With this My Favorite Wargame Cards Series, I hope to take a look at a specific card from the various wargames that I have played and share how it is used in the game. I am not a strategist and frankly I am not that good at games but I do understand how things should work and be used in games. With that being said, here is the next entry in this series.
#101: Constantinople Sends Aid Core Event from The Shores of Tripoli from Fort Circle Games
I have never played a historical wargame on the First Barbary War, which if you didn’t know was one of the first major wars the young United States of America participated in that was situated far outside their sphere of influence in North and South America. Shortly after the end of the American Revolutionary War, commercial vessels of the United States were being attacked and raided by the pirates of the Barbary coast in the Mediterranean Sea. In 1801, newly inaugurated President Thomas Jefferson was eager to put an end to this threat and sent a “squadron of observation” to the Mediterranean to deal with the threat. The Shores of Tripoli covers this conflict and does so using a card driven game mechanic that works really well in this instance. The game is a little deceiving, as at first it appears to be pretty introductory with simple rules and mechanics, but the depth for the game lies in the strategy for each side and the fact that their victory conditions are asymmetric.
There are two decks of cards in the game and each is unique for the side that is using it. The American Card Deck is blue-backed with a picture of President Thomas Jefferson and the Tripolitan Card Deck is red-backed with a picture of Yusuf Qaramanli. Each deck consists of a total of 27 cards and this is divided up between 21 Event Cards and 6 Battle Cards. The Tripolitan Deck also includes 3 additional cards that are used only for solitaire play. There are three different types of Event Cards included in the decks. These include Core Events, Unique Events, and Common Events. Each player has the same number of each of these type of cards with the only difference being that the Americans have only 10 Common Events and 2 special cards that are called Victory Event Cards.
Core Event Cards begin the game face-up in front of the player and do not count against the eight-card hand limit. Core Cards may be played in place of a card in hand at any time during the player’s turn for their event and then are permanently removed from the game. The Constantinople Sends Aid Core Event Card has a condition that must be met in order to be played and that is that Hamet’s Army has captured the city of Derne. This means that this card will have to wait to be played until at least after the Spring of 1804 or even later as the American player must play their Hamet’s Army Created Core Event Card and then invade Derne which will take a turn or two after the Core Event Card is played. This card is a last ditch effort to stop the Americans as they make their eventual drive on Tripoli. The addition of 1 Tripolitan Frigate and 2 Corsairs will beef up the naval defense of the port and the addition of the 2 Tripolitan Infantry in the city of Tripoli will aid in staving off Hamet’s Army.
The Constantinople Sends Air Core Event Card is somewhat of an ahistorical event, meaning that it was possibly available if necessary but the anticipated invasion of Tripoli Harbor by the forces of Hamet never occurred. Following the fall of Derne, Hamet Karamanli’s forces held the city and planned to press onward toward Tripoli, which put immense psychological and political pressure on the ruling Bashaw Yusuf Karamanli. But, before a full-scale assault on Tripoli could take place, U.S. Consul General Tobias Lear negotiated and signed a peace treaty with Yusuf Karamanli in June 1805 effectively ending the First Barbary War. The treaty secured the release of American hostages from the USS Philadelphia in exchange for a ransom, ending the military campaign. U.S. forces secretly evacuated Derne, abandoning Hamet Karamanli’s push to take Tripoli and returning him to exile.
Lieutenant Presley O’Bannon at Derne. Painting by Charles Waterhouse.
In the next entry in this series, we will take a look at Austrian Leader Klemens von Metternich from Congress of Vienna from GMT Games.
In 1539, a small Spanish garrison of troops numbering 3,500 men held the Albanian village of Castelnuovo for 22 days against the massive Ottoman army consisting of over 54,000 Turk soldiers. This siege took place as a part of the Ottoman-Habsburg struggle for control of the Mediterranean Sea in July 1539 at the walled town of Castelnuovo, which is the location of present-day Herceg Novi, Montenegro. After days of open trench warfare and more than a month of smaller combats, skirmishes, assaults and bombardments from the Turkish navy, the last Spanish defenders fell ending the siege. Castelnuovo 1539 is a wargame that focuses on this siege designed by Francisco Ronco. The defenders are safe behind sturdy walls and battlements but time and continual shelling from the Ottomans will lead to assaults over the walls. The battle is hopeless for the defenders but they can win the game by doing enough damage to the Ottomans to end their campaign and stop them from invading further into the Albania and then onto Spain and the rest of Europe. The game is very well produced using wooden blocks for soldiers, stylized walls, siege trenches and cannon along with ships and the board is also beautifully illustrated. The game is a block wargame where the strength of units are hidden from the opponent and plays pretty quickly in less than 90 minutes and really is a great representation of the battle and its history.
