Lion Rampant the Crusader States Review

 

Being a long time fan of Gaming the Crusades project, I was impatient about release of the book. Now, finally it’s here, and I got it right before the failure of the University of Edinburgh selling system. It means, there is quite an audience from the beginning.

I like the Lion Rampant. For me it’s the best game on the market fulfilling my requirements for fast play, intuitive system build about play the period approach. This book brings Cruader flavour to the rules, however it’s not standalone game. You have to have Lion Rampant rules available. On 153 pages we get brief introduction to the theme – History of Crusader States in Outremer, New Special Rules, Faction Rules, Scenarios and written version of excellent talk by Daniel Mersey from the University of Edinburgh roundtable with Game Designers.

Rules for Outremer are major theme of the book. To be honest when I discuss it with our gaming club and later on in interview with Gianluca Raccagni, I was afraid that the innovations could be too deep and break the simplicity of the Lion Rampant. But changes are minor. Some of them we knew from different Rampants and by minor tweaks create vastly different armies to each other. Something the Rampant is not known for.

There are three parts of the rules section in the book; Universal Special Rules, new Armylist entries and Faction list.

The Special rules works with faith basically and how the faith was percieved by the medieval people. Relics, Blessed Weapons, Religious Fervor or a new unit the Holy Men are rename of rework of previous rules, or a new rules bringing minor tweaks to the game. I like how it deeply connects with what we can read in the contemporary chronicles and of course what we expect from the Warfare so influenced by the tenets of the four major believes.

The Armylist is more or less only rename of the Unit Types from the original game, there are no stats or points, only applicable upgrades and short notice about availability.

Dai Nozar Ahmadi with his Rafiqs Bahman and Hashim ((L to R)

Where the book really shines is with the Faction Lists. There are total of 12 factions where similar traits are bound together – so there is only one faction for Military Orders and one faction for Muslim Principalities, but they can be distinguished by traits and special rules.  For example, Knights of St. Lazarus, who were leppers, get Armor 3 instead of 4, but they were feared on the battlefield. Assassins (or Shia sect of Nizari Ismailites) share some rules with muslim principalities, but for different price and of course, have special rule of its own. But the Assassins can be hired by other faction as well (as it is universal rule, but for higher points value). The Factions are: Western Crusades, Italian Maritime Republic, Frankish Settlers, , Christian Military Orders, Pilgrims, Marauders, Muslim Principalities, Fatimid Egypt, Saladin Ayyubids and Mamluks, Mongols, Byzantines, Armenians. Each faction has short introduction with excellent details given. For example I did not realize that Crusader army consists of hundreds of Lion Rampant retinues, and that minor households and estates of the franks are even smaller than average Lion Rampant retinue. Every faction has again its suggested (not mandatory!) warband armylist. So you can have idea about difference on the field of battle. This part of the book is something I can recommend to anyone going to play at Outremer, not only Rampanters; because the universal rules, traits and special rules gives depth to the factions, which are now different to each other, and it will help to guide you in creating army for other rules as well.

Small hamlet in Levant

The fifth section of the book are Scenarios, we get twelve of them along with new faith inspiring boasts. All scenarios are taken from the contemporary chronicles or historical research and one of them is the Raiders of the Crusader Keep about storming the keep Byblos. This scenario is known from several game Shows in UK where it was demoed.

For all those interesting in some wargaming theory (of course apart of my own articles) will enjoy Daniel Mersey’s talk about player and game design typology of historical games.  

As I said before, the huge advantage of the book is level of detail we get about our faction, about armies of Outremer and each Scenarios. It’s not rule-book. It’s fluff book, and fluff is represented by actual rules. The rules and history are tied together and the result will brings more narrative details and depth to your wargaming experience. And I like that. That’s how I want to play my games.

And at the end of the book, let’s introduce my future to be Assassin Faction (24pts)

Assassination Special Rule
Heavy Foot
Holy Man + Major Religious Item
Fierce Foot + Minor Religious Item + Religious Ferwor
Archers
Light Infantry
 

Assassination Special Rule is must have as my fiday‘in is in oponent’s camp. Heavy Foot are members of my Outremer Faith and Blood retinue including dai Nozar Ahmadi from Persia. Holy Man is of course preacher of the dai. Fierce Foots are rafiqs, companions to the dai, and may be one or two feday’ins are hidden in their ranks. Archers and Light Infantry are Nizari militia.  class.