The Storm Over Area Impulse Series has been around for a while and includes games such as Storm Over Arnhem (1981) from The Avalon Hill Game Company, Storm Over Stalingrad (2006) from Multi-Man Publishing and Storm Over Dien Bien Phu (2014) from Multi-Man Publishing amongst several others. The hallmark of the series is relatively low complexity for a wargame and a very simple combat system that calculates total attack versus total defense and adds a roll of 2d6. The losses from combat can be absorbed by either retreating from the attacked areas or destroying units. The game system has mostly been used to model more modern wars including the Franco-Prussian War, World War II and the French conflict at Dien Bien Phu in Vietnam.

We have never had the pleasure of playing any games in the series to date, but once Storm Over Jerusalem was announced last year, we pre-ordered a copy and eagerly awaited its arrival. Storm Over Jerusalem: The Roman Siege is a 2-player wargame that simulates the Roman siege of Jerusalem during 70 AD. One player controls the mighty Roman forces, who are truly master of siege warfare with their siege towers, ballista, battering rams and onagers, and the other player controls the Judean forces, which are divided into 2 separate factions with different leaders. The game is 8 turns long, but can be shortened by the play of a few event cards, at the end of which time the winner is determined by calculating victory points that come from overall losses, holding of certain VP areas and keeping the Romans out of the city.

We were very impressed by the game and its overall clarity of rules, quality components and interesting tactical choices and really had a good time learning and playing it. The Judeans are obviously outclassed by the powerful and skilled Roman Legions but they have several of their own tricks to use to hold out long enough to win the day. There is a lot to like here and I am really glad that we decided to give the system a try. In this First Impressions post, I want to share our thoughts on the simplicity of the design that ends up being the game’s biggest feature.

Beautiful Components

The first thing that I would like to talk about is the beauty of this game. From the cover art, to the beautiful map, to the fantastic art found on the cards and the counters, the whole package is just lovely! This one is a great looking wargame and really breaks the mold of the genre. As I look at the map itself, it is really well done with the outer and inner walls of the city clearly defined, even having little battlements on them, the boundaries between different areas cleanly outlined, and great detail of the city itself with inner streets, buildings and famous locations like Temple Mount, Herod’s Palace, Gethsemane and the Pool of Siloam to name just a few.

The game is an Area Movement game and as such the areas on the map are divided up to make an interesting tactical puzzle for the invading Romans as they have an easier time breaching the outer walls, because there are several adjacent areas that provide the opportunity for multiple attacks from different armies stacked in different areas, but have a much more difficult time of it as they approach the inner walls which squeeze the accessibility to them down to just a few spaces.

The counters are very simple and well done also. The Judeans have 2 different factions represented in their forces including those lead by Simon bar Giora (blue) and John of Gischala (purple). These two leaders were not aligned but worked together against their larger enemy the Romans. The Judeans have a mix of heavy infantry and light infantry, that are not quite as good as the Roman units as is expected. Their light infantry also have ranged attack capabilities, which are important in picking off exhausted Roman Legions when vulnerable after a failed assault on a wall.

As mentioned earlier, each side has their own unique deck of cards that typify their tactics and strategies. The Judeans are about foiling attacks more than about winning these battles and the Romans have lots of toys to throw at the walls of Jerusalem. Each of the cards have unique art and clear language about how the card can be used. In the upper right hand corner, is a number in a colored circle with red for the Romans and blue for the Judeans. These points can be used for special actions such as rebuilding walls or bringing in Siege Towers.

The whole graphical presentation is very pretty. I hesitate to use that word in a written piece about a wargame for fear of scaring people off (just kidding) and found the game to be very easy to play because of the graphics and the style. Very well done package in my opinion.

Easy to Learn Rules

As we began the process of setting up and learning this one, I was really struck by the fact that the game was very easy to learn. We reviewed the rules once and were able to get setup and playing in about 30 minutes. One of the main reasons for this was that the rules text is very well written and the meaning is clear and concise without a lot of extra fluff that sometimes leads to confusion. This doesn’t mean however that the game lacks depth or realism but simply that the rules are clear and pretty intuitive. As we played, we didn’t have to have our nose in the rule book often, usually only because we were double checking something or refreshing our memory. The player aids were also fantastic and had all of the pertinent information contained on them to help keep the game moving along. And, there were two of these player aids which helped a lot!

I also really liked how the cards were used in the game as each player had their own separate decks that were geared toward their side. This allowed the player to focus on their own cards to understand how best to use the cards and also keep the rules overhead low. We didn’t have to to worry about our opponent’s events going off if we played their card as is the case with most Card Driven Games. Don’t get me wrong. I really like that aspect of most CDG’s but with this one the separate asymmetric decks made the most sense and really helped in us internalizing the rules easily.

