Help support TMP


"Crusader Rules sample web page now available." Topic


Crusader

28 Posts

All members in good standing are free to post here. Opinions expressed here are solely those of the posters, and have not been cleared with nor are they endorsed by The Miniatures Page.

In order to respect possible copyright issues, when quoting from a book or article, please quote no more than three paragraphs.

For more information, see the TMP FAQ.


Back to the Crusader Rules Board


Areas of Interest

Ancients
Medieval

Featured Hobby News Article


Featured Link


Featured Ruleset


Featured Showcase Article

Eureka Amazon Project: Nude Phalangites

More figures for the 28mm Amazon army!


Featured Profile Article

Editor Julia's 2015 Christmas Project

Editor Julia would like your support for a special project.


Featured Book Review


796 hits since 2 Jan 2017
©1994-2024 Bill Armintrout
Comments or corrections?

Crusaderminis17 Apr 2007 9:25 a.m. PST

Thanks to those nice guys at Wargames Journal there is now a web page that allows you to see more of what the Crusader rules are actually about.

link

The rules are now listed on the Crusder web site but if you can Paypal me £7.50 GBP to Crusaderminis@aol.com you can have them post free worldwide until after Salute.

Clubs, shops and distributors – I am offering very (VERY) good discounts to trade so please get in touch at the email address above if interested.

Spiraluk17 Apr 2007 9:34 a.m. PST

Looking great Mark! :o)

Grizwald17 Apr 2007 10:33 a.m. PST

Hmm… fairly standard (I was almost going to say mundane) set of rules. Is there any particular feature that sets them apart from other rules for this period?

Spiraluk17 Apr 2007 10:57 a.m. PST

Hi Mike

I've not seen the rules yet. Can you tell me how you rate them as mundane if you've not seen them yet?

Grizwald17 Apr 2007 11:06 a.m. PST

Follow the link given above, scroll down to the Fast Play Sheet and click on it.

Phillius Sponsoring Member of TMP17 Apr 2007 1:23 p.m. PST

Well without jumping to conclusions, and having struggled through a first read of DBMM, I suspect at GBP7.50 these might be worth a look.
Closer to the WAB end of the spectrum than the DBx end, so perhaps good for fun games. And at that price, postage free around the world, one would be silly to turn them down.

aecurtis Fezian17 Apr 2007 1:37 p.m. PST

"…perhaps good for fun games."

I have no time left in this life for anything *but* fun games! I've had my full share of headache-inducing ones.

There's nothing wrong with using familiar game mechanisms; the best games put these together in an elegant way, rather than floundering to try to design new ones. I've learned to prefer rolling lots of D6s rather than using lots of factors, but I'm going to give the Crusader rules a fair shake when they arrive.

They certainly look appealing to me.

Allen

MarcHameleers17 Apr 2007 1:49 p.m. PST

after seeing this i am even happier that i risked the 7 pound 50….. :)

Crusaderminis17 Apr 2007 2:56 p.m. PST

"Follow the link given above, scroll down to the Fast Play Sheet and click on it."

As a fast play sheet is pretty much just numbers I cant see how anyone could really judge much by it – but there you go.

Where the rules do deviate from the norm is to dispense with phases within a turn. You dont move all your units, and then shoot with them all, and then do all the melees, and then all morale etc.

What you do is activate a unit and carry out all of its actions before moving onto the next. You can move a unit into combat, fight that combat, win, break the enemy, breakthrough and fight another combat and cause morale tests on nearby units before you move onto the next.

Thats a bit of a simplistic explanation but then thats why I included 4 page turn example on the download page rather than just relying on a fast play sheet….

I'm sure not everyone will like these rules which is why I'm going out of my way to make sure people have a chance to see what they are getting before they part with any money.

Personally I thought that was pretty fair.

Arrigo17 Apr 2007 3:52 p.m. PST

I ask again (being interested in them)… basing system?

