A Saga in Sparta - Playtesting

So over Xmas I developed an idea I'd had some weeks before, that Saga could be quite easily used for other periods.  It would have been fairly easy to shift it to the middle ages or the Romano British field; but I actually wanted to take it to something quite removed.  Greece.

The rules were not to be changed at all, but I would need to write battleboards up for each state.  I opted to work on four nations, Sparta, Athens, Thrace and Persia, and wanted to make each one distinctive, this meant inventing new abilities.

Of course these need testing, and so we tried out a couple of them at the club.

Mark took the Athenian list, intended to be defensive and well organised, whilst I took the Thracian list, intended to be highly mobile and good on the counter attack but with less punch.

For the most part they worked well; about half of the abilities are standard ones lifted from other battleboards to suit the racial profiles.  As for the new ones, I included skills to reflect both attributes and the style of use of certain weapons.

The game was a defeat for the Thracians, mainly as I forsook an easy win to try out more of the board.  They steadily retired in the face of the enemy, fatiguing them in the pursuit and stretching them out.  But the Athenians were making great use of their attributes too.  One of which at least we concluded fit the Spartans better, and so along with a few other tweaks, there is a little revision work to be done.

Nevertheless the principle is absolutely (in my view) sound.  I just need to make some modifications; and then I'll post the game sheets up on the blog.

Possibly after a little more playtesting!