The one major criticism I have of the Saga wargames rules system
is the huge amount of cash you have to layout to get the stuff you need! The
rule set is £25 and, if you don’t want to game with Vikings, Anglo-Danish,
Normans or Welsh, you don’t even get the battleboards that you need included
with the game. Of course, there is no
point having your battleboard without a set of Saga Dice to roll. A set of eight
Saga Dice will cost you an unbelievable £12 if you buy them direct from
Gripping Beast, not to mention the minimum £2.50 postage and packing charge.
Thankfully, we wargamers are notorious for our ability to
get round things like paying over the odds for the equipment we need to game
with. For a much smaller outlay of cash and a bit of time cutting and sticking
at the dining room table, it is possible to make your own set of Saga Dice for
a fraction of the cost of a proper set.
You could, of course, use any old six sided dice that you
happen to have lying around; the rule book does tell you how to use an ordinary
D6 in place of a proper Saga Dice, but if you want dice with the same symbols
that appear on your battleboard, then constructing your own using blank D6s is
something you might want to consider.
I decided to buy a set of 8 blank dice from ‘The Dice Shop’.
If you haven’t visited their web store yet, then take a few minutes to do so.
They have dice of every shape, colour and material you could possibly imagine (apart from dodecahedral, purple, rice pudding!). I
ordered two sets of dice, as I’m ultimately aiming to put two Saga warbands
together. The dice are 18mm 6 sided and cost £0.35 each, giving a total outlay
of £2.80 for an 8 dice set. Postage varies according to how many dice you
order, but I think the postage on my two sets of 8 dice came to £1.39. You can
buy dice of different sizes, but I found that 18mm was just the right size to
fit the printed symbols I had.
The printed symbols will cost you nothing, apart from a
sheet of paper and the ink in your printer. I got my set of symbols from the
Armoury section of the Saga discussion group, which can be found at:
The symbols are available as a PDF document to download and include symbols for
the armies included in the rule set and a set for Scottish warbands. All you do
is print the document and cut out the set that you require. It’s a bit of a
fiddly job, but if you work to a system, can be completed in twenty minutes or
so. Once the symbols have been cut out, you just need to glue them carefully to
the blank dice. I did one side of each of the 8 dice at a time and then rotated
all the dice to do the next face; half an hour of brushing on glue and sticking
to dice later, the job was done.
A final job, which I shall do in few days time, when the
glue has had plenty of time to dry, will be to apply a coat of varnish to each
of the dice, just to make sure the edges of the symbols stay down and to add a
little extra protection, with all that future rolling to do.
This is what my set of Saga dice look like… I could have
found the money to buy an official set I suppose, but for an hour or so doing a
bit of crafting, I’m hoping the Gods of the Dice will smile more kindly upon me
when my Saga dice clatter across the gaming table.