In Action Point 1, we took a look at the beautiful Game Board and its area movement scheme. In Action Point 2, we examined the units available to both sides and compared their relative strengths and weaknesses. In Action Point 3, we took a look at the different types of Command Cards and discussed how they are used. In this Action Point, we will take a look at the 2 different types of rounds including a Siege Round and an Assault Round and how they differ.
In Castelnuovo 1539 there are 2 different types of rounds within the structure of the game including Siege Rounds and Assault Rounds. This 2 type approach is designed to reflect the different preparations and phases of a sustained siege on a fortified location. The Ottoman player is allowed to choose the type of round for the upcoming turn during the Reinforcement Phase, which is the last phase in any round. In this structure, the Ottoman player has the chance to review the previous round, consider their losses and gains on the battlefield, identify their goals and set themselves up for success in the coming round.
Siege Rounds reflect the necessary preparations, concentration of resources of both men and materiel, the progress of mine works and siege trenches and represent 3 or 4 days of the siege. During this time there are small combats and skirmishes, probing of the enemy lines and reconnoitering but no major frontal assaults. In this type of round, each player draws only 4 cards reflecting the slower and more deliberate planning phases of a siege. The first round of the game is always a Siege Round in the main scenario. There also is another mechanic that is added to the Siege Rounds as the Ottoman player can choose to rest during only a Siege Round and no cards are played and the player also places all of their Azab and Sipahi Blocks on the board at full Strength. This reflects the buildup and preparation for the upcoming assault and is a key decision for the Ottoman player who is pushing against time and must complete the siege in their favor before time expires.
Assault Rounds represent moments of decisive assault, with a great amount of movement and activity on both sides. The action is fast and furious and each turn represents only 1 days worth of combat. In this type of round, the hand of both players increases to 7 cards in order to provide the fuel needed to sustain a planned attack. There is a price to pay for the prosecution of an Assault Round though as each time the Ottoman player declares their intention to assault, the Ottoman Casualty Track will be advanced 1 space.
The decision opportunity for an Assault Round versus a Siege Round comes at the end of the Spanish Action Phase. Before drawing any cards, the Ottoman player chooses which type of round to play next. If an Assault Round is chosen and the player has more than 4 cards in their hand, no new cards will be drawn and the player will discard down to 4 cards. One of the key decision points at this time is the makeup of the Ottoman player’s hand. If they have good cards, such as the necessary Order Cards to initiate attacks as well as a Combat Card or 2 to supplement those attacks and make them more effective, the choice is pretty simple. If their hand of cards is not necessarily setup and beneficial for a siege, they may want to move to an Assault Round where they will draw the maximum 7 cards and can continue their preparations for the next round while still engaging in smaller attacks and bombardments to weaken the defenses and demoralize and reduce the defending Spanish Tercios.
I was very impressed by this distinction in the 2 types of rounds in the design but at first had difficulty making the connection to the history and the design choice. But a siege is a very different and particular case in warfare and has some very interesting nuances that must be taken into consideration. As the game is basically decided by the mounting casualties of both sides, the presence of artillery batteries, the obsolete medieval fortifications of the city and the modern earthen fortifications built by the Spanish to reinforce them, casualties are a reality and the Ottoman player needs to be cognizant of this and take it seriously. There has to be a deliberate and planned attack on the city with the proper and measured construction of siege trenches by the Ottomans to realize the benefit of their usefulness in reducing the casualties of the besiegers.
