From: Roberto Chiavini Subject: Two new reviews Les Croisades (Vae Victis 17) There are very few games on the Crusades and after playing this French interpretation of this period you probably understand why: it's not a very playable situation. The game recreates the Saladin attack against the Crusaders' cities in 1187 and the following Third Crusade, with a system derivative of a previous effort for the same magazine, Belisaire (you may read my review of this game, here on Grognard, to have a more thorough analysis of the system). The major difference (and this is not a small one, making for a worst game than its predecessor) is that the game use an hexagonal map for movement, not areas as the previous one. Other than this, the system is almost a clone of the one for Belisaire. The center of this kind of game is based on action points, that you get adding a numbered chit (draw randomly from a pool) to your higher leader strategic rating: with this points a player has to move and have combat with all his leaders and units (that can be moved only by leaders - other than the naval units, that may move even without a leader); these points are really few!! Normally, in a single turn, you may move no more than two-three leaders any significant number of hexes (risking a severe attrition anyway), hoping to intercept the enemy (without being intercepted) and having combat. The system probably reflects adequately the military situation of the period, that limited movement (in winter turns you have to subtract 3 action points from your total) and combat for various reasons, most of all the quality of the terrain (mostly desert or mountain) and the difficulty to have constant supplies for the armies. But there are several problems with this system transferred to an hexagonal grid: there are no stacking rules and it seems better to use large panzergruppe type stack to move near your objective (as the attrition losses are fixed, not based on a percentage of the moving army); in a siege situation, it's almost vain try to defend a city with only one unit (a choice that could be made by the Crusader player, as he has to defend the coastline, with several cities, with a limited number of troops), as a percentage loss of at least 10% is present in each result on the table; so, the attacker could even lose the battle (not taking the city) but eliminate the defending unit anyway; so he could conquer the city the following turn. Similar small problems are sparse with the system, that it doesn't work as it should and it's certainly less fun to play than I hope (however, I have tested solitaire a system which is certainly much more fun when you take advantage of all his peculiarities regarding "fog of war", as dummies, stratagem markers, etc.). I rate this game 6 out of 10 (the rating is certainly at least one or more grade higher as a two player game).