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Monday, September 17, 2012

Musicians and Priests: House Rules

It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets. 

- Voltaire 


Well before SAGA, I had two modest sized armies of Anglo-Saxons and Vikings. Blame Bernard Cornwell. Somewhere along the way,  I added in Normans and Byzantines. Either through the purchase of unit deals or the occasional impulse buy, I have ended up with a number of support figures for each army. WAB made use of such figures, but SAGA does not.

This is a very minor house rule.  It is not intended to alter the game play and/or the outcome of a game.  Its main purpose is to add variety to the table and make some use of the musician and priest figures that I have accumulated.

1) Before starting a match, each player can choose one support character, either a musician or a priest.

2) Musicians and Priests are attached to a unit at the start of the game.  They can attach to any unit, Warlord down to Levy. They cannot switch units once gameplay has begun. Their base must stay within VS distance of at least one figure in the unit.

Each character offers slightly different advantages:

3) Musicians:  If attached to Warlords  musicians increase the range of the We Obey activation rule by an additional S length.




If attached to a group of warriors, hearthguard or levy, the musician increases their attack dice by one.







4) Priests: When attached to a unit, they generate one extra defense die.









5) Priests may not be mounted. Only musicians may attach to mounted units, if they are mounted as well. As an extra benefit, priests and musicians offer one additional casualty for their unit. It is the controlling players decision on whether to remove the musician or priest after suffering casualties.  Once their character has been removed, the benefits they offer are also removed.


All musicans are treated equally.  Drummers and string players are welcome.









1 comment:

  1. Interesting rules, Bernard Cornwell is the reason i fell to my Saxon/Viking urge!

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