Irish – SAGA Abilities

Analysis and learnings’ from the Irish battle board and SAGA Abilities

Six in my series.

• Carolingian Franks
• Anglo Saxons
• Vikings
• Anglo Danes
• Welsh
• and now the IRISH

Having learnt from last time I am reverting back to the original format.

Quick Overview of Faction

So what can we take in an Irish warband. Unlike the factions we’ve looked at so far the Irish have loads of options. Also they have 2 Faction Special rules.

They also have the choice of 2 Legendary Units – Brian Boruma Cennetig and Ulf The Quarrelsome.

Brian is one of the few Legendary hero’s who is free – in part that is because he is old and Infirm which means his stats aren’t very good and neither are his Special Rules, which are less than a standard warlord. However as long as he is on the table, all Irish units gain the Determination special rules. That means each of them can activate for free once a turn, now that is quite a benefit.

Ulf is also an exception, so far all the Legendary units we have looked at have been Warlord replacements, Ulf is a Curadh and can only join a warband if Brian Boruma is the Warlord, at which point he cost 1 point. He generates no SAGA dice, but has agression 10 and armour 6 in melee as standard. He also has the Terror special rule, which means when he eliminates a unit all units from the opposition suffer a fatigue marker where ever they are on the table. This replaces the normal fatigue generated when a unit is eliminated to units within S of the eliminated unit.

The SAGA Age Of Vikings 2019 FAQ adds the following for Irish

IRISH (PAGES 38 AND 39)

An Irish warband may recruit a maximum of 2 Curaidh and a single unit of Irish Dogs.

Brian Boru’s Curaidh have no equipment options, like their Lord. They must be as old as him!

Note that each Curaidh eliminated counts as one eliminated unit for the slaughter points.

Irish Dogs have their movement and charge distances reduced by dangerous terrain. Their special rule only applies to rough terrain, as so classified.

SAGA Age of vikings 2019 faq

So we have a fairly flexible list with some interesting options and special units.

SAGA Abilities

So onto the battle board.

Basic SAGA Abilities

The Irish continue to follow the majority of battle boards in the Age of Vikings with 3 basic abilities which activate units based on unit type e.g. hero, hearth guard, Warriors or levies.

These 3 basic activation abilities are –

• FIANNA – Activate a hero, or a unit of hearth guards
• BONNACHTS – Activate a unit of warriors
• KERNS – Activate a unit of levies

COMBAT BONUS

No surprises here, this operates for the Irish as for most factions in the Age of Vikings. That is you place SAGA dice into the ability and spend them to up your attack or defence dice during Melee, Shooting or Shooting/Reaction on a 1 for 1 basis, or a 2 for 1 basis for the relevant rare symbol.

ACTIVATION POOL

Again no surprises, this is a common ability, for 1 of the rare saga dice symbols you can take 2 of your available SAGA Dice, roll them and add them to your inactive Saga dice pool – see my post on SAGA Dice for more information on the different states of SAGA dice. Because this is a basic ability that is triggered in the orders phase, so long as you have enough available SAGA dice – and remember when you trigger an ability the SAGA dice used to trigger it becomes available, so you really only need a minimum of 1 SAGA dice in your available pool prior to triggering to use- and you keep rolling the rare symbol a 1 in 6 chance you an trigger the ACTIVATION POOL multiple times.

Advanced SAGA Abilities

As with all the Age of Vikings battle boards there are 10 Advanced SAGA Abilities.

• 1 are triggerable during the Activation Phase
• 1 are triggerable during the Activation/Reaction Phase
• 4 are triggerable during a Melee activation,
• 2 are triggerable during a Shooting activation,
• 3 are triggerable during a Shooting/Reaction activation,
• 1 is triggerable during the Orders Phase,
• 1 is triggerable during the Orders/Reaction Phase,

This is possibly the most well round set of SAGA Abilities we have seen so far.

So abilities triggerable in the Melee Phase.

