Lords of Heaven Gameplay - Part 2 | Phalanx | Crusades Wargame Boardgame

0:00 hi everybody I'm Zill Blitz and Welcome to our continued playthrough with Lords Of Heaven from fallinks this game is currently on game found as I'm making this video on September 2024 and there's a link down below if you'd like to check that out we're going to jump in and pick up our game playay we were halfway through the First Crusade we're going to play through the rest of the First Crusade then play the Second Crusade when we left off the celix were up in victory points 3 to one over the Crusaders see if they can hold on to their lead but there is a lot of crusading left to do here's a quick look at the world as it ended at the end of our previous episode we're shifting now into round four of the First Crusade and each Crusade again can have anywhere from 6 to8 rounds so about one quarter of the way through the game this is not a long game the game plays fast now when we left off the sjix had just beaten the Crusaders up here in antiochia in the first battle of antiochia taking a 3 to1 Victory point lead as we slide into round four we're going to pick up the action we're going to do this in a little bit of an accelerated fashion not showing the details of each move that we did in the last episode but kind of picking up the flow of gameplay and telling the story of what happens here but before we do that let's jump in and take a quick snapshot of the world State as it exists right now on the southern half of the map the seljuks hel hold a dominating position they own control of tius which will give them one Victory point at the end of each Crusade they control Jerusalem with some Crusader presence here and ascalon is quiet they uh the the seljuks should be able to gain control of ascalon rather easily uh with the Crusaders not really putting up

1:31 a fight for it let's take a look at the north now the north is uh much more hotly contested here with the Crusaders holding a strong position in Iconium uh tripy large completely uncontested antiochia with a large celic presence and they built a mosque but antiochia is uh in a political situation controlled by the Crusaders this may change soon one would think as the the sj's hoping to kind of put more pressure here Essa is controlled by the Crusaders and they have built a citadel there to try to lock up that City so as we head into the fourth round in the seljuk's turn here the question for the seljuks here is do we want to continue battling here to try to kind of gain another military Victory and and drop the morale of the Crusaders or do we want to try to build up some presence in antiochia shifting to perhaps controlling the city likewise Tripoli is open for the taking or the Selix could spend more influence down in the sou Crusaders from from their perspective it would be nice to try this is kind of a big battle Zone it' be nice to build a citadel here or perhaps get some fortresses in the area to lock up this this presence a little bit more and give them a little bit more of a military chance down here in antiochia otherwise they probably should start to think about how they can drift into the South or perhaps quickly gain control of Tripoli here which is still uncontested as we move into round four however we are going to play the short game for the seljuks they are going to launch another battle here in antiochia the seljuks go all in for the Battle of antiochia and

3:02 the Crusaders respond in like this was an epic fight around the area here the the celic picked up 14 swords here the the Crusaders roed rolled poorly in terms of Swords which doomed their effort there after they did bring reinforcements into the area it's a bloody battle as well with the Selix picking up four casualties inflicted on the Crusaders that wipes out every single unit that the crusaders had including their very expensive Knights a strategic error here perhaps by the by the Crusaders here as we get halfway through this first crusade Knights slaughtered around antiochia outside uh for the Selix they suffer three casualties though so they lose all of their ground troops uh leaving only their Knights as Victors in this is this extremely costly battle for the Crusaders so the Selix pick up three victory points giving them six Crusaders pick up one more giving them two Selix open up a four-point lead with another devastating loss on the Crusaders outside of antiochia after the bloody battles around antiochia over the middle of this Crusade uh neither side really has the troop force to be able to launch any sort of a battle so the Crusaders develop and build a fortress between Iconium and antiochia to try to reinforce antiochia going forward we head now to round five the Selix take advantage of the Lull in the action here by discarding a card and getting Five Points worth of anything they elect to take them all in ground forces as they lost uh heavy losses here in these two battles of antiochia so replenishing

