Saga - Age of Heroes Minigame

[hamurai]

An acquaintance left a friend some stuff, including a rule book of TSR's Saga game. My friend knows of my interest in old games and gave it to me to read, but I'm unsure if I get it right
Maybe someone who has played this might help.

The game was sold with d6s, apparently, so I understand any reference of "one die" as "1d6". 

The combat table is what makes me frown: Assuming equal combat strength, the difference between attacker's and defender's strength is, of course, 0. Now when I look at the combat results table, and assuming no other modifiers due to luck, spells or similar are applied, the attack results are:
1 - 2: Attacker killed
3: Attacker wounded (or killed if not a hero)
4: Attacker flees
5: no result
6: Defender wounded (or killed if not a hero)

Those odds seem utterly wrong because the defender has a much better chance of survival.
I've read somehwere that combat strengths are added together when multiple units attack, but when multiple units defend, the problem seems to be back.


Am I missing something or are the rules indeed like that? 

[hamurai]

Just for reference: I got an answer over at BGG and it seems I got it all right.

Personally, I think this is nonsense, punishing players for going in the offensive in 1:1 combat, but maybe some house rules were usually applied, who knows.

[Porphyre]

The Dice results go all the way from -3 to 9, so I suppose that the game relies heavily on roll modifiers and the use of Luck points.

Note: I had a similar probem with Cry Havoc of Standard Games, but at least CH counters had different scores for Attack and Defence

[Starbeard]

I haven't ever read these rules — but your description sounds like a standard Combat Results Table (CRT), so you're probably doing it right.

Generally in a CRT style wargame, each unit can only participate in one combat in a round (regardless of whether they are 'attacking' or 'defending'), but everyone who is touching an opponent must participate in a combat, so it becomes extremely important to carefully designate just who is attacking whom so that the matchups are to your greatest advantage. Equal strength results will almost always favour the defender (not always quite as bad as what you've copied here, but still generally 2:3 in their favour) — so as the attacker your only real chance is to manoeuvre around tactically, such that the fights are all 2 or 3 blokes on 1. The only time you should be fighting 1-on-1 is with a very strong unit against a weak unit, so that you still have enough of a power advantage to tilt the CRT in your favour.