Castelnuovo 1539

Americans will be familiar with the cry 'Remember the Alamo'. The Alamo was a garrison of Texians, including legendary figures Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie, who in 1836 held out for nearly two weeks while being beseiged by the overwhelming force of the Mexican army. The Texian defenders of the Alamo were eventually defeated but their heroic stand was celebrated as an iconic turning point in American immigrants' campaign for Texian independence from Mexico and the eventual annexation of Texas as a US state. But tho' many of us know the story of the Alamo, few know anything of the even more historic siege of Castelnuovo in 1539.

Castelnuovo was a walled town in present-day Montenegro. It had been occupied by Spanish forces during the campaign of the Holy League against the Turkish Ottoman Empire, which was seen as an existential threat to European Christendom. In 1539, Castelnuovo was subjected to an overwhelming assault by land and sea under the command of Hayreddin Barbarossa under the orders of the Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent. Tho' the Spanish garrison was large - probably around 3500 men - it was vastly outnumbered by the Turkish forces of 54000 and 200 ships. Barbarossa's offer of 'honourable surrender' was rejected by the Spanish commander Francisco de Sarmiento and the defenders held on for three weeks before they were eventually overrun and almost all were killed, albeit after having inflicted massive casualties on their Turkish attackers.

The historic events in 1539 form the basis of this highly asymmetric 'tower defence'-style war game from Draco Ideas. In Francisco Ronco's design, the Turkish troops are all but inexhaustible: tho' Janissaries are removed from the game when killed, all other (Azab and Sipahi) units return as reinforcements in the round after they were eliminated. The Spanish player cannot 'defeat' the Turks - the attacker's forces are too great - but they can win the game by inflicting casualties on the attackers: a casualty track marker advances for every Turkish unit that is eliminated, and the Spanish player wins if the Ottoman player hasn't secured victory (occupation of key zones in the Castelnuovo fortress or total elimination of all Spanish forces) before the marker reaches the end of the casualty track.

The game is played using wooden blocks rather than the fiddly cardboard chits found in most wargames. The use of wooden blocks means that units can be rotated to show each point of damage until they are eliminated. With players seated at opposite ends of the table, the blocks can be positioned so that only the player controlling them can see their own blocks' current strengths. Actions in the game are card driven: players each have a hand of cards from their individual decks and it is these cards that represent their commands. It is the Ottoman player who decides whether a round should be a 'siege round' (hands of four cards) or an 'assault round' (hands of seven cards). When the Ottoman player declares an 'assault round' it automatically advances the casualty track marker...

Artillery bombardment is used for attack and to take down bastions; numbers on each zone on the board are an indicator of that zone's height, so a battery or fleet attacking lower ground is at an advantage but they are at a disadvantage when bombarding higher ground. Combat is determined using standard six-sided dice, with rolls of 5 and 6 landing a hit after taking account of modifiers. Players will want to build defences to minimise the impact of direct hits: Spanish Chevaux-de-Frise soak up the first hit in a zone, and Ottoman siege trenches mean the first two hits in a zone are ignored.

Designer Francisco Ronco has succeeded in abstracting the historical events of 1539 into an immersive and very playable game. There's ample scope for tactical manouvering and Castelnuovo 1539 is exciting for both sides despite, or rather because of, its asymmetry.

Draco Ideas are bringing Castelnuovo 1539 to Kickstarter. The campaign is due to launch shortly. Click here to find out more.

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