Pagan Rus – SAGA Abilities

Ok first off- sorry for the featured image – got no figures that really fitted – but after do the write up – I came across one of my screen shots from VALHEIM which to me fitted.. its Vikings and weather.

Analysis and learnings’ from the Pagan Rus’ battle board and SAGA Abilities, been looking forward to doing these guy’s having just watched the Vikings Tv series and the appearance of the Russian Vikings in it.

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

• Carolingian Franks
• Anglo Saxons
• Vikings
• Anglo Danes
• Welsh
• IRISH
• Normans
• Scots
• The Last Romans AKA Byzantines

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

Quick Overview of Faction

So what can we take with a Pagan Rus a warband.

They also have the choice of 2 Legendary Units both of which are legendary warlords, Svetoslav 1 of Kiev and Rurik.

Sviatoslav 1 of Kiev, comes with an additional Resilience and the ability to generate 2 SAGA dice. Also whilst he leads your warband the Khangan! advanced ability counts as a basic Saga ability, but it may only be triggered once per melee. Now I was going to try and translate Khangan but I ended up with too many options. which made me think the translation is situational. If anyone would like to provide translations – Drop me a note at HysnapMMH@gmail.com. Whilst Sviatoslav is leading the warband you can take up to 3 Steppe Nomad Mercenary units (SAGA Age of Vikings P66 Column 1 Para 1). Also at the beginning of the turn you may decide not to use him to generate SAGA dice. If you do this every other unit gets a free movement activation, which must be taken as each units first action or else the unit loses the option to take it.

Now we come to Rurik, we already know that if he leads your warband you get an extended option of troops, but you are also not allowed to use any mercenaries. His second ability, if you count an extended roster as an ability, enables him at the beginning of an activation phase to take a single fatigue marker from each of his warband and then redistribute them as they wish back across their units. – Call me weird or call me Al, even you can call me Weird Al – but currently I don’t see the benefit this offers.

Lets look at the SAGA Abilities and see what being able to redistribute fatigue may give you.

An extremley limited options list unless you are taking Rurik.

SAGA Abilities

So onto the battle board.

Basic SAGA Abilities

The Pagan Rus 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 –

• VARJAZI – Activate a hero, or a unit of hearth guards
• MILITIA – Activate a unit of warriors
• SLAVES – Activate a unit of levies

COMBAT BONUS

No surprises here, this operates for the Pagan Rus 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,
• 2 is triggerable during the Orders Phase,
• 2 is triggerable during the Orders/Reaction Phase,
• 1 are triggerable during the Activation Phase
• 1 are triggerable during the Activation/Reaction Phase
• 0 are triggerable during a Shooting activation,
• 0 are triggerable during a Shooting/Reaction activation,

So no Shooting or Shooting/Reaction abilities, not a surprise for a Roster with limited ranged options.

Lets take the most prevalent first, Melee abilities.

KHAGANI – Only usable by the Hearth Guards or warriors. To trigger this the warlord needs to be within S of the unit, if this is so you get your choice of Attack and/or defence dice up to 3, if you used the RARE symbol this increases by 2 to 5.

BLACK BEARS – You get to increase your Armour by 1, by discarding attack and/or defence dice equal to your units Armour.

WHITE WOLVES – I am seeing an animal theme :-), what’s next Grey Geese (got to love a Grey Goose, ok ok, just wanted an excuse to link to possibly the most expensive and best Vodka I’ve ever had especially in a post about Russians). oops off track. Ooo.. another one involving changes to your Armour, this time you reduce it by 1 and then gain attack and defence dice equal to your new Armour value. If you used the RARE symbol you also get to remove a fatigue from your unit.

BLOOD FEUD – Boo.. no animal – but an either or Advanced ability, triggerable by any symbol. Both involve changing your armour ,you seeing a theme? I am. So either increase/decrease your armour by 1 and then impose the same change on your opponents unit.

Lets see the abilities triggerable during the Order phase

THE LONG WINTER – Once triggered and until the start of the players next turn, winter has hit and all charges and ranged attacks are limited to M range.

WRATH OF THE EAST- Is this a weather reference, well I think it is, a reference to the biting East wind. This is a fun one to use with BLACK BEARS, WHITE WOLVES and BLOOD FEUD, once this is triggered in the Order Phase and until the end of the turn, the player gains 2 Attack and 2 Defence dice each time your units Armour increases or decreases.

Now the abilities triggerable during the Order/Reaction Phase.

BLIZZARD – OO weather reference No.3 – will there be any more? So what does it do? Once triggered you nominate a unit, any and all open terrain within VS of a figure of that unit counts as uneven terrain until the end of the turn.

FROZEN WINDS – and the weather theme continues. This one generates a fatigue on each unit with at least 1 model touched by a L measuring stick placed by the player, ensuring that one end is within M of a table edge.

Next the abilities triggerable during the Activation Phase.

THE PACK – so back to animals. Once triggered the player resolves a shooting attack. They get to roll 2 attack dice for each friendly unit within M of the nominated enemy, so long as it contains at least 5 models – the players unit that is not the target unit. No SAGA Abilities can be triggered during this shooting attack.

Next the abilities triggerable during the Activation/Reaction Phase.

BITING COLD – and we return to the weather references. Once triggered, the opposition completes the Activation this was a reaction to, and then the relevant enemy unit cannot be activated again this turn.

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

1. Know your enemy as you know yourself – this really matters with the Pagan Rus
   1. If you are going to use BLACK BEARS, WHITE WOLVES, BLOOD FEUD and WRATH OF THE EAST it’s important you know your enemies Armour and your armour to effectively use these with out backing yourself into a corner.
   2. BLACK BEARS works best on units with low armour, as this reduces the cost and potentially delivers the biggest benefit.
   3. WHITE WOLVES works best on units with high armour values, as this minimises the cost impact and maximises the benefit,
   4. FROZEN WINDS needs you to recognise your enemies troop disposition in order to trigger it at the most optimal time, so that it effects your enemy more than you
   5. THE PACK is another where you really need to watch your troop’s and the enemies disposition to maximise your impact.
2. Know your battlefield and troop placement
   1. BLIZZARD, FROZEN WINDS and THE PACK to be maximised need you to understand the layout of the battlefield.

Got to love the themes on this board – Beasts and weather :-)..

Hope this was interesting/useful, Only 2 boards left in Age of Vikings and Age of Magic waiting in the wings.