"Good books on the Crusades" Topic

I am looking for good books about the Crusades.
Good battle details, history etc.

ALSO, I am thinking of doing a Crusade style skirmish.
Any recommends for figures (25 to 28mm) and rules.
I know I am asking for a lot.
Thanks
BOBTYW

Stephen Runciman. It's old, and he is VERY pro-Byzantine, but he is a good story teller. His 3 books cover the whole 2 centuries.

John France's book on the 1st Crusade is good with focus on Battles and strategy.

And of course… Ian Heath.

For minis: Perry

Nuff said.

Runciman is not so much pro-Byzantine as he is utterly anti-Christian. He compares the French and English armies to punk soccer hooligans.

There is hardly a shortage of Crusade era rules or miniatures in 25/28mm size.

A wargamers guide to the crusades, by Ian Heath.
Fairly easy to find second hand

For rules:
Osprey Outremer: Faith and Blood for a few figures a side
Saga Age of Crusades for larger skirmishes
Lion Rampant also works well for Crusades

Armies and Enemies of the Crusades, 1096-1291 Ian Heath written for wargamers.

For tactics, organization etc:
R C Smail's "Crusading Warfare 1097-1193"
Christopher Marshall's "Warfare in the Latin East, 1192–1291"

For figures, I recommend Fireforge Games. Almost unlimited variations are possible, and I have grown to appreciate carrying plastic vs lead figures around.

For rules and figures, "Barons War" by Footsore Miniatures and the "Outremer" supplement. They also do figures as well.

BW rules also cover a broader swathe of periods as well if you want to change things up a bit.

link

My book list (the books I have) is here, with very short notes:

link

Lion Rampant would be a cheaper and quicker learning curve than Saga.

Actually Lion Rampant had a specific book on the Crusades that would give you one-stop-shopping with history AND rules.

The Crusader Armies by Steve Tibble.

I recently picked up, and rather enjoyed, "Soldiers of God"

For rules, absolutely, hands down, Barons' War and its Supplement Outremer. Really captures the flavor of the period and the forces, well supported and they have their own line of miniatures through Footsore, available in the States through Shieldwall Gaming.

Also, check out the historical fiction series by Sharon Kay Pennman, including The Land Beyond the Sea. She really nails the characters and combat in Outremer.

LPGallagher, do you have a link for Shieldwall Gaming?

More recent scholarship and useful to wargamers is:

The Crusader Armies, by Steve Tibble. He looks at the soldiers and troop types, how they fought, and where they came from (primarily local). He then goes on to fighting between the Crusader states and the Egyptians, and Syrians and the Turks. Both those enemies fought differently than one another, and with a different force mixture.

I seriously recommend this book. It considers more recent scholarship about the composition of the local people and armies of both sides and offers a well-argued reinterpretation of the dynamics of warfare during the classical Crusades.

Crusading Warfare 1097-1193, by R. C. Smail. A very interesting read that looks at the operational level of warfare, vice focusing on individual battles.

Raylev3

Sounds very much like Crusader Warfare (2 vols) by David Nicolle. One volume covers the Crusaders, the other covers the 'easterners' and illustrates very well the difference between Fatimids, Seljuks, etc. with some interesting notes on how Turcoman tactics were very different to Seljuk tactics – they both might have come out of the east, both were 'Turks', but both were very different peoples.

I'll keep a weather eye out for Tibble's book, thanks.

Actually Lion Rampant had a specific book on the Crusades that would give you one-stop-shopping with history AND rules.

The rulebook is called "Lion Rampant: The Crusader States" and is available as a pdf here:

link

Runciman is not so much pro-Byzantine as he is utterly anti-Christian. He compares the French and English armies to punk soccer hooligans.

The fact that both Muslim and Byzantine states had the tar kicked out of them by soccer hooligans doesn't say very good things about their abilities now, does it?
Or we can leave older scholarship like Runciman's and look at more recent more nuanced works, like Jonathan Riley-Smith or Thomas Asbridge.