Mass Battle Crusades Rules

[Bellerophon]

What are some good rules for gaming the crusades? Not looking for SAGA or a skirmish game, but something I can use a big 15mm army for.

[Captain yapudo]

DE KADESH A JÉRUSALEM French rules 
Or
HAIL CESAR

[SteveBurt]

To the Strongest is a brilliant mass battle game. Plays very fast, and the grid means no measurement arguments.

[SJWi]

I would second the recommendation of To the Strongest ( TTS) but it does need a gridded mat plus chits/cards.  That can make it a pricey gaming system albeit I have many ancient/medieval armies and play regularly using the same mats and chits, so the investment is in the dim and distant past! Sword and Spear get good reviews as do Gripping Beast's Swordpoint. Both v1 and v2 of the latter are currently on sale! What I don't know is what basing convention Sword and Spear and Swordpoint use or assume.  TTS is pretty much base agnostic so long as what you have fits in the gridded square.     

[fred]

TTS is a good game (and we particularly like its ECW version) - I wouldn’t say there is much investment needed.

Gridded mats can be created easily as you only need to mark the corners where the squares join, the sides aren’t needed at all. Either using temporary items (such as small stones) or using a marker pen. Commercial gridded mats are good - but again if you just go for the corners marked they can be used for any game.
As to chits or cards - you probably have a couple of packs of playing cards already. I got small sized playing cards, sold for children’s birthdays which were less than £1 a pack.

[MGH]

I agree about To the Strongest not needing much in the way of investment. I already had a variety of felt mats when I first bought the rules so I just made my own grid on one to fit the size of the bases I use - there is no hard rule what size grid squares you use - if you got 28mm probably want bigger squares, 10mm smaller. I just used a marking pen to make dots not lined squares.

As for a deck or two of cards, most folks already own those. And a deck of playing cards is cheap anyways.

I have played many many TtS games over the years with Romans/Barbarians, Mongols/Sung Chinese, Crusaders/Muslims, Teutonic Knights/Prussians, and even use it with modifications for Great Italian Wars - gives a great game. My players love the tension of the many close games we've had. The sudden death victory conditions make for that.

I also appreciate that there are no longer any arguments over measurements..I used to hate it when two players would be arguing that those bowmen were in range by 1/2 inch or not they were not, you bumped the stand etc. Here it's clear - you are either in range or not.

Also played it at several conventions and those who have played it often ask me about where do you get the rules as they want to use that system too for their own games. 

[SJWi]

Fred/MGH, I understand and agree, I was just pointing out that unlike some rules where you can just slap your figures down on the table and get going TTS needs a bit more. My biggest bug-bear is actually the basing conventions. Many rules claim that you can use your figures based as-is but that isn't strictly true.   

[V]

We use 'Soldiers of God' for Crusades, amazing game but out of print so hard to get now.

[mellis1644]

There is always ADLG - which works well for most periods of big battles IMO. Then there are TTS and HC which are other options as mentioned. Each gives a different feel/style of a game. Some like/hate different versions of the above but I find they all have their own merits (and flaws). Then there are all the other usual suspects - Meg, Triumph, DBA, swordpoint etc.

With  specific focus, I have 'Soldiers of God' which looks good but have yet to get that onto the table. The reviews for it look good though.

[Eric the Shed]

Hail Caesar is worth a try...handles as many units as you want to field

http://shedwars.blogspot.com/2022/05/the-battle-of-arsuf-28mm-wargame.html

[Ran The Cid]

Arsuf is such a great battle for a big game.  One of the few stand up battles of the Crusades.  I've been able to to re-fight this several times as a convention game.


https://chicagoterrainfactory.wordpress.com/?s=arsuf