High Crusade
SF Miniatures Wargame
Wessex Games
20pp - [sterling]2.50
High Crusade has been around for a couple of years now, but the arrival of a
second edition makes it worth taking another look at. Many of the revisions are
purely cosmetic; it's now in an easier-to-read A4 format, instead of the old A5
booklet, and the army lists at the back have been expanded. As well as the
stats for Alternative Armies' Ion Age figure range, a new appendix provides
stats for Ground Zero Games' Stargrunt miniatures, thus making it easier to
link High Crusade and Iron Cow scenarios into a single campaign.
The rules themselves are as simple and elegant as they ever were. Players issue
their fireteams with orders at the start of every turn, and their opponents
attempt to jam them, issuing spurious orders of their own if they succeed. The
type of orders a team receives will affect their ability to move and shoot in
that turn.
Combat itself follows the pattern familiar from Steve Blease's other games,
Flintloque and Iron Cow, where a single percentile roll determines the chance
of a hit, and the damage caused. Morale is treated more abstractly than in
Flintloque, however.
There are gaps in the system, most notably a lack of vehicle rules, but these
are easy enough to work out if you want them. What you do get is a set of
simple, fast play rules for infantry skirmishes, intended as a basic
introductory set for the wargaming novice, but which experienced players will
find subtle and challenging enough for an enjoyable evening's play. And when
you consider that you can buy High Crusade and all the figures you'll need for
a quarter the price of Warhammer 40K, it's hard to think of a better
introduction to SF skirmish gaming.
Reviewed by: Alex Stewart
Product supplied by: Wessex Games
