New Crusade rules "Soldiers of God"

 I have looked at these rules online at the Perry's Brothers website.  All credit for this post belongs to the Perry's.   A great review with pictures of the game.   Looks like I will be ordering a copy shortly.



Soldiers of God
Another day another game! Yesterday Warwick Kinrade, author of the new Crusade rules 'Soldiers of God' came round for a game. Obviously we played a Crusade game utilizing the rules.
It's a card driven game that has a very good feel for the period and clever system. You can choose from a raid, small or large battle or siege assault and there's a campaign system and army lists included too.
We opted for a small battle with Warwick taking the Muslims and myself, Michael, the Crusaders. The initial phase was to pick a battle plan based on one of eight different forms of attack or defence taken from contemporary battles, then chose your troops to fit the plan. Cards are then dealt, one for each of your three 'battles' and four random ones. You play through your cards alternately picking up four new cards at the end of each turn. On the cards are actions and special events.
The player with the higher moral plays the first card, that was me. I chose A Left Echelon Attack, leading with my mounted knights on left, with the infantry following in the centre and holding my right. Warwick chose Advance and Harry which sent his light cavalry up on the flanks and his heavy cavalry and infantry advancing in the centre. Unfortunately for Warwick his first right hand unit of horse archers over extended themselves and fell prey to my knights. Meanwhile on my right flank Warwick's other wing of horse archers tried to circumnavigate my stationary right 'battle' but received a number casualties. The centres closed.
The mounted knights on my left then charged again into Warwick's ghulams and the resulting melee continued for the rest of the game. By now Warwick's left flank of horse archers had lost one unit but had destroyed my archers and the commander of the left 'battle' which allowed him to attack the rear of my centre. Perhaps foolishly I attempted to intersect this marauding unit with my commander of the centre (he's assumed to have a bodyguard unit). Luckily it worked and the commander survived. The infantry in the centre now clashed after a perfunctory archery duel. This raged for a couple of turns before one of Warwick's units crumbled. This together with the loss of a ghulam unit took Warwick's army morale below 0, which meat they broke. The Crusaders weren't much better as they had been reduced to 2 from 17.
It was a very good game and I highly recommend the rules, which, by chance you can buy from Perry Miniatures! (go to the 'book' side bar on the Perry Miniatures web page).