SAGA produced rather a lot of publicity when it was first released. The guys at Tomahawk and Gripping Beast were clearly taken off-guard by the demand for this game. This caused a bit of negative press for a while.

Of course those of us who supported the venture by pre-ordering had no such issues. I received my rules and Saga dice – along with the advertised free figure – all well within the promised timeframes.

When the package arrived I did some quick math – £25 for the rules and a further £12 for the dice. Add to this the postage and I was out of pocket some £40-£50 give or take a penny or two.

Firstly I will say that when I opened the package my initial reaction was one of disappointment – £25 for a few pages, soft covered and stapled. Mmmnnn.

Once I opened the rules and proceeded to read through them though I realised that whilst the price was high, so were the production values and the contents.

This is a complete game. No supplements needed – just add figures and you are away.

I had a number of Wargames Factory Vikings in various stages of completion and proceeded to finish these for SAGA. I can safely say that whilst I felt that the rules were a little high on the price scale, the fact that I can put a complete army on the table for less than £20 more than compensated for this.

The gameplay is excellent – with the game being driven by some simple and yet very elegant mechanisms. The secret is to learn how to use your board. Allocating dice to this board will give your faction access to special skills and abilities. These are the true flavour of the game.

I have played a number of Saga games now – both as Viking and recently as Saxon. I like this game.