Picture it. The year is 1983. Return of the Jedi premiers in theaters and Every Breath You Take by the The Police is topping Billboards Music charts. Meanwhile, gamers are back home building little castles out of plastic blocks and knocking them over with rubber-banded siege weapons. That’s right’s, that year saw the debut of Crossbows and Catapults on our tabletops (or floors).
Now hop into your flying DeLorean, Tardis, or Time Masheen and zip forward to 2024 as this summer saw the release of Crossbows & Catapults: Fortress War. Publisher Restoration Games, well known for breathing life into old and out-of-print games, has given their touch to this decades-old dexterity game. But was it the Midas touch like they had with Thunder Road Vendetta or Return to Dark Tower? Let’s find out.
Gameplay Overview:
While a game like Crossbows and Catapults doesn’t really need any introduction, let’s bounce over the how-to’s briefly. Each player builds their castle on the opposite side of the table and positions their troops around and behind it. The goal is to knock over every unit your opponent has.
On a player’s turn, they first must play a tactics card from their hand. This will give them a special power for the turn, such as a free action or summoning a mercenary unit. Then, they can take 2 actions. Either move a unit anywhere on your side of the battlefield or fire a shot with either the crossbow or catapult. Knocking over a unit or castle piece will remove it from the game. Then the next player takes their turn.
If your general is removed from the battlefield, you are only allowed to have 1 card in your hand instead of two. Remove all of your opponents units and you are crowned lord/lady of all the realm.
Game Experience:
Do you like building castles and then knocking things over with miniature siege weapons? Then this game is for you. If you don’t, well you probably also hate fun and your name is Andrew. Jokes aside though, I never played the original Crossbows and Catapults, but I really enjoyed this version. The game is silly fun, which is pretty much what I was expecting, yet the tactics cards were a surprisingly great addition.
Instead of being an afterthought, they actually add some solid variety to the game. While the two player decks are basically the same, the cards themselves are well thought out. There are 5 mercenary units you can summon with a card that each get a special power. But what’s interesting is that they also don’t keep you in the game. Which means your opponent doesn’t need to wound them to win. So do you protect them to keep their special ability in play, or do you use them as shields against your more valuable regular troops? Other cards will give you free shooting actions, or even let you fire special ammo.
But for those who want a simpler experience, you can also just leave the cards out and the game is still great. My 6-year-olds saw us playing and wanted to get in on the action (shocking right). As they can’t read yet, I just left the cards out. My son had a blast and even declared Crossbows and Catapults his “favorite game ever”. He’s constantly nagging me to play it and cackles with glee whenever he knocks over part of my castle.
The pieces themselves work pretty well. The catapult is well-made and even has a rotating dial to change the angle of it. The crossbow is a bit trickier to use, as it relies on being pinched to shoot. We’ve had to take some practice shots to really get the use of this one nailed down. What’s most impressive is that all of the weapons in the game were made without rubber bands, which should aid in the longevity of the components
Restoration Games also provided a copy of the Weapons Cache expansion for us to try out and this one is a must-own. It comes with a ballista and a trebuchet. The ballista is like the crossbow but spring-driven, so it packs quite a bit of force. Although it’s also angled up, so it’s better at taking out structure pieces than units. The trebuchet is similar to the catapult but fires two pieces of ammo at once. It packs a wallop, so you’ll need some distance or you will probably overshoot your target.
My only real complaint is that the rulebook can be a bit vague at times. While a game like Crossbows and Catapults doesn’t really need a lot of rules to deal with, there are times when we were confused about what something was for (the shields) or how things were supposed to work. For example, the Weapons Cache doesn’t actually come with any rules or instructions for using the ballista or trebuchet. And some cards are worded in a way that left us looking up how they should work.
Final Thoughts:
Crossbows and Catapults is another win from Restoration Game. The updated components and mechanics work really well and everyone who I’ve played it with has had a ton of fun. I’m sure there are people wondering how it compares to Catapult Kingdoms (or Catapult Fued), and while I’m not going to spend much time comparing the two, I will say that I prefer Crossbows and Catapults. The components feel much stronger, the card play is leagues better, and the discs vs round balls means your ammo wont roll away.
I feel like you will know pretty quickly if this game is for you. If the thought of launching plastic discs at your opponent’s castle to know stuff over sounds fun, then this one is for you.
Final Score: 4 Stars – Crossbows and Catapults rises from the ashes with an updated version that’s a ton of fun to play.
Hits:
• Simple silly fun
• High-quality siege weapons that should last long
• Card play adds a good amount of variety to the game
Misses:
• Rules can be a bit vague at times
