Saga was a pleasant surprise. I won the game in a contest and was going to trade it. But my son and I played it and it was fun.
Saga is a card game and has a medieval theme. You set out 5 kingdom cards that everyone races to win. The kingdoms are defended by two knights. Each knight has a point value and the sum of their values is the Defending Force’s strength. You have to attack with a greater strength to conquer a kingdom. Each player has a hand of knights to make up these Attacking Forces. As the game goes on the kingdoms are conquered by the players and the game shifts into a battle among the players for the kingdoms. So what happens to the Defending Force when a kingdom is conquered? If the kingdom is not owned by a player, the knights become Free Knights and are available as mercenaries for a price (Fame points). If the kingdom is ‘owned’ by a player, the Defending Force goes back into the loser’s hand. The game ends when a player plays his last knight from his hand.
The winner is the player with the most Fame Points. Fame points come from several places. First, you get 1 for each conquered kingdom at the start of your turn. At the end of the game, these are summed along with the value of the Defending Force of each of your conquered kingdoms. And there are some kingdoms that give you additional points. Knights left in your hand count negative points. Sum all your points and the highest score wins.
The presentation of the game is pleasant. The box art is nice and clear. The art on the cards is quite nice and colorful. The kingdom cards are particularly good. Lots of detail and clean.
As I said this is a fun, light game. It does have some issues though. If you run out of knights that us can use for attacking, you must buy a knight so you can attack. While not a problem I don’t remember this being addressed in the rules. And it can go long. It is suggested at 40 minutes but one of our games lasted an hour because we kept conquering each other’s kingdoms and replentishing our hands.
All in all, we like this game and it will stay in our collection for a while.
Go Forth And Game 