First Look: SAGA The Raven's Shadow

I had a chance to pop into Orc's Nest again today (always a mistke for my wallet) and luckily they had a few copies of the second supplement for Saga and so I decided to pick one up.

Like the Northern Fury, the previous supplement, The Raven's Shadow is published in a similar style to the main rule book and is accompanied by four cardstock battle boards.  This supplement is slightly longer than the previous one at 28 pages and introduces four new factions - the Franks, the Irish, the Norse-Gaels and the Kingdom of Strathclyde - along with some new rules, Q&A and an errata.  All the new factions utilise the existing available dice (Franks = Normans, Irish = Scots, Norse-Gaels = Vikings, Strathclyde = Welsh).

There are two new rules for Saga introduced by the Raven's Shadow - Melee/Reaction Abilities and War Banners.  Melee/Reaction Abilities are, as you might expect, new abilities but these can be used prior to the existing melee steps.  War Banners allows you to substitute a banner for one figure in a hearthguard or warrior unit which then allows the unit to rest any time during a turn (assuming this has been "paid" for with the appropriate dice).

As before, each faction has a brief introduction, any special rules, new Heroes and the faction's specific abilities which run to around four pages per faction with a few accompanying photographs of appropriate figures.

The Franks allow you to choose between a Merovingian, Carolingian or Capetian Frankish warband each of which have different builds.  The Frankish Warlord and hearthguard must be mounted.  The Irish have the option of fielding Wolfhounds in place of a warrior unit and upgrading individual hearthguards to Curaidh champions.  The core feature of the Norse-Gaels seems to be challenges and the Strathclyde warbands are mostly mounted and can deploy some off table initially.

As I have figures for some of these factions already and am particularly interested in the Irish I thought this would be a useful addition to my Saga collection.