This article originally appeared in Pyramid #21

Pyramid Pick

The Last Crusade : From Normandy to the Rhine

Published by Chameleon Eclectic Entertainment
Designed by John Hopler
$9.00 for starter decks, $2.00 for booster packs

The Last Crusade (TLC) is a collectible card game of World War II. It's not the first, and it won't be the last, but it's certainly a good one. A deck consists of 60 cards in a generous mix of 10 rare, 20 uncommon and 30 common. Except for games with no rarity distinctions at all (such as Dixie), TLC has one of the most customer-friendly ratios in the market. You can play a good game with two decks, and you'll be able to get varied deck-building strategies with four to six decks. Unless you're a collector rather than player, there is no need to get all the cards.

The game is an abstraction of a small sector of the fighting across France after D-Day. Major generals such as Patton and Rommel can appear, but don't stay long, as their attention is needed elsewhere. The daily fight of infantry, armor, and artillery goes on — and that's where the game shines.

Actually, TLC shines in most respects. On the down side, it plays a little long (two to three hours), but that's easily solved by limiting card quantities per hand. (We play a lunch-hour game limiting ourselves to 25 cards each, with no more than eight specials.) The Bridge terrain card makes for a really long game, but if you simply don't allow it, it's not a problem. There are also strategies that can dominate, such as a massive U.S. air deck, but simply . . .

This article originally appeared in the second volume of Pyramid. See the current Pyramid website for more information.



Article publication date: September 1, 1996

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