"Crusader miniatures rules review" Topic

I just got my copy in the mail last week and have finished reading this. I haven't played a game of this yet so this is coming only from what I read. Sadly I read a lot more rulesets than I get to play.

I was looking forward to this ruleset when it was announced and it does seem to be pretty interesting. There are a lot of aspects of it that I like. One of them being the simplicity of the structure. It is similar in someways to Warhammer Ancients but has trimmed a lot of the fat. Warhammer, unless you play one specific book, seems to be a set of rules that being over burdened by it's success. That is that the proliferation of new rules books, along with new rules, is making the game difficult to keep track of.

At least for me. I would imagine if you only play "in-period" games then it isn't so bad. But I have to play whatever opponent I can get around these parts and it is difficult to turn down the match up even if my Egyptians have to take on some Vikings.

These rules seem to have toned a lot of that back. The troop creation system in the back seems easy enough to allow you to create troops without them becoming over powered and they don't show the authors tendency to (sometimes) overrate their favourite troop types or armies.

The base system is something that appeals to me but I'll leave that until I have a game under my belt to see how it works on the table.

The only place the ruleset really falls down for me is in the editing. The rules seem to be a little disjointed and are worded oddly in parts. There are a couple of sections that I had to read through a number of times to get what the author was after. Some of the diagrams are mislabelled, but not in such a way that you can't discern what they meant. I think if the rules example had been left until the end it would have been better as well.

I saw a few things that I disagreed with in a technical sense but they can be modified with house rules. One of those is that crossbows out range long bows, x-bows shooting 32" to the longbows 24".

I do like what they have done with commanders over WAB making them into just stands that don't really have their own unit stats.

The game is sort of a cross between WAB and Warrior.

Overall I would give the ruleset a B+. I like the concepts and it looks very pretty, with a few editing fixes it would probably be an A set of rules.

I saw a few things that I disagreed with in a technical sense but they can be modified with house rules. One of those is that crossbows out range long bows, x-bows shooting 32" to the longbows 24".

Not necessarily a-historical. Heavy crossbows often were able to outrange longbows and certainly maintained a stronger "force" over a longer distance.

Thanks for the review.

Thanks for your review – I've been looking at getting these rules. You have tipped me in favour of getting a copy. As a side note, you might want to know that heavy crossbows DO outrange longbows.

I got these rules a couple of weeks ago. I haven't finished reading them the whole way through yet but generally agree with most of what was said. I would liken them more to warmaster, actually, than WAB. The command structure is less chancy but there is some chance involved as units move until they have to stop doing all of their shooting and close combat, etc. But the turn for you ends if one of your units is destroyed or routed, which is kind of neat.

I hadn't noticed the troop creation system until you mentioned it (although I had wondered about army lists.) That looks like a neat concept.

I might use this set to do Eastern Renaissance stuff. I just ran through points for Hussars and they would come in around 150 per stand. Neat idea.

One of those is that crossbows out range long bows, x-bows shooting 32" to the longbows 24".

That seems reasonable to me.

I'm a Warrior player and a WAB player, and my take on the rules is that they are absolutely a combination of these two rules. They have the best of each, without the needless complexity of Warrior and with more historical accuracy than WAB. I really like the other two games, but this seems to address the flaws I think they both have. I very much hope this game catches on with the Ancients crowd.

We do need some lists soon though.

Thanks for the review. Got mine on Saturday and have given them a read throigh a coupe of times. I did notice a couple of mistakes which seems ot have stemmed from editing in one place but not catching all the places throughout the rules.

Very much looking forward to playing this set. For a large game this might equire an enoormous amount of figures though. :(

John

Nice review but could someone answer a couple of more specific questions?
Do they have a fixed base size? If so, what?
Although they're 'ancient' rules, are they aimed at a specific period (ie Dark Ages) or are they truly generic?
Cheers

The rules have a recommended base size. 40mmx40mm for infantry and 50mmx50mm for cavalry. Note that this works just fine for WAB based figures with four infantry and 2 cavalry figures to a stand. But this isn't really that important, since if one stand in a unit makes contact, then all frontage stands will fight. Seems that I can easily have my WAB and WRG based armies easily fight each other now!

The painted armies in the book are Dark Ages, but the rules really are generic with provisions for Classical, Dark Age, Medieval, and Early Renaissance armies.

Cheers pcelella. I'll grab a copy come pay day.

What is the size and weight of the rules ? I know it's a stupid question but I wonder if the rules will fit inside a USPS Priority Mail International Flat Rate Envelope (9.5"x12.5" – 4 lbs. maximum) ?

Thanks,

Piotr

Pole Bitwy PL,

The rules are 64 pages and in A$ size (8.5" by 11.5" or so). They don't weigh much--less than the pound of butter I found in the fridge (only known measue easily available).

Bob in Edmonton

Funny I have not seen these yet. Does anyone have a link?
VR
James Mattes

James….have a look in the catalogue….

link

Cheers Andy