A good Ottoman commander will play a well balanced game with a consistent pattern of incremental movement upon the city, all the while building their siege lines to form a tightening encirclement of the walls like the coils of an anaconda, inching closer and closer to the walls, using their artillery to weaken and break the defenses and create breaches where close-range assaults can be launched that will ultimately decide the outcome. Digging trenches should be one of the Ottomans first tasks, as they must protect their blocks as they are in the open field, an easy target for attack. Once the blocks are protected with trenches, there is a need to plan the advance and bring these trenches and batteries closer to the Spanish fortifications so that they can breached. Once there are open breaches, it is necessary to throw caution to the wind and take the city by assault as the Spanish attempts to repair the walls and build internal fortifications will continue to hinder the Ottoman’s progress. But, the Spanish player must keep in mind their advantages, including the well known Spanish ‘camisado’ attacks (encamisadas in Spanish) to sally forth and inflict damage upon the besieging forces to weaken their strength. The Spanish leaders are better and will provide great benefits to these attacks that should inflict maximum damage and break the will of the Ottoman as they continue the slow and arduous advance on the city. But the understanding of how to use this Siege/Assault process will take a few plays to understand but once you master the rules, you will see that these fortresses were not defended passively, but rather are in the pattern of an active defense that makes calculated sorties to hinder the work of the attackers by destroying artillery batteries and not giving the Ottomans any rest or respite from the action a vital part of the process.
In Action Point 5, we will delve into an example of combat and bombardment.
If you are interested, I was able to shoot the following review/overview/summary video with the designer Francisco Ronco after playing the game earlier this year:
In 1539, a small Spanish garrison of troops numbering 3,500 men held the Albanian village of Castelnuovo for 22 days against the massive Ottoman army consisting of over 54,000 Turk soldiers. This siege took place as a part of the Ottoman-Habsburg struggle for control of the Mediterranean Sea in July 1539 at the walled town of Castelnuovo, which is the location of present-day Herceg Novi, Montenegro. After days of open trench warfare and more than a month of smaller combats, skirmishes, assaults and bombardments from the Turkish navy, the last Spanish defenders fell ending the siege. Castelnuovo 1539 is a wargame that focuses on this siege designed by Francisco Ronco. The defenders are safe behind sturdy walls and battlements but time and continual shelling from the Ottomans will lead to assaults over the walls. The battle is hopeless for the defenders but they can win the game by doing enough damage to the Ottomans to end their campaign and stop them from invading further into the Albania and then onto Spain and the rest of Europe. The game is very well produced using wooden blocks for soldiers, stylized walls, siege trenches and cannon along with ships and the board is also beautifully illustrated. The game is a block wargame where the strength of units are hidden from the opponent and plays pretty quickly in less than 90 minutes and really is a great representation of the battle and its history.
In Action Point 1, we took a look at the beautiful Game Board and its area movement scheme. In Action Point 2, we examined the units available to both sides and compared their relative strengths and weaknesses. In this Action Point, we will take a look at the different types of Command Cards and discuss how they are used.
Command Cards
In Castelnuovo 1539, there are 72 Command Cards with 36 unique cards per player side that are used to drive the tactical asymmetry of the siege. Players will draw hands of 4 cards during Siege Rounds or 7 cards during high-intensity Assault Rounds to be used for maneuvers around the board, bombardments and various special events. The Spanish and Ottoman factions utilize distinct and asymmetrical decks meaning that their available action options differ to reflect historical realities of the forces and their roles. I have already said this in previous posts on this game but the asymmetry is so very well done in this game and each side truly feels different from one another which creates a really interesting tactical challenge as players have to understand not only their own deck and its capabilities but those of their enemy to be able to effectively prosecute or defend against the siege.
There are 5 distinct types of Command Cards in the game, which include Action Cards, Order Cards, Combat Cards, Reaction Cards and Immediate Effect/Event Cards. Each has their own purpose and place in the game and I very much like the way the cards create opportunities for each player. Let’s take a bit of a deeper look into the types of cards, give a bit of a background on their general use and provide some examples.
First off are Action Cards, which are used by the players to execute specific actions such as engineering, trench-digging or board-manipulation tasks, such as generating Trench Points to advance through or destroy Spanish bastions. The cards basic purpose is to activate units to take actions on the board.
Order Cards typically dictate the movement, repositioning and coordination of military units, marches, and artillery batteries across the board. These are the most common of the card types and are frankly the most important as you cannot use the other cards to attack until you are in position to do so.
