An age of knights and squires, religion and superstition.
After spending a horrifying amount on this game, and the most shipping I’ve paid on anything in my life, it was with some trepidation I awaited the final product—would the game be worth the money? Well, to anyone who doesn’t enjoy these kind of miniature-heavy battle games it probably isn’t, but I do, and to my great relief, I can say after several games I really enjoy the system. It’s like a medieval Memoir ’44, and I reckon that’s high praise indeed!
Personally I love the small scale of the miniatures because you can get a real sense of large armies clashing on the tabletop (though painting all those little guys can get a bit tedious). The activation system gives you interesting choices, and you can choose between historical battles of the Hundred Years War period, or ones with involving supernatural forces and monsters. And since your characters can hold ‘conversations’ with various side characters like priests and blacksmiths, stories really emerge from the gameplay. In our play of the Battle of Crécy scenario, Edward III spent a ridiculous amount of time chatting with the local blacksmith, to our amusement and his eventual detriment!
The Apocalyse and Siege expansions add astounding Book of Revelations battles and siege warfare and castle walls to the mix, and a huge dragon was a ridiculous self-indulgent extra item that, personally, I was foolish enough to buy!
Sadly, licencing and royalty battles between publisher and design meant that this long saga came to an end, and for a while, at least, Joan of Arc is no more. After the two Kickstarters and all the dramas and reprints and errata, it’s hard not to wish that it had all just been a simpler and more self-contained game from the start, and more content had been slowly added over time as the system matured.
Ohh man, you keep making my life easier, thank you so, so much! I’m also very happy with the game despite the set-up time being insane and the amount of content and organization being very overwhelming.
Which expansions/add-ons did you order? The Legendary Dragon is only worth it if you really want the “miniature” because it only adds one scenario, you won’t really be playing with it too much (not that it can really be handled that much because of its size).
I got Siege, Apocalypse, and the Compendium, but I may be able to get my hands on the other extras too. Just filming a battle report as we speak! Great game.
Awesome, looking forward to your battle report.
I got the Legendary Dragon, haven’t even opened it, will probably sell it. Now that I know more about the game and have actually played it, I’m only interested in the Apocalypse and Legendary Battles expansions, I will probably get them on Kickstarter 1.5 along with a bunch of extra dice and more bases so I can glue everything to improve set-up time.
Thanks again for the rules summary and player aid, they are fantastic!
Would really like to see one for the battle mode and even the v1.5 rules when they come out
I’d definitely like to do more battle reports, and I’ll be updating these sheets soon.
Are these updates to the 1.5 rules? I just got my pledge and itching to play!
I have one small fix to make so just give it a couple of days!
Updated on Xmas morning!
Thanks so much!!
Talk about a Christmas gift. Thank you Peter! Have a wonderful rest of your holiday season! I was an all in backer and the sheer amount of content and negative comments about the rules kept this on the shelf since it arrived. Now that I have the updated rules and Teutonic extras, looking to jump in with my trusty EOG rules summary as my guide.
It’s a fun game once you get past all that! Enjoy!