There are games which I play sporadically, and there are titles which hit the table – be it digital or face to face – quite regularly. Also, most of my blog readers know my fascination with ancient warfare, especially the Roman era. At the intersection of both there is Time of Crisis – one of my favorite light wargames, which balances greatly random elements (dice rolls) and non-random ones (deck building).

Ok, so you think good things cannot get better. Well, once the expansion was issued – The Age of Iron and Rust – this position improved further. With the new set of alternative cards, new emperor characteristics plus fantastic bots – truly, hardly ever I have seen such a good solo mode design – this is now a true masterpiece. But wait, it was quite recently released on one of my preferred digital platforms – Rally the Troops. That means I had to check it and to check it now!

The Platform

Rally the Troops is an online site where you can play board games in your browser, with fully automated rules enforcement. Play live or asynchronously with friends or strangers, or explore the games on your own. It is free to play, and you do not have to look at any ads – which is impressive.

The platform develops and grows all the time. At the moment when I am writing this article, Rally the Troops consist of 14 wargames from various publishers; we have a pretty wide arrays of the most iconic and prominent designs in our hobby, but you can find also some of the less known. It is rapidly expanding, and we are getting a new position every couple of months – based on the bandwidth of its main developer, Tor Andersson. There is a forum and discord server where you to discuss the next titles in pipeline, ask the rules questions or simply express your gratitude to the team!

More articles about the game - click to open in the new window:
- [UNBOXING] Time of Crisis
- [REVIEW] Time of Crisis + expansion
- Time of Crisis – how does it play with Bots? (solo mode analysis)
- Mid-week madness with Time of Crisis 
- Time of Crisis – first game with expansion

The Game

Before going straight to the session report, let me spend some time explaining the game in more details. Third century AD was not the happiest era for the Roman Empire – to say the least. Actually, it was almost end of its might. Torn by internal squabbles as well as external barbarian invasions it was at the verge of collapse.

The game uses well-established deck-building mechanics, as well as a hand management. It covers all essential elements of the epoch: Praetorian Guard, civil wars, barbarian invasions, angry mobs, rival emperors, pretenders, etc.

Players take role of one of the Roman dynasties building – via influence cards – its power in military, political and public approval areas. They can construct huge public buildings, fight with other families (for glory) or with barbarians and foreign leaders (for even more glory!) Thanks to the superb expansion, there is also a possibility to play solitaire.

The game is easy to learn, can be played in 2-3 hours and is a great introduction – as a light option – to the world of wargames. On top, GMT stood to its reputation and made sure that the components of the highest quality were used.

The Sessions

We played three sessions with various game options. We always had the same squad, namely Dave (US Timezone), Michal and Mark (European Timezone) and Neil (Australia). The async mode worked perfectly for us and allowed for pretty quick and streamlined gameplay. Let us have a look at one of the sessions – actually the last we played and where all our experience could be used – and then the summary of the whole campaign.

PS. As always, feel free to click on below images for full details.

Here is the game set-up – in this session Dave took probably best place – Gaul, Neil decided on North Africa (he was pretty adamant to this choice through all our sessions), Mark was close to Italy and me safe in Macedonia.
We played with all the cards available this time – after previous two games, everybody had decent understanding what works and what does not for him. Some choices were more obvious than others (Foederati being probably most popular).
TURN 1-2: the beginning is always slow and pretty obvious (probably my only criticism for Time of Crisis – too scripted start). Each of us took second province, usually, but not always, next to the first one.
TURN 3-4: when the things spice-up and with good cards somebody becomes Emperor. Just like Dave! Mark and Neil diligently fought with Barbarians and were trying to conquer new territories while I managed to grab four provinces which is key thing in this game (you can buy best cards pretty cheaply!).
TURN 5-6: And so they came – tons of barbarians – just look at Asia and Thracia; but not before Mark took one of my provinces! Neil started to build his Northern Africa empire, kicking Mark from Egypt while Dave were sitting content on the throne:)
TURN 7-8: With pretty decent cards things started to speed up. For the first time ever, I ruled five provinces! Neil advance from North Africa against Mark continued (Syria conquered); he also sailed to Italy and managed to kick-out Dave:) Overall, this turn Mark was pretty badly beaten.
GAME OVER – What a congestion in Italy! I finally managed to get the throne. Unfortunately, I lost battle with Enemy Emperor in Syria (I just needed one hit!) and thus was not awarded the VPs for the throne. Victory thus went to Dave!

A pretty exciting game which was deciding till the end, almost till the last roll. Overall, we had 3 sessions and achieved some decent scores:

It is good to be second, such a prominent position; but three times in a row makes you wonder if you would not exchange all results for one victory 🙂

The Impressions

Let me share now some of my impressions about the gameplay of Time of the Crisis on Rally the Troops:

  • While the rules are enforced (I know, some of us love full control) this is done in a neat and delicate way, still giving a lot of possibilities and flexibility to the players.
  • There are no errors – accuracy of rules implementation is great and after hundreds of plays, all bugs were removed!
  • The game looks beautiful, you are getting high resolution pictures, and everything is clear.
  • There is great “review the game” functionality, where you can analyze it move by move or turn by turn from the beginning.
  • Last but not least, the ease to play – from PC, laptop, tablet or phone – makes it so user-friendly tool.

Again, if you have not tried yet the Rally the Troops, give it a go – and try for example Time of Crisis. Highly Recommended!

PS. Just when I finished this post, we started another round of Time of Crisis games. This time again with Dave but also with Players’ Aid Crew (Grant & Alex). Stay tuned for next reports!