Strategy & Tactics # 348 - Siege of Jerusalem

From Decision Games:

The Magazine:

The Siege of Jerusalem: AD 70 In 63 BC Judea became a client state of Rome, ruled for them by kings from the native Herodian dynasty. Starting in AD 6, the Romans took more direct control, converting Judea into a province in which prefects and procurators appointed by the emperor had final authority. That set in motion the events resulting in the Judean revolt, and within it one of the greatest sieges of all times.

Additional feature articles:

The Battle of Lake Okeechobee: 25 December 1837 The Battle of Lake Okeechobee was fought on Christmas Day 1837 along the north shore of that Florida waterbody. US forces consisted of 932 troops under the command of Col. Zachary Taylor. His strategy was to move down the peninsula, pushing the Seminole toward its tip, where they could captured and removed to a reservation in Oklahoma. Opposing them were about 480 Seminoles led by chiefs Billy Bowlegs, Alligator and Abiaca. The fight ended with both sides claiming victory.

The ‘Harlem Hellfighters’ Infantry Regiment In World War I, the segregated US Army refused to let African Americans fight alongside white soldiers. The all-Black 369th Infantry Regiment from New York City was therefore transferred to French Fourth Army, where those soldiers earned such a fearsome reputation in combat that the Germans nicknamed them the “Harlem Hellfighters.”

The Berlin Airlift On the night of 21/22 June 1948, Red Army troops stopped and turned back a US military supply train on its way to Berlin. The next day, the Soviets announced they would no longer supply electric power to that city’s US, UK and French sectors. That began the Berlin Blockade. With it, the 2 million civilians living there faced the threat of starvation and the start of a new war just three years after the end of World War II.

The Game:

Siege of Jerusalem is a two-player wargame simulating the epic Roman assault on the city of Jerusalem in AD 70. The battle pits a veteran Roman army commanded by Titus Flavius against Judean rebels who are making an epic stand. The game system emphasizes command control and the use of both troop and siege units. Players randomly pick command markers to generate actions, modeling the chaos of battle. The Roman objective is to take Jerusalem, while the Judean objective is to delay the Romans long enough to claim an apocalyptic victory.

There are two players in the game: Roman and Judeans. The game consists of five months of battle (one turn each). Within each month there will be several turns, each generated by the pick of a command marker. Each hex on the map represents 200 yards. Each Roman Legionary unit represents two cohorts (800 to 1,000 men). Cavalry units are about 400 each. Auxiliary units represent groupings of 1,000 men. Judean units range from 500 to 2,500 fighters. A leader represents a great man or a lower commander along with their staff and elite guard troops.

A game turn represents about a month of operations. Each game turn will include Impulses representing anywhere from a day to a couple weeks of intense combat plus periods of reorganization.

Contents:
22 x 34-inch game map, 228 9/16-inch counters.