As seen from the last post my annual pilgrimage with my sons
to CanCon saw me playing in a Crusades Campaign that used the Deus Vult rules
from Fireforge games. I was asked to give my impression and rather than a true
review or an AAR I thought this might work.
The short version, I like them, yes a little bias here as I
had a great three days gaming with some rather good folk from the Peninsular
Praetorians from Victoria. That said, your troops have qualities and faults
with much character based on the individual unit. Movement was fast and long
much like Hail Caesar, shooting causes disruption more than death and melee can
be either fast and deadly with those troops capable of such or could be a
slogging match when the troops are evenly matched. Commanders add character and
flavour and much needed ability to get units caring out actions. There is a
small element of role play with commanders having characteristics and the
ability to duel as champions with the opponent’s leaders. But for those of you
that want more depth please read on.
Me with my back to you hmmm.
Crusaders arrayed
It is important to realise that the group campaign had
altered the game in minor ways to suit complete novices to the rules like me,
and to ensure the campaign aspect was an integral part. I am not sure if there
are campaign rules in the volume as, well, I don’t have it yet, please note yet
as I will shortly be purchasing said rules. The first thing changed was basing.
To suit as many collections of figures as possible units were based on 55mm X
55mm resin movement trays. They held 3 infantry or 1 Mounted figure. Units
tended to be 2 or 4 or 6 bases strong on average. I think that the bases are
more like 60mm X 40mm and hold 5 infantry and 2-3 mounted?? The visual appeal
of the smaller amounts of miniatures did not seem to lose anything by the
group’s decision to go with the altered size. So this was our starting point.
Pilgrims, not as bad in a scrap as one would think!
Templars about to cause hurt on some Saracens
The initial dice mechanic is roll a die and if it is 4 or above
you have success, generally you are rolling a few dice at a time even in moral
style rolls. Nice and easy to get your head around, any adds generally added
dice.
When disordered you tend to not fight as effectively, you don't say
Big Battle with 4 armies.
Units in the game
have characteristics reminiscent of WAB or other similar games, defence values,
melee values, discipline, courage and so on even a victory point characteristic.
The real clever aspect is in the special rules. For example the Islamic forces
have many rules that allow feigned flight, fanatical melee abilities, and
martial prowess and so on. But their courage and discipline was a bit lower
than the crusader forces. This meant they could manoeuvre well do a bit of
damage in shooting, charge in and hopefully bounce off to do it all over again
but if damaged they could be a little flighty and more likely to retreat and
fight another day. Quite historical if I read my history right. Your crusader
forces lacked the finesse of the Islamic forces. They had less special rules to
remember but had some nifty ones to help hit really hard in combat. The ability
to charge through your own troops and throw a lot of dice in combat was what
you really wanted to try and do with your knights mounted or dismounted.
Beautiful Resin siege tower, sold part way through the convention
You can fill 'er up with minis!
The Saracens had to get to the gates to relieve the siege
The commanders are integral. They have a command ability of
1-4 this means that they can move 1-4 units at a time! Within their command
range (generally 8 inches) This of course is randomly rolled up prior to the
game. During our efforts most of the crusader forces were 2-3 command and
Islamic forces tended to be 3-4, now we rolled this prior to the game but I see
no reason why you would not want to do this if you were playing a particular
scenario or historical refight. The Islamic forces moved around a lot more. The
command ability allows units to do actions 4 per period, move, shoot, charge,
but also more specialised manoeuvres, move and shoot, reform, move wheel move
again that sort of stuff. Some actions cost 2 or more point to do so it forces
you to think what it is you want to achieve with the unit. I really liked this
and it took only a little time to sink in. Mind you no doubt I forgot many
aspects as we played. It looks like you could move forward throw javelins and
potentially do it again? Certainly some stationary troops shot more than once
in a turn.
Now the Saracens have the tower
Small easily defeated force? (Forgot there was stuff behind the gates to the left.)
As said above, movement was quite long, 8-9 inches for
cavalry and then a dice throw to move forward a little more or to charge.
Shooting also long 6-9 for javelins?, 15-30 bows and crossbows etc. and across
a 4 foot wide board it is not long until you are in the thick of it. Failed
charges were common for some of us that had forgotten how to approximate
measurements in our heads and sadly left your troops disordered. (Disorder is
not deadly but leaves you vulnerable)
We did not use the pregame scouting and table set up aspect
as this was really part of our campaign so I will not comment.
And so they Sally Forth, ouch.
Please tilt head for better view
Shooting was good from my view. I tended to play the Muslim
forces so had more choice of shooty types but they did not dominate the battle
at all. Really they disordered and took a few minor casualties off the
opponents unit but rarely caused unit shattering damage unless the unit was
very small. What you need to remember with the Islamic forces is all the
special rules. We were lucky the guys had put the unit stats and rules on
cards, hence the plethora of cards scattered over the tables in the pictures. Still
I did forget many rules in most games when I played the Syrians/Saracens but
without doubt when it is your army and you’ve played Deus Vult a few times you
will quickly remember them. Miniatures are removed when dead but if you have
your miniatures based other than individually it would work equally as well
with dice until a base was removed. (We had to do this with the cavalry as each
individual miniatures was actually meant to be 2)
My Syrians about to make short work of Crusaders
Love the Trebuchet
Melee as with all ancient medieval wargames is the crux of
it. Again the system is good in my view. It is not always buckets of dice but
it did come close. A unit of 6 knights or 6 bases of knights in the real game,
in two lines (front get 6 dice each back rank 5 dice each) getting everything
right, had the chance to generate 33 dice. This rarely occurred. If it did it
would vaporise just about everything. Yet in the actual games we played it
almost never occurred. The bonuses never all stacked as you came up against
melee troops or had been disordered as you charged in. But don’t get hit in the
flank, first you are automatically disordered therefore no rear rank bonus
dice, then you have to test to see if you become…..forgot the term but virtually shattered. Then well you
took a beating. When testing to finally hold on, you could use the leader’s moral
dice but flank or rear attacks just plain hurt, so they should.
At the Gates of Antioch, Homs, Hammah, or most any Levant City in Canberra
Please note Holy Grail in which to cleanse thine dodgy dice.
The duel, last battle of the last day my Syrians were in a
commanding spot. I was just about to slam into 3 units and fight it out with
numerical advantage for the Syrians when I thought oh I have not seen how the
duel system works. So a challenge took place, you have 3 dice possibly D12, D8,
D4 you secretly elect one of them and roll off. Repeat with the other dice and
then tally up the results. In my case let’s just say I fluffed it. My leader
goes down, is captured, all three nearby units fluff their rolls and well it’s
all over bar the victory celebrations for the crusaders in Antioch!
Overall would I play it again? Yep no problem, would I buy
it, yep going to as soon as I sell something not my Syrians though! Does it
have the flavour of the Crusades, even though we used it to support a campaign
already with great characterisation I feel there is enough here to say hearty
yes too. Much more characterful than FOG or hail Caesar even WAB. The challenge
aspect for leaders gives you more of a role play feeling and well you don’t
have to use it but it was fun. So if you have read thus far well done and do
yourself a favour, play Deus Vult with some fellow Crusading or Islamic types.
I am going to.