What is New to the System

Remember, we have not played any of the other games in the Storm Over Series, but before I wrote this piece I did some research to better understand how the game might have changed to adjust to the unique nature of this siege and the time period as well being in the Ancients period. According to the designer, most of the base rules for the system worked fine from the beginning and didn’t require any major changes. But, there were some changes specially made to introduce the style of Ancient sieges. The Siege Towers were an evolution of the trenches found in Storm Over Dien Bien Phu game and are very important to the Roman efforts. The walls historically were such a physical presence in the city, and were a major impediment to the Roman efforts, that they had to come up with rules to cover them.

The walls provide a defensive modifier against Roman Attacks and Assaults. This Defense Value starts at +4 and can be reduced over time by successful Roman Assaults. Since Judean units have a defense of 7 or 8 the bonus provided by the walls of +4 really helps hold onto areas. Once a wall is damaged from a successful attack though, the defensive modifier can be rebuilt by the Judean player but can never be increased to its full value of +4.

The Roman player also has specific cards (Catapult, Onager, and Battering Rams) that can be used to damage or breach the walls. Once breached, the walls don’t provide any defensive bonus and allow Roman troops to flood into the city. We found that the Romans tried to focus on a specific area of the walls and made their attacks their first in order to bring the maximum attacks possible each round to force the Judean player to have to spend their time and actions on fixing the walls and bringing up reinforcement to replace those lost in retreats.

To repair a wall section, the Judean player can discard a card and use the Repair Value of that card to repair walls in an area. This action though requires a fresh unit in that area to be flipped to spent to complete the repair. Walls can only be repaired back up to +3, not the original +4. You can’t rebuild them completely.

The final new addition was Judean Leaders. We will cover the benefits of Leaders in the next section but these are definitively a new addition that made a huge difference to how the game plays. These Leaders have to be used each round by the Judean player or they will lose Victory Points, which puts them in danger of being attacked and captured. If the Judean player doesn’t have their Leaders because they were captured, they will find themselves losing Victory Points each future round where they cannot be placed. This is a very interesting part of the design as these Leaders are truly important to get less powerful troops over the hump in combat or to rally spent units in a timely moment, but there is great risk in how and where you place them. Something that causes you to have to think quite a bit about the risk/reward for the Leaders use.

Fog of War Elements include Cards and Judean Leaders

The cards in the game are very good as they provide special actions that normally cannot be accomplished but that make a huge difference to the player using them. The deck is made up of a total of 55 cards consisting of 27 Roman Tactical Cards and 28 Judean Tactical Cards. All cards are separated into two stacks, one with all the Roman cards and the other with all the Judean cards. There are some cards that have a specific Green color that identifies them as Response Cards which allows them to be played out of turn during the opponent’s impulse phase. Each turn, the players will draw cards from their deck until they have the number of cards in their hand allowed for that turn, which is indicated on the Game Turn Track. The other enforcer of asymmetry in the game is that each player gets a different number of cards each turn as shown on the Game Turn Track. In addition to the number of cards listed on the Game Turn Track, there are a few areas on the map that will grant bonus cards to whomever controls them. These are Area #19 (Tyropoeon South) and Area #30 (Lower City). If there are no enemy units present in these areas, the player controlling them may draw one bonus card.

The cards are so very good and create some of the most tense moments in the game. For example, during our first play, I had a card in my hand that could decimate Roman Siege Towers as they attacked one of the sections of the wall. I held this card until Alexander chose to attack and then unleashed it on him which allowed me to roll a die and remove that many Siege Towers from the targeted Area where the attack was focused. I luckily rolled well and removed 3 of his Siege Towers leaving him with none for the attack which failed because he couldn’t overcome my defensive bonus. On the other hand, the Roman player’s cards are simply brutal and will do things like utterly destroy a segment of the wall (Battering Ram) and allow the Romans to pour into the city. Lots of the Roman cards also target the Judeans ability to refresh spent troops by reducing their supply. The cards are definitely weighted toward favoring the Roman player but the Judean can hold their own with cagey play and timely unleashing of their more powerful events.

As mentioned above, the Leaders are a very good part of the game because the Judean player can play them at anytime to aid in an attack or in defense to add to their troops. During the Judean Revolt against Rome there were many factions fighting amongst themselves in Jerusalem. When the Roman Legions approached the city, they decided to have a “truce” between themselves and banded together against the Romans. I love that the designer included the Leaders to the system and the game as it really created a new tool to be used.

