Norse-Gaels – SAGA Abilities

Analysis and learnings’ from the Norse-Gaels ‘ battle board and SAGA Abilities

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

• Carolingian Franks
• Anglo Saxons
• Vikings
• Anglo Danes
• Welsh
• IRISH
• Normans
• Scots
• Last Romans
• Pagan Rus

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

Quick Overview of Faction

So what can we take with Norse-Gaels as a warband.

They also have the choice of 2 Legendary Units one of which we have already mentioned – Brodir of Man and the Black Crew

If you take Brodir – you can only take The Black Crew as units. However you can take the Black Crew with out Brodir but then you can only take a single unit of them.

SAGA Abilities

So onto the battle board.

Basic SAGA Abilities

The Norse-Gaels 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 –

• NORSEMEN – Activate a hero, or a unit of hearth guards
• BONNACHTS – Activate a unit of warriors
• SLAVES – Activate a unit of levies

COMBAT BONUS

Now the Norse-Gaels have a unique element to this – Their board states that only saga abilities can place dice here, this means that you cannot chose to place dice on the Combat bonus but must activate a SAGA Ability in order to add dice to the combat bonus. Each dice added can be cashed in for 1 attack die or 2 if you use the 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.

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

So no Shooting/Reaction or Activation/Reaction abilities.

Lets take the most prevalent first, Melee abilities.

SPILL BLOOD – This is the first ability that allows you to add dice to your Combat Bonus. this can also be triggered after either a melee or shooting action, it allows you to roll as many available SAGA dice as models removed as casualties on both sides. All the dice are then placed in the Combat Bonus.

DETERMINATION – this is a sneaky one, so long as you win the Melee that you activated it for – you can stop your opponent from charging the unit until the start of your next turn.

HOWLING AXES – This immediately gives you 3 attack dice, during this melee you gain an additional 1 attack dice each time you trigger your Combat Bonus. That means a single Combat Bonus could generate 3 attack die if you used the rare symbol to activate it.

CLENCHED FISTS – another ability that allows you to place SAGA dice on the Combat Bonus. When activated it allows you to take 3 or 4 (if you use the rare symbol) of your available dice roll them and add them to the combat bonus

NORSE – this is another ability which involves the Combat Bonus. This time it alters what the Combat Bonus done from adding an Attack Dice to allowing the player to cause an automatic hit to the number of hits inflicted or increase your units Armour by 1. If you use the rare symbol you get to do both.

Lets see the abilities triggerable during the Activation phase

DANCE OF DEATH – lets you generate up to 3 COMBAT BONUS dice, by placing a fatigue of a non-exhausted unit.

Lets see the abilities triggerable during the Shooting phase, we have already looked at SPILL BLOOD

GAELS – gain 2 attack dice, also gain 1 additional attack dice each time you trigger the Combat Bonus.

Now the abilities triggerable during the Orders/Reaction Phase.

EXPENDABLE – this can also be triggered during your Orders Phase. It allows the player to transfer any Fatigue that one of their units should suffer to a friendly non exhausted unit of slaves within S.

Next the abilities triggerable during the Orders Phase, I have already covered EXPENDABLE

UNBOWED – yet another one linked to the COMBAT BONUS, this one lasts until the end of the turn once triggered and allows you to roll an available SAGA dice and place it on the COMBAT BONUS each time your opponent uses a fatigue from one of your units. If you trigger this with a rare symbol, you get to place a rare symbol on the COMBAT BONUS instead of rolling the dice.

KING OF THE ISLES – this is a Warlord Booster – it ups the Warlords Armour to 6 till the start of your next turn, also at the beginning of each melee of shooting attack involving the Warlord, an available SAGA dice may be rolled and placed on your Combat Bonus.

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

1. COMBAT BONUS COMBAT BONUS COMBAT BONUS – its all about the COMBAT BONUS
   1. 8 of the Advanced SAGA Abilities involve or impact the COMBAT BONUS
      1. 5 add dice to the COMBAT BONUS – KING OF THE ISLES, CLENCHED FISTS, SPILL BLOOD, DANCE OF DEATH and UNBOWED.
      2. 2 add an extra ATTACK DICE each time a COMBAT BONUS dice is used – HOWLING AXES for melee and GAELS for shooting.
      3. 1 changes what the COMBAT BONUS does – NORSE.
      4. But remember that the Norse Gaels combat bonus operates in a different manner to all other factions
         1. You can’t just add dice to it
         2. You will need spare Available SAGA dice in order to be able to transfer dice to the COMBAT BONUS
   1. 3 involve fatigue – DANCE OF DEATH, EXPENDABLES and UNBOWED.
   2. 1 stops your opponent from charging one of your units – DETERMINATION.
2. There are some great opportunities for ability chaining –
   1. Link SPILL BLOOD and UNBOWED with either HOWLING AXES or GAELS to replenish your COMBAT BONUS after maximising its benefit.
   2. Link NORSE with HOWLING AXES to get an extra attack die and either an automatic hit or an extra Armour.
   3. Link EXPENDABLES with DANCE OF DEATH to get 3 COMBAT BONUS dice and transfer the Fatigue onto couple of Slave units.

Hope this was interesting/useful, Only 1 boards left in Age of Vikings.