Reviews

AAR Crusader Knight Hack game at Grant's...

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Well, there they were, two about evenly-matched sides faced off over the table in Grant's 3rd floor.

The rules were Knight Hack, but modified slightly by Grant. Upon perusing my copy of Knight Hack when I got home, I really didn't see that there had been too many (or too radical) alterations.

But on to the game...the Crusaders were supposed to keep a town/village under their control. The Islamists were supposed to take it. Simple enough, thinks I. HAH ! Whadda I know...

First off, each side forgot they had missles other than arrows (I presume javelins/spears can be tossed, but no one ever tried) and the arrow fire, to be charitable, was totally bonkers. Not the rule, mind you, but the *die rolls.* Some of those playing couldn't have rolled a '1' with a single-sided die. Or even a '4'.

In this version of the 'Hack' rules, low numbers are good. I saw, in one sequence, a player roll 10-10-10-9. In another sequence, Islamist heavy cavalry attacked unarmored, poorly armed Christian Pilgrims. Allah must have abandoned the Devout, and God favored the Faithful, for the attack rolls on the Pilgrims yielded (with an 80 % chance of a hit) *no* casualties, whereas the Pilgrims (with a 40 % chance of a hit, and a 20 % chance of two hits) inflicted two casualties and forced the Islamists back. And so it went for much of the game. Die luck greatly influenced this test of these rules, which was too bad, since the rules themselves offer a game which is simple, quick in play, very much 'flavorful' of the period, and easy to grasp in both concept and mechanics. I was impressed.

I know not how this game would have played out had we continued. The Islamist center remained strong, and had pushed the Crusaders back, a bit. The Crusader right, essentially defensive in stance, had actually pushed the Islamist left back, but was not strong enough (having lost about half its heavy cav) to do more. The Crusader left and Islamist right had spent much of the game in charge/counter-charge, essentially each side grinding the other's forces to a mere shadow of the starting OOB.

On the extreme Islamist left, there was a cav unit pursuing rigorously a Crusader foot unit which was in route, possibly opening a way to the objective. On the other hand, the Crusader center had a cav unit which recovered its morale on a highly unlikely die roll ('1'), and possibly could have intercepted.

All in all, I'd like to play these rules about 6-7 times, to 'even out' the die luck, and see how they go. As said above, I was impressed, especially with the ease of play, the relative 'cleanliness' of the mods to various factors (fire, melee, morale, etc.) and the crispness of the action once a turn commenced.

Thanks to Nick, Bruce, Steve, Peter H., Gordon (Crusaders) and Ron, Mike, Marty, and Keith (Islamists) for a fun game - and of course to Grant for hosting, preparing the terrain, and providing really superb looking figures with which we played!

ENJOYED IT !!

And a VERY SPECIAL 'Thanks' to Ron Oldham, who gave up this game to run a game for several children, who'd requested a WWII game.

YOU GO, DUDE !

Ed