Combat Cards are the force multiplication cards and are played during combat resolution to enhance striking power, modify dice roll or trigger pre-combat attacks like the specialized Ottoman volley actions. These Combat Cards are best used as a hold in your hand to use them when they most benefit the player. This can be challenging as holding too many will mean you are not drawing the Order Cards that you need to advance on the enemy.
Reaction Cards are played out of turn during your opponent’s Action Phase to counter maneuvers or provide mid-combat support for engaged troops. These cards can be lifesavers and are important to any good strategy.
Finally, there are Immediate Effect/Event Cards that are used to inject the historical narrative into the game and to replicate the historical action. These cards can also be focused on environmental factors such as the faith of the defenders/attackers, fire devices or the like that will change the flow and pace of the battle instantly.
Each of the 5 different type of Command Cards have a unique color coded icon to assist the players in understanding the capabilities of the card and the appropriate phase to use the card in. These 5 icons are as follows:
Keep in mind though that several of the Command Cards will have 2 icons listed which means that they belong to either of the types and can be played as either during a play. You cannot play the same card again and use its other icon though. This duality provides the players with a bit more flexibility and creates a more engaging and free flowing game. In my opinion, sometimes games which rely on cards to activate units for moves or attacks can suffer from poor draws. While that can still be an issue in Castelnuovo 1539, the dual icon cards make this a bit less of a problem.
Here is a look at the makeup of the Command Cards by type per faction. Keep in mind that dual icon cards will count double in the categories they represent.
As you can see, the Spanish have more icons represented on their 36 cards than the Ottomans demonstrated by the Total Type of Card icons for the Spanish being 50 (1.39 icons per card) as compared to only 44 (1.22 icons per card) for the Ottomans. This is not a huge difference but does give the Spanish player a bit more flexibility in their cards draws and they will be able to be a bit more nimble than the attacking Ottomans. The Spanish have the advantage in the number of Action icons of 18 to 16. Remember that Action Cards are typically used for specific actions such as engineering, trench-digging or board-manipulation tasks. The Ottomans have the advantage in Order icons which means they have more move and march cards than the Spanish. Keep in mind that the onus to attack lies with the Ottoman player as they will have to move their units on the board to be able to attack the Spanish defenders. Also keep in mind the Bombard is an Order and the Ottoman has more of these type of card icons than the Spanish player 5 vs. 3. One of the most glaring differences is the high number of Reaction icons that the Spanish player has. These type of cards are used in response to your opponent’s card play and include things like Counterattacks, Arquebusiers, which gives a free attack when Ottoman units come adjacent to any Arquebusier unit on the board or Friendly Fire, which allows free rolls against Ottoman units located in between their firing artillery and the Spanish.
Another key card for the Spanish include Cheveaux de Frise, which allows the Spanish player to place a chevaux-de-frise cube in a Wall area or a Bastion. Each cube allows the Spanish player to ignore 1 hit in combat. These cubes are not destroyed by absorbing the hit. In addition, if a combat is tied in an area with these cubes, the Spanish player wins the battle. This card is a huge advantage for the Spanish and these should be played as soon as possible in order to minimize the damage taken from the Ottoman onslaught. If the Ottomans occupy an area with chevaux-de-frise and no enemies, the cubes are automatically destroyed. Another very important card for the Spanish player is Comisado. This Action Card can be used as a normal attack or, during a Siege Round, to make a special attack called the Camisado. The Camisados were night raids carried out by the Tercios troops in reduced numbers, specifically intended to sabotage and attack the Ottoman camps, trying to eliminate the enemies while they slept and to inflict material damage to the camp. The Spanish player selects a group of Spanish units, which may include the Leader Sarmiento, and these units can attack an area that is a maximum of 2 areas away from the selected group. This is a hit and run type of attack that gives the Spanish the powerful opportunity to sally forth from the walls to enact damage and then retreat back to safety.
The Ottomans have their own tricks with special cards including For the Faith. This card can only be played in combat if there is at least 1 Azab unit involved. When used, all dice rolled by Azab units (not Janissaries or Sipahi) in combat have a +1 bonus to hit, but at the end of the battle, the Ottoman player must eliminate 3 points of strength from the Azab units. This card is a tradeoff but the price paid can be very much worth it if the dice are kind.