4:34 their army Crusaders still need a lot of everything after these losses in antiochia we do an income round for them they do pick up two ground troops as some reinforcements and 10 gold which will be helpful antiochia looks like it's going to be tricky to hold on to though as the seljuks have replenished their forces as they head into round six round six of our first crusade the cels go all in again in antiochia trying to rack up the victory points while they can and put military pain on the Crusaders the Crusaders to this time don't commit many forces they've seen enough in antiochia they're conceding the Battleground at the moment here but the seljuks uh pick up the wind with a the benefit from their mosque as well as uh more troops and Zeal here the Crusaders don't commit many forces at all bluffing really in their defense uh in terms of casualties the seljuks inflict two on the Crusaders there are no troops here so the presence of the in antiochia goes off the board for the Crusaders their military presence has been exterminated extinguished here in antiochia to the Crusaders benefit though they do pick up this card that has two on it and two more from their die rolls which means all four of the ground troops are wiped out in the battle here so although the milit military presence has been wiped out for the Crusaders in antiochia leaving the location 100% really at least the outside of the location 100% in their control the Crusaders do manage to extract some ground troop casualties and expend some more Zeal here by the

6:04 seljuks but the seljuks pick up two more points giving them nine Crusaders at three it's a route here for the Selix as we're halfway ending the nearing the end of the First Crusade the Crusaders in round six uh take a different tag and play a presence action we have presence adjacent to antioc here in Tripoli they pay five gold and take control of Tripoli likewise down in the South down in the South the Crusaders who have presence in Jerusalem can pay five gold which they got from their income in the last turn and take control of ascalon this gives the Crusaders control of five of the seven locations currently in the Middle East here so political influence is strong they also spend their last remaining gold to bring some Military Support into ascalon creating a little bit more of a headache for the seljuks down to the South let's head to round seven the First Crusade is going all eight rounds here and the sjs in the beginning of round seven respond in playing a presence action to flip control down here of ascalon and up in the north in the north the sjs pay a five Hefty five gold fee to place Presence at the top level of antiochia knocking the Crusaders down one by the end of their turn here in round seven the sjs now have control of four of the Seven Cities Crusaders desperately need both money and troops so they play an income action which brings in three ground reinforcements as well as a whopping 15 gold thanks to their control of cities some of the income levels on the cards and then the two uh bonus for this turn so regaining finances and

7:35 bringing back troops in the Crusaders really need to turn this around CJs likewise are completely broke after their last presence action in round seven so they start off round eight by also running an income income is profitable as you get towards the end of the rounds because you have all these cards stacked up at the bottom so this act this income action because of the compounding effect of the cards played before it the in the previous turns of the round gets one gold two gold a troop and three gold that helps out a lot which gives the sjuk 13 gold two troops and a faith token as well so they have replenished their forces as I started this Crusade out I thought the side that goes first has a unique Advantage but what I realized is the side that goes last has a unique Advantage as well because the Crusaders are able to play one last presence action that had special value that allowed them to knock out the military support in Jerusalem here but they were able to flip ascalon uh bring some support into tius up here as well pay five for that because of all the income they had from the last turn and then if we look up north because the CJs hadn't built a citadel here we were able to pay one gold the difference literally and flip antiochia giving the Crusaders control of six of the Seven Cities as the First Crusade ends here that's a huge flip of events by playing that presence action on the last turn that seems to work really well now now the celix will go first as we start the Second Crusade but this will tighten the score up considerably so at the end of the First Crusade you get points for each City you control with the influence of the political influence the Crusaders

9:07 have man able to manage to Wrangle here they add six to their three which gives them nine the uh seljuks still control Jerusalem which tightens the game up considerably thanks to the political minations of the Crusaders military the seljuks here putting on a strong performance on the battlefield but politically they got caught kind of Blindsided there right at the end of the first Crusade so it's a it's a game here as we go into the Second Crusade so at the end of the first crusade in addition to counting the victory points we clear out all these columns so development uh costs and presence costs and income benefits and uh movement benefits all get cleaned out and get tossed into the discard pile each side also gets two fresh cards and in addition to the four they had and now they're going to whittle down to four cards so we'll do that for both the seljuks and the Crusaders lastly we add in Aleppo and Damascus to the action here and they are uncontrolled locations at the beginning of the Second Crusade we're going to reshuffle the turn deck and the seljuks will start us off so as we start the Second Crusade the sjuk are going to try kind of a double move play here they've played this uh local Armed Forces for development and built a fortress nearby between adessa and antiochia but then they can trigger the event here which basically Place one military presence in an area gain two troops and start a battle or a Siege so they're going to do that and try to lay Siege to adessa here

