Infidel: The Supremacy of Cavalry in the Crusader Era - 11th-12th Century
A game for 2 players designed by <PERSON> and published by GMT Games
“He knew from experience that true and obvious ideas, such as the ineffable wisdom and judgment of the Great God Om, seemed so obscure to many people that you actually had to kill them before they saw the error of their ways...”
― <PERSON>, Small Gods
Introduction
In the early days of my wargaming experience, I was interested in virtually any and every subject under the sun. Ancients. World War II. WW III (it was the 1980s and the Cold War was on). Napoleonics. SF and Fantasy themed wargames.
Back then, whenever I acquired a game, I would often skip the rules and the game and go right for the designer notes and see which books were listed in the bibliography. Sometimes I’d come home armed with a stack from the library and learn a little more about the history the game was portraying.
One game that caught my attention back in the day was The Crusades by SPI. I wouldn’t say my delving into the history of the game was exceedingly thorough, but the high points of the first and third crusades were well tended to with that game and its bibliography.
Fast forward several decades later to now. My personal preferences for wargame subjects has become better established, but there are still times where I like to return to topics old and new that interest me.
Infidel is the second entry in the Men of Iron tactical game series and includes six battles spanning almost a century from 1097 to 1191.
Components, Rules, and GameplayPhoto credit: <PERSON>
Infidel is the second game in the Men of Iron series, and not unlike the series (GBOH), having played will help you learn this one, as well as the third game in the series, .
The game includes what you see in the image: two back printed maps, two sheets of counters, the rules and play book, the associated charts, and a pair of 10 sided dice.
For those who have played any of the GBOH games, the rules in this system are significantly less complex. 993
The rule book is only 16 pages long and that includes an example of play. If you're an experiential learner like me, having the pieces out on the map as you're reading in order to understand what's going on under the proverbial hood is a great help.
The pace of the game is driven by a system of command activations. Units that are part of the same group are known as a Command. The active player selects one of the leaders on their side and then all units of that Command (nicely marked with a coloured stripe) can be activated. Once all your units have been used, you can attempt a continuation, which is to say, carry on by activating another of your leaders and going again with a different Command. The opponent has an opportunity to seize command and activate and use one of theirs instead.
This gives the game a nice flow because it's not an automatic IGO-UGO model. The ability to attempt a continuation, or conversely, to prevent that from happening, reminds me somewhat of the (although to be fair it's different because there you can activate the same leader twice in a row) .
The battle book contains the scenario setup rules, and also includes historical notes about the battle and its outcome.
A nice touch is that for each battle there's an approximate play time listed (e.g. "Playing time ran about 2 hours for the playtesters.") Some of the scenarios have suggestions for play balance, and some warn about being best suited for experienced/advanced players.
The six scenarios are (and here I simply quote the GMT website):
Dorylaeum (1097) : The Crusader line of march, including the people’s Crusade and <PERSON>, as well as all the great 1st Crusade Leaders, are “ambushed” by <PERSON> and his crack Seljuk cavalry.
Antioch (1098) : The exhausted, starving and depleted Crusaders – they had few horses left – have just taken Antioch and are now faced with a large Turkish army, under <PERSON>, sent to retake the city.
<PERSON> (1099) : The Crusaders, having seized Jerusalem, turn south to fend off the suddenly active large army of The Fatimids, with their crack Mamluk heavy cavalry.
<PERSON> (1104) : <PERSON> of Edessa seeks to maintain control of his little kingdom in northern Syria, something <PERSON>, <PERSON> of Damascus, is not happy to allow. One of the first major Crusader defeats. 993