Both sides have access to cards that perform special attacks or provide bonuses like Fire Devices which is a Combat Card that allows the player to roll 3d6 against enemy units at the start of Combat, when the card is revealed. Any result of 5 or 6 counts as 1 hit, to be assigned by the opponent. It can only be played in areas that contain, or are adjacent to, Walls or Bastions built by the Spanish player. These type of cards are very important to the game and its combat system as the weaker units are the fewer dice they will roll and the chances of hits are lessened.
The Command Cards are very well done and truly create the setting for the asymmetry of the game. These cards serve as a highly effective, dual-purpose engine of the game’s dynamic card driven design and I think that the designer did a fantastic job in creating a very balanced and playable game that provides an opportunity for “victory” for both players. The Command Cards are highly effective because they completely abstract command and logistics into a tight tactical choice with units only moving or initiating combat when activated by a card.
In Action Point 4, we will take a look at the 2 different types of rounds including a Siege Round and an Assault Round and how they differ.
If you are interested, I was able to shoot the following review/overview/summary video with the designer Francisco Ronco after playing the game earlier this year:
With this My Favorite Wargame Cards Series, I hope to take a look at a specific card from the various wargames that I have played and share how it is used in the game. I am not a strategist and frankly I am not that good at games but I do understand how things should work and be used in games. With that being said, here is the next entry in this series.
#94: Hamet’s Army Created from The Shores of Tripoli from Fort Circle Games
I have never played a historical wargame on the First Barbary War, which if you didn’t know was one of the first major wars the young United States of America participated in that was situated far outside their sphere of influence in North and South America. Shortly after the end of the American Revolutionary War, commercial vessels of the United States were being attacked and raided by the pirates of the Barbary coast in the Mediterranean Sea. In 1801, newly inaugurated President Thomas Jefferson was eager to put an end to this threat and sent a “squadron of observation” to the Mediterranean to deal with the threat. The Shores of Tripoli covers this conflict and does so using a card driven game mechanic that works really well in this instance. The game is a little deceiving, as at first it appears to be pretty introductory with simple rules and mechanics, but the depth for the game lies in the strategy for each side and the fact that their victory conditions are asymmetric.
While the main combatants in the game are naval units, there are ground units as well that must be used to try and take Tripoli to win the game. The American ground units consist of Hamet’s Army, which is a combined force of Arab and American infantry units that are dedicated to the mission of installing the pro-American Hamet Qaramanli on the Tripolitan throne. These ground units consist of white cubes that represent the Arab Infantry and blue cubes that represent American Marines. In Ground Combat, each Infantry unit rolls one die and it takes one hit for them to be eliminated.
Hamet’s Army will be created if the United States player plays the card Hamet’s Army Created for the Event. There are several conditions to the card being played though as it must be the Spring of 1804 or later and there has to be at least one American Frigate located in the Alexandria harbor. Once played to bring on Hamet’s Army the card is removed from the game and placed in the box. The newly created army will have to fight their way through 2 locations, Derna and Benghazi, for a final confrontation at Tripoli. I think that I very much enjoy this card because it is a necessary step in the game that the player has to plan for and be prepared to play when it does reveal itself. The player must be ready by using a portion of their limited actions to move at least 1 American Frigate to the harbor of Alexandria and then play this card for the printed event. Keep in mind that this is just the start though as there is a long way to go from here and many more things that must be completed to setup the final showdown.
Hamet Qaramanli’s army was a mixed mercenary force of several hundred Arab and Berber fighters, European cannoneers, and Greek infantry led by U.S. Army Captain William Eaton and U.S. Marine Lieutenant Presley O’Bannon during the First Barbary War. The goal of the expedition was to successfully march across the North African desert, capture the city of Derna, and depose the ruling Pasha of Tripoli, Yusuf Qaramanli in favor of his exiled older brother Hamet Qaramanli. In early 1805, the force marched roughly 500 to 600 miles across the Libyan Desert from Egypt to the Tripolitan border. The force consisted of 8 U.S. Marines, a small group of U.S. sailors, 26 Greek volunteers, a company of cannoneers and roughly 1,000 Arab and Berber mercenaries loyal or allied to Hamet. On April 27, 1805, aided by U.S. Navy warship bombardments, the force successfully stormed and captured the strategic port city of Derna in the Battle of Derna. But before Hamet’s army could advance further toward Tripoli, the United States signed a peace treaty with Yusuf Qaramanli, abandoning Hamet’s claim to the throne in exchange for freed American prisoners and an end to tributes.