10:37 now sieges work pretty much the same way as battles except the area is landlocked so you can't bring in allies or your troops from adjacent areas to reinforce the battle that's going on The Siege that's going on in the area it's just the troops that are in the area so we can see here that basically the Crusaders don't have any military troops the uh sels have this one military presence here but the presence of The Siege gives the Defenders a bonus now if the sels win this Siege then their presence moves to the top spot and the Crusaders are removed if the Defenders win it uh they get an extra Victory point for the defending the siege here so we'll set this up an epically close Siege we have uh two strength card played by the Crusaders for the defense the defender in a Siege can play one unit and can play an extra unit when you have a citadel involved and the Citadel gives a plus two bonus so that gives four + 1 is five seven for the defense CJs are down below they've got two they brought their Knights here uh five six 7 they have one die roll cuz they have the uh military presence there they got this now they have one mosque in play so they can roll this if this doesn't isn't a sword then the battle ends up in a tie The Siege ends up in a tie now the rules don't say what happens in a tie it's a prototype these things happen so I'm going to give say the defender wins ties but we'll see the celis could get the victory here on their roll and they do they get two swords so they pick up the

12:08 extra two swords they need for the Victory and adessa Falls so we can back over to adessa we're going to remove the Crusader presence here and then slide in the seljuk presence each side gets one Victory point for participating in its Siege the rules don't mention the Victor getting an extra Victory point if they win a Siege I think they just gain control of the the city here but adessa falls to the celix the Crusaders lose ground in the north the Crusaders decide with control by controlling five of The Seven Cities or five of the nine cities here uh to uh collect taxes and get income they pick up 12 gold two units and a faith off of this the cjacks with their 12 gold coins decide to play for presentence and flip the the very tight political situation they flip ascalon paying one gold to get that difference they flip Tiara Tyrus to get three here that pays four they're going to pay five to pay to take the political presence here in Damascus which gives them control of that and then lastly they pay one to flip the precariously balanced antiochia back to their side this gives them uh the political situation here with two players seems pretty tipsy Turvy and uh that's a good move for selj they G control of a number of cities here 1 2 3 four cities added to their total so as we go into the back half of round two here in the Second Crusade the cels now control six of the eight cities that are under control with aleo still being neutral but the Crusaders have a much

13:41 larger sum of money so I think this is a case where we can have the Crusaders do the same action and bring down Damascus Damascus doesn't have enough gold I'm sorry the celi don't have enough gold to answer so I think that's going to tip the balance in the next round so the Crusaders have a better gold Supply they are in they have a card that allows them to use Faith to flip the presence in one city as well so they can spend eight of their 16 gold only half of it and basically return the favor upsetting the presence in most of the cities that The celix just took over so the political battle continues I'll reset the sou here so tius and ascalon go back to the Crusaders in the center the Crusaders actually don't have enough presence markers to take Damascus so they spend five to take aleo to take both so they're going to just collect presents in Aleppo and concede Damascus to the seljuks they already controlled Tripoli and in the north they flip the political situation in antiochia as well so but now instead you might think this going to go back and forth for the whole time the problem is now the sjix don't have any money they just have two gold so they cannot return the favor in this subsequent round but that ends round two so as this round ends the Crusaders actually control six of the nine cities should the game in now they're trailing by one Victory point but they would gain three they would win by two so the sji actually if the Crusades were ended now they would actually lose so the celic need to really get on the ball here as

