Crusaders: Thy Will Be Done First Impressions
In Crusaders: Thy Will be Done you’ll be crusading across Europe…
…assuming you’re able to do the action you want with enough oomph.
Move your knights, erect buildings, and go crusading to spread the influence of your Order. When the Orders get too strong, King Philip will become nervous and disband all Templar orders, ending the game.
Crusaders: Thy Will Be Done Game Play
During setup, each player will get a couple of these tiles with special abilities. They will choose one and slot it into their board. Each gives either a passive or activated ability and/or some setup changes.
On your turn, you’ll do one of 2 things: Either Upgrade a Wedge or Resolve an Action.
To Upgrade a Wedge, choose a Wedge and remove the action tokens from it. Then flip it over and return the action tokens to that wedge. The flip side of a wedge has 2 actions on it.
To Resolve an Action, choose an action on your dial with action tokens on it. The action listed on the tile segment is the action you’ll take with the power of the number of tokens on it. If the wedge has 2 actions on it, split the action tokens on the tile between the two actions.
After activating, pick up all action tokens on that action, and distribute them one at a time clockwise around the dial.
Actions
Travel – Move Knights around the different Hexes around the board. Each action token is essentially 1 movement hex.
Muster – Flip the lowest level face-down troop token on the top of the player board. Only if the number of action tokens on the board are equal to or greater than the number on the tile.
Crusade – If one of your Knights is with an enemy disk and its strength is equal to or lower than the action’s strength plus any bonuses, the disk is removed.
Gold and Silver, representing different enemies, are shown on a strength track. Brown disks, a third enemy, are always 6
If defeating a gold/silver, keep the token but increase their strength by 1. If defeating a brown disk you can build a building in that space matching the building printed on the brown token, or Muster a troop.
Influence – Gain that much Influence… That’s it
Build – In a region with one of your Knights. You can’t build in a region with an enemy token or another building. The cost in ‘action points’ is the cost is the lowest building of the chosen type on your player board. The area you’re building in may contain a modifier.
Buildings unlock bonuses for other actions depending on the type. Castles unlock Knights are placed in the same hex as the new Building.
Some of these actions will award Influence (points) as you go.
Game End
The game ends when the last influence token is taken from the supply.
For each enemy type, give the 5 and 2 points tile to the player with the most of that colour disk.
Each set of 3 enemy disks is worth 4 influence.
Building the level 4 building of each type will give a bonus:
Church – 6 influence
Farm – 1 Influence for each Knight and mustered troop
Bank – 4 Influence for each level 4 building
Most Influence wins
Theme
I don’t know much about the Crusades apart from the odd Robin Hood film and one of my favourite books The Jester, by James Patterson. (The Jester thing is a coincidence)
I know it’s brutal, and harsh and featured some innovative ways to kill large amounts of people for the time.
I’m not sure about building buildings and things. But I can see a Bank having a monetary effect and a church having its own effect. I think Christianity was pushed on the locals during the Crusades. No idea.
Regardless, there is a feeling of sweeping across Europe and removing the locals which is pretty much what you need for a Crusades game.
Setup & Rulebook
Setup is a pain really. You have to put the action wheel pieces in their place. Then put the tokens on them. You might have to remove some of that after placing your player power too.
Then there is a tonne of tokens to place on the board. Fiddly, not terrible, but takes longer than I’d like it to.
The rulebook is good. Lots of examples and pictures.
Components & Artwork
I have the ‘deluxified’ version meaning it has plastic and wood. It also has other deluxifed stuff. I prefer plastic to wood. It’s not ‘great’ plastic but the wood is very average. the advantage is the wood matches the iconography on the board.
I do like the art. There isn’t a lot of it but I like what there is and the overall aesthetic is really pleasing.
Ease of Teaching & Accessibility
VERY simple to teach. Once you cover each action as I have above the rest falls into place.
It is a fairly accessible game rules-wise. The basics of gameplay is very simple.
The loss of accessibility comes from trying to figure out what actions you can take now to add tokens for actions you need to take later. It’s quite brain-burny.
Crusaders: Thy Will Be Done Summary
So I don’t have any games that use a Rondel in my collection. But I do have a game where you’re playing actions now to set up actions later.
The best game that does this is Mombasa. You play cards this round to put them into piles you will collect in future rounds, It’s a push I know, but it has that feel. Crusaders: Thy Will Be Done obviously
Game Play Summary
Turns are quick. You generally know what you need to do, or have some idea of what you need to work toward doing it. If you need to Crusade but can’t quite make it, take a look at how you can load up that Crusade action.
The actions are simple, and the bonuses available are clear making the gameplay process easier.
The player powers are fun. No one seemed jealous of anyone else but everyone felt they were special. I feel that’s the sign of a well-balanced game.
The problem is I don’t find it interesting. It felt like work rather than fun. I spent more time taking turns doing something I didn’t want to do so that I could do something I wanted to do.
Before I could Crusade I would need to Influence, Muster, Influence and Travel just so I could do that. I didn’t want to.
I mean, I liked Crusaders: Thy Will Be Done. It’s good. It just didn’t stick with me sadly. I enjoyed everything I needed to do I just didn’t enjoy doing it.
Crusaders: Thy Will Be Done Kickstarter Unboxing
Jesta ThaRogue