Lieutenant O’Bannon and Marines advancing toward Tripoli. (Image from Merrill L. Bartlett and Jack Sweetman, The U.S. Marine Corps: An Illustrated History, (Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, MD: 2001), 30–31.)
In 1539, a small Spanish garrison of troops numbering 3,500 men held the Albanian village of Castelnuovo for 22 days against the massive Ottoman army consisting of over 54,000 Turk soldiers. This siege took place as a part of the Ottoman-Habsburg struggle for control of the Mediterranean Sea in July 1539 at the walled town of Castelnuovo, which is the location of present-day Herceg Novi, Montenegro. After days of open trench warfare and more than a month of smaller combats, skirmishes, assaults and bombardments from the Turkish navy, the last Spanish defenders fell ending the siege. Castelnuovo 1539 is a wargame that focuses on this siege designed by Francisco Ronco. The defenders are safe behind sturdy walls and battlements but time and continual shelling from the Ottomans will lead to assaults over the walls. The battle is hopeless for the defenders but they can win the game by doing enough damage to the Ottomans to end their campaign and stop them from invading further into the Albania and then onto Spain and the rest of Europe. The game is very well produced using wooden blocks for soldiers, stylized walls, siege trenches and cannon along with ships and the board is also beautifully illustrated. The game is a block wargame where the strength of units are hidden from the opponent and plays pretty quickly in less than 90 minutes and really is a great representation of the battle and its history.
In Action Point 1, we took a look at the beautiful Game Board and its area movement scheme. In this Action Point, we will examine the units available to both sides and compare their relative strengths and weaknesses.
Units
As a block wargame, all of the units in the game are represented by wooden blocks that have stickers affixed to them representing the fighting forces of the Spanish and the Ottomans. There are generally 3 types of units including Infantry, Cavalry and Naval. Infantry is a large category that includes Arquebusiers and Pikemen for the Spanish and Turkish Janissaries and Azab for the Ottomans. Cavalry units are fewer and include Albanian Cavalry for the Spanish and Sipahi for the Ottomans. Each Infantry and Cavalry sticker has a central icon with groups of dots printed on its sides which represent their Combat Strength and the number of dice that each unit will roll in combat. The blocks range in Combat Strength from 2 to 4 dots as not all units have the same Combat Strength. The number of dots oriented at the top of the individual block units represents the current Combat Strength of the unit and can be reduced when entering combat and taking losses. Naval units do not have dots, as they are used in a different way to Infantry and Cavalry units.
All blocks start the game at full Strength and each time a block receives 1 or more hits, it will be rotated counterclockwise so that the top of the block shows the Strength it has remaining. When a Spanish block loses its last Strength Point, it will be removed from the game permanently. The same will happen for Turkish Janissary blocks but for eliminated Ottoman Azab and Sipahi Cavalry units they will be able return to the game at the end of each round during the Reinforcement Phase.
Fleets represent the use of galleys as artillery platforms to support the land forces in their siege and to provide the opportunity to perform some amphibious landing operations with ground troops. The Fleet discs are placed on the board horizontally, unlike the other blocks, and in this way their presence is not hidden from the opponent. Fleet blocks cannot leave the sea areas and count as Artillery Batteries when playing Bombardment and Friendly Fire cards. Once placed, Fleets do not move during the game.
Let’s take a quick look at the statistical makeup of the opposing forces.
In the following table, you will see the number of different types available to each of the combatants. The Ottoman forces have a numerical superiority as they have the most Infantry units with 26, comprising 10 elite Janissaries and 16 Azab. The Spanish have just 21 Infantry, with 10 of those being Arquebusiers and 11 Pikemen. The Ottomans also have the edge in the number of Cavalry units available with 6 Sipahi as compared to just 1 Cavalry unit from the Spanish in the form of a single Albanian Cavalry. The Infantry typically are the backbone of the army and will do most of the fighting and do most of the damage while the Cavalry units will be used to move ahead quickly to seize key areas and set up defenses to allow for the Infantry who have slower movement to catch up. Each side has 2 Fleets and these are vitally important for the Ottomans as this is the means that they can bring onto shore additional units to siege Castelnuovo.
