Onward Christian Soldiers. The Crusades. A game by Richard Berg and Neil Randall
Onward Christian Soldiers is a GMT game that covers and simulates the three first crusades, from 1097 to 1192. One hundred years of wars in Palestine and Asia Minor Latin Christians against Arab Muslims
Introduction: The Crusades
Seljuq Turks, in their expansion in Minor Asia and Syria, take Jerusalem in 1075, 25 years after in 1095 Pope Urban II preaches at the Council of Clermont-Ferrand the Holly War, promising those who were voluntaries the Church protection and the remission of their sins. This call had a quick response, the People’s Crusade was organized, thousands of peasants were joined under leaders like Peter the Hermit, Walter Sans Avoir, Count Emich de Leisinger. This march, anarchic and brutal, finished quickly after the passage of the Bosporus and being smashed in the first confrontations in Asia Minor
The nobility answer to the papal appeal is better organized now, and after finishing the preparations, Godfrey of Bouillon, Raymond IV of Toulouse (Raymond of St Gilles), Robert of Flanders and Bohemond I (the future Bohemond of Taranto) leave in several expeditions to Holly Land meaning this fact the beginning of the First Crusade. This way, in 1097, after forming an alliance with the Byzantines, promising that all the conquests will be on behalf of the Basiliscus (the Byzantine Imperator), the crusaders begin on a quick invasion and conquest of Asia Minor assuring the communications with Constantinople and eliminating without many problems the Turkish forces in Nicea or later in Dorylaeum.
By the way, one of the major tricks of the crusaders is the great division that suffers the different Arabic groups of the region; Seljuqs, Fatimids, Sirius… are unable of being organized and fight in a coordinate way against an enemy that hardly shows cohesion.
The first great target of the crusader will be Antioch, which will fall over a long siege of eight months in June of 1098. In that moment, where the different Christian leaders begin to reveal their interests, Baldwin of Boulogne is proclaimed heir of Edessa and Bohemond is proclaimed Prince of Taranto. However, Godfrey of Bouillon, Raymond IV of Toulouse and the other nobles continue to Jerusalem, taking it in June 1099, after a short and bloody siege, result of the religious fanaticism and exaltation that favoured the strange miraculous viewpoints.
Once conquered, the Holly City and the Holly Sepulchre, the Christians reorganized the East, the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the County of Tripoli, the Principality of Antioch, the County of Edessa, the Kingdom of the Lesser Armenia and the Kingdom of Cyprus. Challenging the interests of Byzantium, revealing the Christians divisions and adapting themselves to the circumstances. Nevertheless, Aleppo and Damascus, the origin of the biggest part of the Saracens attacks, are not conquered.
The politic division in the Islamic bosom was the biggest guarantee for the western Latin states. The politic of the governor of Aleppo, Zengi, and his son Nur ad-Din, gave the Sirius a better unity that would finish with the conquest of Edessa in 1144. This event made that Pope Eugene III proclaimed a new crusade, the Second, leaded by the king of France Louis VII and Conrad III of Germany.
This expedition was a Christian political remarkable failure, incapable of having the whole vision of the situation; they attacked the more pro-western of the Arabs, Unur of Damascus, who had not doubt in forming an alliance with the Sirius Nur ad-Din. The help of the Sirius not only ruined the siege of Damascus, but it also favoured the Arab oneness under the Saladin’s aegis, who after being appointed Sultan of Egypt, knew how to make good use of Nur ad-Din’s death, taking the control of all the Saracens forces.
The Battle of Hattin, in 1187, meant the defeat and extinction of the Jerusalem Kingdom in care of Saladin, who occupied without problems Jerusalem, Acre, Jafra, Beirut… Of course, a new crusade was organized, although this time it will face up the Jihad, which with Saladin reached its greatest height. This way the ideal of a holly war confronted both contenders.
Within the crusaders were the king of France Philip II and the king of England Richard Lionheart. Frederick I imperator of the Sacrum Romanum Imperium should have been there but an illness or an accident (exact circumstances are unknown) finished with his life in the middle of the march to Palestine.
Disputes between Saladin and Richard have been described in more than a novel and a film. But Richard only could re-establish a few coastal possessions, consolidate Cyprus and guarantee an entry permit for the disarmed pilgrims in order they would be able to visit Jerusalem.
Of course, there would be more crusades; the Third was followed by the “unreligious” Fourth Crusade, confronting Latin and Byzantine Christians. Crusade that finished with the conquest and sacking of Constantinople, and the extreme weakness of Byzantium, but that is other story.
The game. Onward Christian Soldiers. GMT 2006.
Components:
Onward Christians Soldiers (OCS) contains:
3 and a half Sheets of Counters (markers and combat counters). 700 of ½” and 176 of 5/8”
110 Cards. Saracen Activation Deck, Christian Activation deck, Event Deck.
1 22” x 34” Game Map full colour covering great part of Middle East and Asia Minor
1 Rule Booklet for the First Crusade
1 Rule Booklet for the Second and Third Crusade
1 Quick-Start Rules and Playbook
2 Help Sheets (one for each player) with all the charts to be used in the game
2 6-sided dices
All components in the line of GMT, exquisite design, cards and counters are functional as well as aesthetic. The map, paper made, represents with a point to point system Middle East and, even though the orography is engrossed in the points it is shown in the points, resulting in a nice map (in paper)
Game characteristics:
OCS is a game that tries to capture the warlike dynamic of the crusades. Is a game that doesn’t ignore the difficulties that the Christian forces had over the terrain or the political confrontations that existed. The game mechanic is based overall on the leaders, the attrition and the sieges.
