Trench Crusade: First Impressions

Cartography of Suffering.

Trench Crusade is a miniature wargame set in a horrifying alternative timeline set around World War I, in which the forces of Hell have been unleashed on Earth. Created by a fantastic team of talented individuals, including artist Mike Franchina (who created the setting), sculptor James Sherriff (who created some of the initial miniatures), and game designer Tuomas Pirinen (the designer of Mordheim), the game has attracted a lot of interest and held two successful Kickstarter campaigns. I have been following the game’s development for the past few years, but just recently played my first game of Trench Crusade! Dave Taylor provided all of the terrain and miniatures for my first game, which was fortunate, as I have yet to paint any models for the setting. I controlled a small New Antioch warband engaging in a skirmish against an Iron Sultanate warband for the game. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Trench Crusade plays very similarly to other popular skirmish games like Necromunda and Mordheim. The game distinguishes itself by using a +/- DICE system that influences how easy or difficult it is to be successful with an action (like successfully hitting a target with a machine gun). Usually, you need to roll a 7+ on 2D6 for an action to be successful. If a + DICE is added to a roll, you roll 3D6 and choose the two highest to determine if the roll is successful. Conversely, if a - DICE is added to a roll, you roll three dice and pick the two lowest to assess the success of the action.

A fire team of New Antioch soldiers advances carefully into no man's land.

The biggest strength of the Trench Crusade ruleset is how it streamlines and removes some of the unnecessary dice rolling that characterizes classic skirmish games. Trench Crusade removes most traditional stat lines, including weapon strength, as commonly seen in Games Workshop games like Warhammer 40,000 and Necromunda. After successfully hitting an enemy model, you simply roll on the injury table to see how the target is affected. Weapons in the game are differentiated instead by their ability to nullify armor or the number of shots they are capable of. This simplification goes a long way to streamline the game without removing anything important. Rather than having a number of wounds a model can take before dying, as a model gets injured, they accumulate Blood tokens, which can be spent by the opponent to add - DICE to the opponent's rolls. This gives players additional agency during a game because they can partially influence the results of important rolls, provided the targeted model has Blood tokens.

Trench Crusade utilizes a heavily streamlined rule system that removes many of the cumbersome and unnecessary dice rolls used in traditional skirmish games.

Another subtle but important addition to Trench Crusade is the ability of an activated model to perform as many actions as they want in any order, so long as no actions are repeated. In most skirmish games, an activated model is limited to roughly two actions. This often results in awkward turns where a model can't accomplish anything, particularly if those actions are taken up by mundane things like opening doors or collecting resources. This flexibility is balanced by making some actions “risky,” which require a skill check before they can be taken, and a failure ends the model’s activation immediately. For instance, if you pass the Risky Action check, the Dash action allows a model to move an additional time. This system allows for greater flexibility and opens up the possibilities of very dynamic and interesting activations.

Trench Crusade has a very flexible action economy, allowing an activated model to perform as many actions as they want so long as none are repeated.

A New Antioch Yeoman carries a fearsome machine gun, capable of three shots a turn.

Although I have only played one game, I am excited to continue playing Trench Crusade and get a better handle on all the game's different systems. The system's simplicity, including the lack of a traditional stat block for each unit, makes teaching new people relatively easy. Similarly, the system could be good to use in other game settings like Necromunda or our Vastarian setting (both are centered around religious warfare!). If you are interested in the game, you can download the playtest rules for free!

-Adam Wier