And a look at total Combat Strength for each side. But, first it is important to explain the Combat Strength of each of the units for both sides. The Spanish Arquebusiers have a Combat Strength of 3 as do their Pikemen. This means that these units will roll 3 dice in combat and will be able to take 3 hits before being killed. The Ottoman Janissaries have 4 Combat Strength as do the Azab. When you simply multiply the Combat Strength by the number of blocks of each type you will get their Total Infantry Combat Strength. The Ottoman has a total of 104 Combat Strength spread out amongst their 26 Infantry units and the Spanish have a total of 63 Combat Strength among their 21 Infantry units. This can be used to get a quick idea about which side is better and has more power but this can be deceiving as the Spanish have the walls which can slow down the sieging Ottomans and absorb hits as well. The Ottomans have 49.1% more Infantry Combat Strength than the Spanish with a numerical difference of 41. A fairly significant difference and when coupled with the fact that the Ottomans can bring back killed Azab units where the Spanish Infantry are removed from the game, it is easy to see that the Spanish have the tougher time of it. Also, the Cavalry advantage is on the side of the Ottomans with Sipahi having a Combat Strength of 4 as compared to the Spanish Albanian Cavalry’s Combat Strength of 2. This gives the Ottoman the advantage in Total Cavalry Combat Strength of 24 as compared to just 2 for the Spanish.
I do want to point out that the Spanish have better Leaders and some of their units are considered elite and gain advantage on their combat rolls. The Arquebusiers Blocks have a +1 printed on them as a reminder that they have a +1 bonus to their combat roll and this is a major advantage in combat.
The other difference in combat is a unit’s priority and when they get to roll their attack dice and if hits are scored steps will be removed before lower priority units get to roll. The priority is as follows:
Pikemen go first if enemy Cavalry is present and they are fighting in clear or rough terrain.
Cavalry, if no opposing Pikemen are present and the battle is fought in clear or rough terrain.
Arquebusiers.
All other Infantry will then attack simultaneously.
Cavalry, only if there are opposing Pikemen in clear or rough terrain.
Hits are scored when players roll a modified 5 or 6 result on their 6-sided dice. Remember that Arquebusiers get a +1 to hit, which means they hit on a roll of 4-6, which is a huge advantage. Also remember that there are Leaders and certain Leaders will give a +1 bonus to specific troops that are located in their areas.
Leaders must always have blocks of their side present in their areas on the board but do not count toward the 3-block limit per area. Leaders Agi (Ottoman Janissary Leader) and Sarmiento (Spanish Leader that affects all units with him) grant benefits to the dice rolls of the units they escort. Leaders do not have to accompany specific units and as such can move with any unit in the area they are in, or they can stay there with units other than the ones they originally moved in with. But Leaders must perform the full movement with the units they started moving with as you cannot drop or pick up a Leader during movement. You can move units from where the Leader is without taking the Leader with them, but some units will need to stay behind so the Leader is not alone in the area. If during combat, all blocks accompanying the Leader are eliminated, the Leader is eliminated as well.
Artillery Batteries
Both players have Artillery Batteries at their disposal, which represent vitally important siege pieces used to both defend and attack the city walls. These Artillery Batteries are in the form of red and green cannon meeples (they are very cute) and make a huge impact on the presence of the board as when they are placed they command respect. The Batteries allow players to play cards that fire from a distance and there can never be more than 1 of these Batteries in a single area of the map. The Spanish player’s Artillery Batteries are placed at the beginning of the game and cannot be moved while the Ottoman player can install an Artillery Battery when building Trenches with any cards that allow it. They can also move the Batteries through areas connected by Trenches using those same cards.
In Castelnuovo 1539, the Spanish and Ottoman fighting forces are deeply asymmetrical. The Spanish field a small, fixed and irreplaceable garrison of elite veteran Tercios focused on defense and repairing fortifications, whereas the Ottomans possess an overwhelming, recyclable horde of Azabs, Sipahi Cavalry, and Janissaries arriving by land and sea. You will feel the asymmetry in the game and I think that it is really very well done by the designer to represent this very difficult siege from history.
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