Wail of the Banshee – this is also triggerable as a Shooting/Reaction, it gains 2 defence dice, and each of your defence dice get a bonus on their roll for each fatigue token the enemy unit has. So potentially +3 on the dice.

Moment of Truth – another than is also triggerable as a Shooting/Reaction, this ends the current SAGA Abilities and Fatigue phase of the current Melee or shooting action.

Spirits of the Land – again also triggerable as a Shooting/Reaction, now this is the first one we have come across that allocates a bonus depending on the terrain you are in. It boosts your defence dice with a +1 bonus. This is the second ability for the Irish which provides a bonus to dice rolled, rather than additional dice.

Ireland’s Heart – This is another first for this series – an ability that only benefits hero’s. It inflicts 2 additional automatic hits. and makes the Hero’s first use of Resilience fatigue free.

So as we have already seen all the Shooting/reaction abilities, lets look at those triggerable during Shooting.

Fir Bolg – Gaelic for Belly Men – Gain 3 attack dice, if the RARE symbol is used to activate this ability, each attack dice which scores 6 or more inflicts an additional automatic hit, and as we have seen previously – automatic hit does not mean automatic casualty the opponent still gets their save roll.

SIDHE – Irish Burial Grounds associated with Faeries – this is a strange one – it makes you discard all your attack dice, but until the end of the turn all attack dice rolled in a shooting attack against the Targeted unit get a +1 bonus on the roll.

So what are the abilities triggerable in the Orders Phase.

BLOOD OF KINGS – Another ability that only benefits hero’s, triggering this during the Order Phase means until the start of your next turn, all heroes with Resilience (1) count as having Resilience (2) instead. That’s quite a benefit.

And now those that can be triggered as Order/Reactions

HEIRS OF MIL – Irish Legends AKA Sons of Mil – Another one dependent on terrain this time uneven terrain. Once triggered it lasts until the start of the players next turn, and makes the unit impossible to target either by shooting or charge unless the target unit is within VS.

Onto those triggered during the Activation phase.

THE OLD WAY – This is an interesting one it is dependent on the number of heroes you have in your warband, and is limited to units with armour 3 or less. It enable you to activate as many units as you have heroes, and if you use the RARE symbol the first activation generates no fatigue.

Now lets look at the Activation/Reaction.

SONS OF DANA – Danu is a Celtic goddess – This is triggered after an enemy unit has activate for movement and ended its movement within S of uneven terrain. Another one dependent on terrain. When triggered you resolve a shooting attack against the target, and get 4 bonus attack dice, but no other SAGA Abilities can be triggered during the Shooting attack..

So that’s all the abilities, so what have we learned about the Irish?

1. The number of Heroes in the Warband can be important, try to maximise your number of Heroes.
2. Also terrain placement is really useful for the IRISH – if you are playing the IRISH and have a chance to push up the number of pieces of terrain on the board – do it.
3. If you can arrange to use SIDHE on a unit with few shooting attack dice, as its first SAGA ability, and then use SIDHE and combat bonus, or target the enemy unit with another unit that generates loads of shooting attack dice, you can maximise the benefit from this.
4. The Irish abilities generate modifiers to the dice, so keep an eye on your opponents SAGA abilities that require specific scores to activate or cause effect and use your abilities to protect yourself.
5. To maximise the benefit of WAIL OF THE BANSHEE remember to target units with high levels of fatigue.
6. Keep MOMENT OF TRUTH to block the opponent when they have prepared several SAGA abilities to use in a shooting attack or Melee attack.

So what can we say about the Irish in SAGA Age of Vikings, well first of all they benefit heavily from the Terrain. TBH rather than me repeat what Radnor says in Age of Vikings (P40, Column 1, Para 1) I’ll recommend you read that, and I will update this once I have either played them or faced them :-)

Hope this was interesting/useful, I have covered all the Factions which I have used so far, and I appear now committed to completing the series with those I have not played for Age of Vikings, and probably will continue with the factions from the other Age’s when I get the books :-).