15:11 we head into round three the cost of development is very cheap right now as we're still in the early rounds so the sji take advantage of that by building a citadel here in Damascus which has basically cost them nothing and they have a special event on their card that gets them a gold and a troop as well so that I think makes sense to do early on this should lock down Damascus and protect it from loss the Crusaders likewise take advantage of development building a citadel here in ascalon which will make it impossible for d for the celic to just flip presence here and and take control of the city now there is an event here that says they can play uh two troops anywhere they want to but they don't have any of The Tokens The Presence tokens left all 10 are deployed to the the region so I I'm not sure if that means could move them from someplace else or that means we can't take advantage of that event I'm going to play that we can't do that but I'm I'm not sure of the rule on that one round four the seljuks restock their coffers with funds playing an income move gaining them 12 gold and three troops they now have a hefty stockpile of troops and a hefty stockpile of cash which with to act out in the back half here of the Second Crusade the Crusaders build a citadel in terce this is their last their third and final Citadel which will get them an extra bonus point at the exor Victory point at the end of the game and it locks up tius from a presence action so it makes it politically stronger here Crusaders lock this one down now the cash Laden Selix will try to go the seljuk's best action

16:41 here is to play for presence in round five actually and they have a good card that's going to help them here too so they pay one goal to play The Presence action but then this they're going to immediately do this monks action which is to remove up to two of your military presents and gain two faith for each removed military presence so they can remove two military presents in antiochia they can then pay 11 Gold to flip the Aleppo Tripoli and Ania to their side this rests control of all three cities from the Crusaders the Crusaders play for income because they want to try to flip this pres on the last turn again uh so they gained 12 income a troop and then three Faith should things head to battle our first crusade went eight turns but there's a one and three chance this will be the last round of the Second Crusade which would actually position the Crusaders here in excellent shape and it is we get the last round card for the Crusaders so this will be the last round the sell jokes here are short on cash so I'm not sure what we're going to be able to do to try to prevent The Surge or change in presence that's going to happen in the last round by the Crusaders I don't see a way for the celix to pick up the difference in the cities they're going to lose I think they're going to fall one Victory point short but we're going to try this anyway they're going to launch an attack so they play to move they gain faith and we're going to move everything up to Iconium where there are Crusaders and see if we can beat them in battle in order to start a battle we have to find Crusader troops and the

18:12 only ones that are present here are in Iconium so we're going to pay one gold to move troops from antiochia two gold to move troops from from our troops in adessa that will put everybody here in Iconium two military units for against two military units for one final battle so we'll set this battle up last battle of Iconium here and I just realized the sjjs do have a card that I think can get them that last point which would get them a tie and they control Jerusalem so we'll see how this goes so with cards units and Faith it's actually evenly balanced at 9 to9 The Fortress nearby for Iconium though swings the balance in favor of the Crusaders as we go to the dice it's 11 to9 Crusaders the selj Will Roll first here we'll see how this goes they get one sword so they don't have enough now let's see what the Crusaders get oh they got two swords it's not enough to swing it the sjix can roll one of these see if they get oh they get two swords they just fall short they only have one mosque so they can roll one of them but they can't tip the balance of the Fortress they lose the battle by one giving the Crusaders three victory points and this will surely lock up the win for the Crusaders each side loses one troop due to casualties the faith is expended we'll reput The Troop we'll put the troops back in the the sjix actually don't have enough funds now to pay to

19:43 get their troops back as they expended all of their gold so they lose all of their troops the Crusaders have plenty of cash they will spend three gold to get the troops back into their stockpile and we go to the Crusaders Last Action but it is all but over with the presence action for the Crusaders now Crusaders spend seven gold to flip Tripoli antiochia and Aleppo putting a massive political surge at the end of the Second Crusade here the shift in political control leaves the Crusaders with six cities and the celcs with three as the Second Crusade comes to the end let's tally up the victory points Selix control Jerusalem Damascus and adessa giving them three moving them from 12 up to 15 the Crusaders control the other six locations giving them six and moving them up to 19 also if we look at the Crusaders player mat here Crusaders have played all three of their citadels giving them an extra point making the final score Crusaders 20 seljuk's 15 so that ends our Second Crusade and the Crusaders pick up a 20 to 15 Victory Point win by controlling political control over a majority of the Middle East um I'm going to to create a fourth video I was thinking to add my Impressions to this but this is going to get kind of long I'm put a link to it as soon as it's ready I'm going to offer some thoughts on two-player and four player precursor it's very different and I'm going to offer my thoughts on soliter as well I'll be back I'll put a link to that

21:13 video as soon as it's ready thanks for watching everybody