BTW nice package.

Arrigo

Grizwald17 Apr 2007 4:03 p.m. PST

"I'm sure not everyone will like these rules which is why I'm going out of my way to make sure people have a chance to see what they are getting before they part with any money.

Personally I thought that was pretty fair."

Yep, excellent service from you on that score, so thanks. Makes it a lot easier than trying to thumb through a copy at the trade stand.

"What you do is activate a unit and carry out all of its actions before moving onto the next. You can move a unit into combat, fight that combat, win, break the enemy, breakthrough and fight another combat and cause morale tests on nearby units before you move onto the next."

Yes, but its still an I-GO, U-Go turn sequence – the order you do things in your go doesn't make any difference because your opponent can do nothing about it. And yes I have read your turn example.

So are you really "deviating from the norm"?

Personal logo gaiusrabirius Supporting Member of TMP17 Apr 2007 4:43 p.m. PST

The attractive "Wargames Journal"-style layout tells me that someone put care and effort into this ruleset.

I appreciate the author's courtesy in posting sample pages, and his willingness to appear and answer questions in this forum.

An attractive ruleset increases my chances of enticing a friend to join me in this hobby -- the lack of fellow hobbyists being a serious issue here on the frontier.

I will be ordering a copy.

Perris070717 Apr 2007 6:05 p.m. PST

Looks like a lot of fun! I am definitely up to try some fast play rules for Ancients. Will they be available through your U.S. site?

tony banks17 Apr 2007 10:02 p.m. PST

Dear Mark,
these rules look like what I personally have been loking for.
I teach college in Korea plus I run my own English language school (110 + students, so quite small). I too suffer from a lack of opponents. So I have statrted using my business to promote wargaming in general here. Trying to pull kids away from their computers. We have met with some success.
I have been looking for aan attractive , fast playing, easy to grasp, FUN set of rules suitable for teaching non-native speakers how to get into this amazing hobby. These look like the ticket.
Tried DBA- fast moving but too abstract for young kids/beginners who perhaps lack the cultural background. I could plausible market these as an English reader with some suplementray material for a project class.
I'll be in touch privately soon.
Thanks for posting these web pages,
Tony Banks,
Korea

msoong17 Apr 2007 10:30 p.m. PST

The turn sequence really got me going, it's got that element from Crossfire and/or Bloodbowl which makes it an exciting game.
Now just guessing for a min here, but this more interactive sequence might be more suitable for darkage/medieval warfare where it's more helter skelter, might not work as well for more "formal" conflict such as Punic War.

In any case, it's on my to buy list. Please announce when it's available for US mail order…

Milton

aecurtis Fezian18 Apr 2007 9:59 a.m. PST

>>> Now just guessing for a min here, but this more interactive sequence might be more suitable for darkage/medieval warfare where it's more helter skelter, might not work as well for more "formal" conflict such as Punic War.

One will be checking to see… grin

Allen

Grizwald18 Apr 2007 12:42 p.m. PST

"The turn sequence really got me going, it's got that element from Crossfire and/or Bloodbowl which makes it an exciting game."

Eh? Where do you get that idea from? What triggers the end of a player turn?

Crusaderminis19 Apr 2007 2:07 a.m. PST

"What triggers the end of a player turn?"

A players turn end when either they have activated and used all of their units OR they do something that results in one of their units breaking.

So there is really no guarantee that you will be able to do everything you want with every unit on the table each turn. Players tend to learn to do the 'safe' units first and then move onto the ones that might end their turn prematurely.

CptKremmen21 Apr 2007 2:54 p.m. PST

Dear Crusader Minis,

Thanks for sharing the pages with us. I can see where people are coming from when they say it look s fairly "ordinary". I can also see where it looks rather interesting…

I did not see anything in the rules that turned me off them, which is good. Can I ask for some more battle reports, etc to give us more flavour for how it works in other periods.