So how do these Leaders work? Well, they are kept off board and placed by the Judean player as an action. They can be placed during an attack to add +2, but they can also be placed to help with defense and add +1 to the defense of a unit. One of their most important uses is to be placed to rally spent units in an area. Their last ability is called Common Enemy and reflects the history of the internal struggle between the factions, which allows units from the two factions to activate together. Once these Leaders are placed on the map, they have to stay in those areas and are then subject to being captured by the Romans as they attack into that Area. At the end of the turn, Leaders are removed from the map. This ability gives the Judean player the opportunity to strike from the shadows and impact their troops.

Combat is Simple and Seems Right

This game has no CRT and doesn’t take into account outside factors such as weather. Terrain is important in combat and the defensive bonus granted by the Areas is vital. Like other Storm Over Series games, units have a firepower value. Typically, these individual firepower values are 1-3 with Roman Auxiliaries and Judean Light Infantry have a 1 firepower value, while Legions, Roman Cavalry and Judean Heavy Infantry have a 2 firepower value. The total firepower of units in an Attack or Assault are added up and then added to a 2d6 roll. This is the total attack points.

But the real difference in this game is the tactical choices for the defending and attacking players with how Areas and walls are laid out.

Great Tactical Decisions about Where to Attack and Where to Defend

The Areas in this game are very well laid out and you can tell after playing that a lot of thought and trial and error went into the layout of the map. There are the outer walls that are accessible by at least 3 Areas around the full length of the map. This means that each of these outer wall Areas can be attacked by at least 3 separate Roman formations. These 3 separate formations can bring to bear no less than 3 attacks or assault over the walls each turn as after each attack or assault the units involved must be flipped over as spent. With the possibility of 3 different attacks each round, these outer walls are not long for the world and will ultimately fail and breach allowing the Romans access to the inner walls which is a secondary line of defense.

To illustrate this point focus on Area #14 New City. New City has an outer wall that is adjacent to 3 different Areas including Areas #1, #2 and #3. In each of these Areas are located 3-5 Roman units which can generate an attack power of 6-8. When adding in a few levels of Siege Towers that can be built, these attacks can be quite difficult to deal with by the Judean player who will have a defense value of 13-15 including the +4 benefit from the walls and the +2 terrain defensive benefit. If the walls are damaged or Siege Towers are at their highest level, this defense value can drop to 9-11 and is not that hard to overcome as the attacker is rolling 2d6 and adding the result to their total. This means that the Romans can bring 3 attacks with a total attack factor possibility of upwards of 15-18 (taking into account a high roll of the 2d6). This would mean the the Judean player will have to absorb 2-4 hits per attack and they normally have only 2-5 units in any given Area. These outer walls simply allow too many attacks at too high a bonus. But, once the outer walls are breached, and inevitably they will be, the Judean player has a second more defensible position they can fall back to: the inner walls.

These inner walls are a whole different nut to crack for the Roman player. As you can see in the below picture, Tyropoeon West Area #18 is adjacent to just 2 different Areas that allows attacks. These adjacent Areas are #13 (New City NW) and #14 (New City). This means that the Romans will have just one or two attacks per round rather than 3 and this difference of 1 is a big difference for the defenders as they can simply take more losses and then recover by moving new troops in or using their Leaders to activate spend units before the next turn when the Romans can attack again. You will also notice that the terrain defensive value increases in the inner walls from a +2 to a +3. This +1 can make a huge difference in the outcome of battles. This is the situation generally around the whole city where the inner walls lessen the axis of attack against them and also provide a higher defensive benefit from the city itself. This is an advantage that the Judean player has to use well and make the cost of each Area taken dear for the attacking Romans in the form of dead Legions.

These tactical decisions about holding and then falling back, utilizing your Leaders and scarce units to make each inch gained costly for the Romans was my favorite part of the design and made me see the game in a very different light after playing than before we started.

I really enjoyed our play of Storm Over Jerusalem. The game was beautifully put together, with fantastic components, but also had some really amazing details and depth to the gameplay. This one is a winner and really has me interested in the other games in the series. I know that this game had a siege focus, which is not necessarily in each of the other games, but I really liked the simple combat system, great card play and very interesting tactical choices that were there for players to have to make.

Here is a link to our full unboxing showing off the beautiful components:

Here also is a link to our full video review:

If you are interested in Storm Over Jerusalem: The Roman Siege, you can order a copy for $86.00 from the Multi-Man Publishing website at the following link: https://mmpgamers.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=355

If you do order, please let them know you saw our reviews and we sent you over.

-Grant