(Based on an article by Thomas Webster-Deakin)

The rules
Each player chooses a four-point or six-point Warband following the rules laid out in the SAGA rulebook. This Warband may not be altered for the duration of the campaign, so choose your force wisely. The players then play through the scenarios in turn, as described below. Once all five games have been played, the player who has won most games is declared the overall winner of the campaign.

Casualties
At the end of each battle, roll a D6 for each casualty removed during the game. On the roll of a 1, the warrior’s injuries are so severe that he is unavailable for the next game in the campaign. In any subsequent games, he recovers (or dies and is replaced) and may re-join his unit. These casualties cannot take a unit below half of its starting strength. If there is a danger of this happening, the casualties are capped and the unit retains half of its models. If your warlord is amongst the casualties, then roll a D6: on the roll of a 1, he loses an attack from his profile. If he is unlucky enough to be a casualty in a subsequent game and again rolls a 1, then he succumbs to his wounds and is replaced by a new warlord. This has no gaming impact; it just adds to the saga.

Advancement
At the end of each game, the winning player may select one of his units to ‘gain advancement’; this will obviously be the unit that has behaved most heroically in the preceding game. In future games, this unit may make a single activation for free, without needing to expend any SAGA dice. This is the same as the Warlord’s Determination rule, but may only be used once per game. Advancement can only be gained by each unit once in the campaign, so subsequent advancements must be given to different units in your force. In addition, if any unit with an advancement is wiped out in a game (i.e. all the models removed as casualties) then the advantage is lost.

Example: Getwin and his Saxons have vanquished the beastly Normans, and Jean their leader lies face down in the mud. Sadly for Getwin, six of his huscarls and nine of his ceorls were casualties during the game. Rolling a die for each of them, he scores 1, 3, 4, 4, 5, and 6 for his huscarls, meaning that one of them won’t make the next game; and he rolls 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5 for his ceorls, meaning that he’ll be without three of them in the next game. Getwin also has an advancement to bestow. As his huscarls already have an advancement from a previous victory, and his ceorls spent most of the game being trampled by knights, he decides his levy slingers are worthy of an advantage in future games. Over on the Norman side, Jean rolls his dice and discovers he will be without two knights, two serjeants and three of his levies in the next game. More importantly, picking up the die for Jean himself, the result is a 1 and the Norman leader will have only four attacks from now on.

The Campaign

Game one
After months of unfriendly relations and escalating acts of border infringement, our warlords have both had enough. Each has rallied his loyal retainers and marched to the river crossing that marks the border of their territories. Blood will be shed – it’s war! Play scenario two (‘Battle at the Ford’). Whoever wins this game becomes the attacker in all future scenarios.

Game two
Pressing home his advantage, the victorious warlord plunges deep into his foe’s kingdom. Capturing the local high ground will give him a vital strategic advantage. Needless to say, his enemy will do all he can to stop him. Play scenario three (‘Sacred Ground’). The winner of the previous game goes first.

Game three
The attacker now leads a raid on an undefended village deep in enemy territory. Play scenario five (‘Homeland’). However, instead of bidding for forces to defend the village, the defender gets D3+3 points of warband (plus his warlord), which he must choose from his existing force.

Game four
Heading homeward laden with loot, the attacker becomes careless and is ambushed by his foe. Play scenario six (‘The Escort’), with the attacker as the escorting warband.

Game five
Determined to bring their bitter feud to a final conclusion, the warlords agree to a test of steel to settle their differences, once and for all. Play scenario four (‘The Challenge’).

Of course, this is just a basic framework. You can basically do whatever you want in agreement with your opponent. For instance you could use the rules above but mashup the order of scenarios to play out a different story arc.

Campaigns should not necessarily be occurring at the same time or one after the other; they would be within the same time period generally, but separate. So you could be in a campaign against two different people at once and they won’t effect each other if you don’t want them to. Everything is tied together by the fluff. Once you finish one campaign you could slightly rewrite the fluff of one or both to tie them together better.

Another idea is that the winners should have final say in the fluff….after all it is them who write the history!

ADDITION: I recently found these campaign guidelines on the net for WFB and have slightly modified them. For each battle both players should make the following post before the battle:

• Faction used and points played
• Name of the warlords
• Agreed date and location of the battle
• What you are “betting” as an achievement for the saga
  After the battle share any pics taken. The winner gets to choose the name of the battle and write a description of what happened and the result for the winner and loser.