    • 2 with another icon (the uncommon icon)
    • 1 with the last icon (the rare icon)

You can get the templates for the dice from Studio Tomahawk and buy the actual dice from Gripping Beast. It has been pointed out to me that you could just use a six sided dice, but personally I feel this doesn’t support the team that developed the system to develop the next version and losses a degree of the feel of the game. But that is just my personal opinion :-).

During the game any individual SAGA Die can be in one of 4 states, I accept that this is not truly accurate to the rules, but I have found when discussing this with new people they get confused if you leave out the Generated state.

• Available – not rolled – not allocated to a SAGA ability on the battle board
• Generated – not rolled – due to be rolled during order phase – not allocated to a SAGA Ability
• Inactive – rolled – available to be allocated to a SAGA ability on the battle board
• Active – rolled and allocated to a SAGA ability on the battle board.

GENERATING SAGA dice

In simplistic terms – you generate a SAGA dice during your order phase for each unit eligible to generate a SAGA dice. See P10 of the V2 rules, for more details.

It must be remembered that under no circumstances can you have more than 8 SAGA dice across the 4 states, to quote the rules –

Having more than eight Saga dice is like sliding an ace out of your sleeve during a poker game

SAGA Rules – V2- P10

On occasion you will be able to generate more SAGA dice than you have in your available pot. When this happens you can take dice from your Battle board or Inactive pool and add them to the Generated pool. If you do this for a SAGA ability that requires multiple dice to activate (has a plus sign in it) then you must take all the dice off the battle board, any additional dice taken off the Battle board and not added to the Generated pool go back into the available pool.

INACTIVE SAGA Dice

Once you have worked out how many SAGA dice you can roll in an order phase, identified where you are getting them from (either the Available pool or off your battle board), you roll the dice and they move to the Inactive pool.

Once a dice is in the inactive pool its upmost face cannot be changed, except through you or your opponent using a SAGA ability to do so. It is awaiting allocation to your battle board or return to the Available pool.

It is at this point that your opponent may react with their Orders/Reaction abilities if they wish to.

ACTIVE SAGA Dice

Following your opponents first round of reaction activities (yes they get another one), you start placing your SAGA Dice and making them ACTIVE – this is covered in detail on P12 of V2 of the SAGA Rules.

In summary –

• During a turn you can activate basic abilities several times, as such you can allocate multiple SAGA dice with the correct symbol from the Inactive pool to a basic SAGA ability during the order phase. (P12, Column 2, Para 1)
• During a turn you can only activate each advanced ability once, and according to the rules you can only allocate enough SAGA dice to activate any advanced ability once from the Inactive pool during the Order phase (P12 , column 2, Para 7).
• If an ability has multiple SAGA dice with a plus sign between them, it requires both symbols to activate, and you must be able to allocate both symbols at the same time from your Inactive pool to the battle board. to quote the rules

You may not place just one of the two dice while waiting for Lady Luck to provide you with the second one.

SAGA Rulebook v2, p12.column2, para6

• You can use dice from your inactive pool to activate Order phase abilities in the same turn as you allocate them to the Battle board, in fact this is generally recommended. (P12, column 2, Para 8)
• Once you have transferred all SAGA dice from your Inactive pool to your Battle board that you wish, consider moving any remaining to your Combat Bonus or Activation Pool Special Ability.
• Your opponent now has their second Order/reaction phase. Once they have completed this, your order phase ends and your activation phase begins.

Remember you don’t have to place all your Inactive dice on your battle board before you trigger any Order Abilities, and you can activate and trigger an Order Ability in the same turn, even the same action.

At the end of your Order Phase, any SAGA Dice left in either the Generated or Inactive pools are returned to the Available pool. So at the end of your order phase you should only have dice in your Available pool or Active on your Battle board.

Below is a game aid that you may find useful – especially when you are starting the game.

Tables showing the relevant odds/chances of achieving a specific Symbol by the number of SAGA dice rolled- expressed in as expected results, Fractions and percentage chances.

SAGA DICE ROLLED	Rare Symbol	Uncommon Symbol	Common Symbol
1	1 roll in 6	1 roll in 3	every other roll
2	1 roll in 3	2 rolls in 3	every roll
3	every other roll	every roll	1 every roll, 2 every other roll
4	2 rolls in 3	1 every roll and 2 every 3rd roll	2 every roll
5	5 rolls in 6	1 every roll, 2 – 2 rolls in 3	2 every roll, 3 every other roll
6	1 every roll	2 every roll	3 every roll
7	1 every roll, 2 1 roll in 6	2 every roll, 3 every 3rd roll	3 every roll, 4 every other roll
8	1 every roll, 2 1 roll in 3	2 every roll, 3 – 2 rolls in 3	4 every roll
9	CHEAT	CHEAT	CHEAT

SAGA DICE ROLLED	Rare Symbol	Uncommon Symbol	Common Symbol
1	1/6	1/3	1/2
2	1/3	2/3	1
3	1/2	1	1 1/2
4	2/3	1 1/3	2
5	5/6	1 2/3	2 1/2
6	1	2	3
7	1 1/6	2 1/3	3 1/2
8	1 1/3	2 2/3	4
9	CHEAT	CHEAT	CHEAT

SAGA DICE ROLLED	Rare Symbol	Uncommon Symbol	Common Symbol
1	17%	33%	50%
2	33%	67%	100%
3	50%	100%	150%
4	67%	133%	200%
5	83%	167%	250%
6	100%	200%	300%
7	117%	233%	350%
8	133%	267%	400%
9	CHEAT	CHEAT	CHEAT