Someone did ask about basing and unit sizes, I think that is quite relevant can you give us an idea on these, for me, it is 15mm unit sizes and bases I am interested in, but sure many would like to know about 25mm too.

The layout was very good, and I thought the 2 turns of combat were very cleary explained.

There do seem to be quite a lot of modifiers to remember for combat / morale etc

Andy

MarcHameleers22 Apr 2007 11:04 p.m. PST

I have the rules in my possession since saturday….I'll give them a good read tonight probably…as soon as i have done that, i'll give you all a review….mind you, i won't have tested them in play yet…

Marc

Crusaderminis23 Apr 2007 11:38 p.m. PST

"I think that is quite relevant can you give us an idea on these, for me, it is 15mm unit sizes and bases I am interested in, but sure many would like to know about 25mm too.

There do seem to be quite a lot of modifiers to remember for combat / morale etc"

The base sizes are 40mm square for 28mm foot figures, 50mm for cavalry though I have mounted my DA Irish foot on 50mm because they look nice that way.

As for scale – I have used DBx basing with the rules and 40mm frontage by 15, 20mm or whatever depth works fine so 15mm figures are perfectly suitable.

Same goes for 10mm and Warmaster basing – the 40mm frontages work fine with them too.

You can also go for individual figures on 20mm square bases and have each one as a 'stand' if you happen to have limited space or figures or want a massive game.

The rules are designed so that pretty much any sscale of figure can be used and – with a nit of imagination isn a few cases – there is no need to rebase anything (something I hate doing).

As for the modifiers – I have condensed the combat into as few phases as possible so whereas WAB has a to hit, to wound, to save set of die rolls I just have the one D10 roll.

Morale is a simple D10 with about 4 modifiers, combat results have a few more but you mainly only use 5 or 6 of them. It has taken about 2 games before players know the rules well enough not to have to look up more than a few of the charts.

Its not as bad as DBM for charts and its actually faster to play than WAB.

Crusaderminis23 Apr 2007 11:39 p.m. PST

Apologies for all the typos – its early and I've only had the one coffee….

adster24 Apr 2007 5:47 a.m. PST

I have ahad a quick look through my copy and some of the mechanisms seem to share a common ancestor with Fantasy Warrior. This would tend to be a good thing as these rulles were (are) very good for an enjoyable game.

squeaky26 Apr 2007 10:13 a.m. PST

"share a common ancestor with Fantasy Warrior"

really? hmmmm, these could become a decent fantasy ruleset too then :D

Who asked this joker30 Apr 2007 10:24 a.m. PST

I've had a look at the pages and I am quite pleased with what I saw.

From what I gather, using a single hit number for everything could come from many games.

The melee resolution to determine who won, is a bit involved but you only have to do it once per melee. I saw the idea in the original (1970s) Chainmail by TSR.

The stand eliminiation comes from Medieval/Ancient Warfare by Terry Gore.

The scale is from the beloved WAB. Nice move distilling the dice rolling to a single roll. I always though WAB had 1 roll too many when determining casualties. 1 roll might have been boring but there seems to be enough to do on both sides to during a given turn to keep both players engaged.

I am looking forward to playing these rules. :)

John

msoong30 Apr 2007 6:55 p.m. PST

It seems to be working now. Thanks

mawaliuk202 May 2007 3:53 a.m. PST

Looks like fun. I will have to grab a copy. Will they be available at the SOA Battle Day?

Leonadas24 Apr 2008 10:17 p.m. PST

Hi
used these quite a few times,recently refought Zama,twice(because we enjoyed it so much!!).Yes thay work even for large games,if played in a good spirit of fun and enjoyment,all the competition gamers out there will probably hate them,but is that a bad thing? come on its ment to be fun and even after 30yrs of wargaming I still find I can forgive a less than perfect or historically accurate set of rules if all playing have a few beers,finish the game in a few hours and dont even mind losing – result

Sorry - only verified members can post on the forums.