As I decided the square was 6", that made terrain slightly problematic. Basically infantry move 6", cavalry 12", and units moving into, through, or out of terrain move 4". Saga has four measurements: Very Short (2"), Short (4"), Medium (6"), and Long (12"). Given that the standard was also 6", that worked. I decided to use a square grid, and given the physical size of the average unit of 28mm figures, a 6" square seemed just right. Vikings have more offense oriented melee abilities, for example, while Anglo-Saxon seem more defense oriented and geared towards running larger units. The battle board is what defines the special abilities a warband has available.
(The Warlord can self-activate once for free each turn, and activate another unit once for free each turn.) So that allows you some flexibility to activate units twice (at a cost of fatiguing the unit) or to use the special abilities. So for a starter game, you will typically be getting six Saga dice, but using three for activation. Generally speaking you need one die to activate a unit once, in which it can either move, charge, shoot, or rest. Each unit generates a single Saga die and the Warlord generates two. Saga uses special dice to allow units to activate and to give them special abilities, which serve as the "flavor" for the army and the period you are playing. In addition, each side gets a Warlord to represent themselves. A starter game is typically four points and a large game is eight points. For one point you can either buy four Hearthguard (the best fighters), eight Warriors, or twelve Levy (the worst fighters). So your miniature investment can be quite small, but not as small as a traditional skirmish game. A warband is generally from 20 to 50 figures. Each unit varies in size but must be from four to twelve figures in size. Although each figure represents a single person, figures are grouped into units and individual figures are not ordered separately. Technically Saga is not a skirmish game to my mind. As you look through the rules at the pictures too, you realize there are shots of fantasy miniatures and Samurai, but nothing extending into the gunpowder era.
Hmmm, that last part must have been added because so many of the fan base did exactly that, use the rules for other historical periods and for fantasy realms. The Game Rules Saga was previously a Dark Ages skirmish game system, but now bills itself as able "to recreate battles between rival warbands during many periods of history and within fantasy worlds". I cannot stand small measurements and fiddly geometry tricks, and the one thing I remembered about about Saga was that it had both of those elements. I was going to convert it to a grid game. My goal was to play the rules straight, no modifications.
But then I saw that the "supplement", containing all of the factions and battle boards (none were included with the rules, as originally) was another $57, I figured I was not going to get off lightly for upgrading.
I bought my copy from Dennis at On Military Matters for $19. I picked up the second version of the SAGA rules mainly because I had liked the original and also because I had heard that they had streamlined the rules and cleaned them up, making things a lot more clear than originally.