Leaders and the main units in this game, they are the ones who can be activated for moving, attacking, besieging, break a siege, ravaging a city… Combat units, the soldiers, form the armies that go with the leaders, being without these leaders just a garrison. The strength of an army will be as big as army points it has; its ability at the time of fight has more to do with the quality of its leader than with its quantity. Leaders, opposite to army units that only have values as numbers (you have 8 army points, then your army has a size of 8 ), have in their counters more values: first the rank for delimiting who has the control in a same location, then the activation value that give us the number of times that a leader can be activated in the same turn (the more times you have, the better it is) and finally the campaign value, that it is the basic value for making things such as continue after stopping, choose formation for the battle, etc.
The movement in this game in potential unlimited, every army can move an unlimited number of points, whenever it does not contact with enemies. But for any point it contacts with enemies it will add attrition points, so in the practice it is always advisable to stop in reasonable short distances, despite this means the risk of not pass the Continuation roll. Attrition is also fundamental in sieges and, though in the beginning it affects both players, the attacker can ignore looses consuming resources from friend cities.
Sieges and assaults to cities, castles and towns are a main part of the game. Cities and towns (some of them and not with the same proportion) will be the ones which give the victory points to resolve the dispute for one or the other side. Long-winded rules that cover all aspects and forms of making a siege and breaking it.
The Sequence of Play
A summarized sequence of play:
A. Reinforcement Phase (not for the Christian player in the First Crusade)
B. Army Assignment Phase. In those spaces with more than one leader of the same side, forces can be divided among these leaders according to the player’s desires.
C. Activation Deck Creation (First Crusade buying cards) or Activation Marker Phase (Second and Third Crusade choosing the number of markers of the scenario among the available ones, you make a deck/you fill a recipient from which the leaders will be taken for their activation)
D. Operation Phase. The activated leader, after take his card of the deck or his maker of the recipient (depending the crusade we are playing), will be able to move, combat and/or besieged
E. Attrition Phase. The attrition of the units is calculated in this order: attrition at sieges, attrition in points (place where they are), and attrition in ravaged locations or maritime attrition
F. Recovery Phase. Ravaging markers are refreshed, cities recover their resources, etc. as needed
The sequence of play shows, in general terms, that the game itself is not complicated. There are not so many things to do. Other thing is that the game depends in many charts for doing every action. From the results of the combats to the length of the turn. There are not difficult, but at least in my case, they forced me, until they became familiar for me, to waste many time in quite simples operations.
Special mention for the conquest, siege and ravaging of cities, so is the main objective of the game. You have to study before the beginning of the match in order to avoid unpleasant surprises, consequences of a siege, how to establish a siege (Full Siege or Partial Siege, looking the external helps), what a siege involves to the besieged garrison (if they have resources near for resisting it or if they can go out to break it), etc
Differences between First Crusade and Second and Third Crusades
Actually and, opposing of what the designers think, we are not in front of two different games but different scenarios of the same system. In OCS the main difference is in the deck for the First, that it is not used in the Second and Third, being its function activate leaders and events; thing that in the others crusades is made by means of markers and charts, this rises the prices of the product but also makes it nicer and probably is more practical a deck than a cup fill of markers.
But the game of the cards does not give any difference or add any value to the mechanic, like could happen in Paths of Glory for instance. The First Crusade admits a multiplayer game of 7 players, each with one of the four Christians or three Saracens groups. The others crusades are more favourable for one or two players.
Conclusion:
It has been difficult for me to come near to Onward Christian Soldiers; the system appeared to me a little bit gloomy and I didn’t finish seeing it. My only reference war Carthage, with which I had the same problem. I guessed the potential of the game but I couldn’t see it. Is when you play when you see that it is a simple game that only demands time for consulting the charts and having in mind siege rules.
But the game transmits something, transmits a flavour of historic recreation. In this case of the crusades, where treason, nobility interests, inner disputes, and the scorching sun and sand are present. The system of activating an army at random (from Carthage to a Victory Lost, through Red God War) though my first reticence is convincing me, the game gains in uncertainty and strategies, by force, must turn more flexible.
And yes, it is another game with dice, with charts for calculating almost everything, where the luck is a factor that you need to know to carry, but I don’t believe that this luck could decide any match.
To be read (with reference to Spanish Editions):
Runciman, S. Historia de las cruzadas, Madrid, 1956-1958
Oldembourg, Z. Las Cruzadas, Barcelona, 1974
Hamilton, B. Las Cruzadas, Madrid, 2001
Maalouf, A. Las cruzadas vistas por los árabes, Madrid, 1996
Connell, E.S. Una crónica de las cruzadas, Barcelona, 2000
More games about Crusades:
Crusader Rex. Columbia Games
Les Croisades, Vae Victis
Croisades,Eurogames
Cyberboard module
http://www.nrandall.com/downloads.htmConsimworld
http://talk.consimworld.com/WebX?13@88.Wrp2cwZeXzD.16@.1dd08e5f/1595 BGG
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/18747
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