Crusader Rex
John Mitchell came over to play Crusader Rex last week. It’s good.
Essentially, it’s the almost same game as Hammer of the Scots, but using the road movement of Napoleon, instead of area movement. The mechanics are a little more streamlined, as it does not have the slightly strange wintering rules of Hammer of the Scots. Right now, I prefer it to the original game.
I have played five block games right now. Here’s my ranking:
- Rommel in the Desert
- Crusader Rex
- Napoleon
- Hammer of the Scots
- Wizard Kings
Here is another image session report with comments. We didn’t finish, but had a lot of fun anyway. I probably had the edge, but it was not decided for certain. I hope John comes back soon.
Iain and I sat down to play Crusader Rex. It was the first time for both of us, but we’d read through the rules, and Iain did know its predecessor, Hammer of the Scots. We picked sides randomly, he taking the Franks and I the Saracens, and we each went with the default initial placement. We agreed to not use the variant rules.
My plan was to take Tripoli and cut into two the Frankish forces, then move against Jerusalem or Antioch as seemed best at the time. I also wanted to eliminate Frankish units where I could, to try to delay the Crusaders’ arrival by padding out the draw pool. Iain I think had decided to begin the game in reactive mode, knowing that time was on his side.
I wasn’t making notes as we played, so I can’t give a year-by-year account. I got a good hand of movement cards in the first year, 1187, and this helped the early game go well for me. I took Tripoli quite easily (though we may have forgotten a rule there to my advantage), caught and killed some Franks in open ground, and advanced from Egypt to threaten Jerusalem.
But then I made two very bad decisions – first, leaving Damascus accessible and undefended (negligent), and then shortly afterwards, doing the same with Tripoli (plain stupid). Iain naturally exploited both mistakes, and though I eventually retook the former city, the latter held out through the winter of both 1189 and 1190. I feel I was unlucky: twice the turn ended with just one Frankish defender on half a hit point, Saladin himself proving useless in combat again and again. I was now short of movements points, and though I had Jerusalem surrounded, my attack there never came.
We ended the game at the end of 1190, two years early (I needed to catch a train). I controlled most of the board, had lost almost none of my units, but held only three victory cities: Aleppo (strongly garrisoned), Egypt (defended in depth) and Damascus (with a good number of somewhat beaten-up troops nearby). Iain had lost a lot of units but held Jerusalem, Acre, Tripoli and Antioch. None of his three groups of Crusaders had yet entered the game, but each was needing just one block draw for activation (out of a draw pool of about 12).
He certainly had the upper hand at this point, with already enough cities to win. I’d had it easy so far with no Crusaders to deal with, but two or even three groups could well have arrived during the next year. But if not, Jerusalem would probably have fallen to me in 1191, my four cities would probably have survived that year’s late-starting sieges, and perhaps with lucky cards and dice could have held on until the next winter.
Iain felt I hadn’t been aggressive enough early on, and the fact that I didn’t lose any unit until mid-game probably indicates I didn’t battle as much as I should have. Certainly I should have thrown some replaceable units at him, as my draw pool ran out in 1190. However, I doubt I would have got many more kills that way, and I seldom had movement points to spare. My big mistakes were on defence, not offence.
We played for about 4 hours, one hour per game year, with probably one hour more needed to complete. We both had a great time, and I’m sure there will be a rematch, which will go faster and hopefully the full distance.
Tycho
16 Jan 09 at 18:46
Now that is what I call a quality comment. You should try blogging.
I agree with your assessment. A rematch would be fantastic. Maybe we can play at Swiggers href=”http://www.pevans.co.uk/Swiggers” rel=”nofollow”>Swiggers href=”http://www.pevans.co.uk/Swiggers” rel=”nofollow”>http://www.pevans.co.uk/Swiggers sometime.
Iain
16 Jan 09 at 20:31