The Last Romans – SAGA Abilities

Analysis and learnings’ from the The Last Romans’ battle board and SAGA Abilities

Eighth in my series, the others I have done so far are.

• Carolingian Franks
• Anglo Saxons
• Vikings
• Anglo Danes
• Welsh
• IRISH
• Normans
• Scots

Carrying on with the original format for these we start with –

Quick Overview of Faction

So what can we take with The Last Romans as a warband.

They also have the choice of 2 Legendary Units both of which we have already mentioned – Harald Hadrada and the Klibanophori

This is the second time we have seen Harold Hadrada as a Legendary unit in SAGA Age of Vikings, this time he is labelled as the Captain of the Varangian Guard. He comes as a replacement warlord, armed with Heavy Weapon.

MacBeth whilst on the table enables the warband player to always roll 6 SAGA dice regardless of the number the Warband should generate and as mention earlier he enables the inclusion of Norman Exiles/Refugees in the Warband.

No a very exiting list compared to the last two (Irish and Normans)

SAGA Abilities

So onto the battle board.

Basic SAGA Abilities

The Last Romans as with the majority of battle boards in the Age of Vikings have 3 basic abilities which activate units based on unit type e.g. hero, hearth guard, Warriors or levies.

These 3 basic activation abilities are –

• CUSTODES – Activate a hero, or a unit of hearth guards
• PEDITES – Activate a unit of warriors
• SERVI – Activate a unit of levies

COMBAT BONUS

No surprises here, this operates for the Last Romans 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.

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

So no Order, Activation/Reaction or Shooting abilities.

Lets take the most prevalent first, Melee abilities.

Disordering volley -a nice simple to understand one to begin with. When triggered you gain 2 defence dice, if your unit has ranged weapons and at least 6 figures this is upped to 4 defence dice.

Frenzy – this is a new one too, it can only be used when you are the defender in a melee. When triggered it inflicts a fatigue on your unit and rewards you with 2 attack and 2 defence dice. It also stops your opponent from using your fatigue during this melee.

kontos – this is only triggerable by a Mounted Hearthguard unit, luckily that is the only way that Hearthguards come with the Late Romans. When its triggered you roll a die for each figure in your units, on a 4 or more the unit must discard one of their attack or defence dice and your choose which.

superior tactics – so if you trigger this with the UNCOMMON symbol you gain 1 attack and 1 defence die, and an extra 1 attack or defence die. If you trigger it with the RARE symbol you gain 2 attack and 2 defence die and an extra 1 one of either.

Lets see the abilities triggerable during the Activation phase

INDIRECT FIRE – only triggerable by units armed with bows. Once triggered you activate a unit to shoot, during this shooting attack all figures count as having line of sight regardless of whether they do or don’t.

MASSED VOLLEY – this is a bit of a ronseal ability, i.e. does exactly what it says in the name, that is it activates all foot units with ranged weapons to shoot, i.e. generates a massed volley.

OUTFLANK – this allows a unit to be activated to move, this move will generate no fatigue and cannot pass within M of an enemy unit. If you use the RARE symbol, you get to re-roll the die and place it on the battle board. This is basically a manoeuvre move but having to stay M away from the enemy instead of L.

Now the abilities triggerable during the Activation/Reaction Phase.

DEFENCE – this is triggered after an enemy is activated to shoot, but before the attack is resolved. It lets you choose who they shoot, alas it still has to be one of your units and a legal target for at least half of the shooters models.

PROTECT – this is the melee version of DEFENCE – actually that is all there is that needs saying about it.

Next the abilities triggerable during the Orders Phase.

STRATEGOS – this also can be triggered as an ORDER/REACTION and is actually quite a complex one – when triggered you take 8 dice and place them on the battle board, up to 4 of these dice can be added to a melees attack or defence dice pools instead of triggering a SAGA ability. This can be done for each and every melee this turn, until you run out of dice on the ability, At the end of the turn any dice remaining are discarded.

And that’s it for the abilities, so what have we learned about the Last Romans?

1. Well bows leads to benefits- at least for 4 of the ADVANCED ABILITIES
   1. DEFENCE, INDIRECT FIRE, DISORDERING VOLLEY and MASSED VOLLEY either only work for bow armed units, or generate better rewards for units with ranged weapons.
2. Also Melee, Melee, Melee – for 6 of the ADVANCED ABILITIES
   1. DISORDERING VOLLEY actually generates defence dice for Melee, don’t be misled by its title. Also FRENZY, SUPERIOR TACTICS and STRATEGOS help you generate both Attack and Defence dice.
   2. PROTECT lets you redirect the enemies charge to hit a more preferential target, one hopefully that is more capable in Melee.
   3. When using your Mounted Hearthguard don’t forget KONTOS, it will help you skew the odds in your favour.
3. OUTFLANK is a non Fatigue generating Manoeuvre with less restrictions – use it to surprise your enemy with a unit in the rear or to take out their ranged annoyances.

Hope this was interesting/useful, Only 3 boards left in Age of Vikings, now will I complete them before Age of Invasions is released?.. Fun gaming all.