In 1539, a small Spanish garrison of troops numbering 3,500 men held the Albanian village of Castelnuovo for 22 days against the massive Ottoman army consisting of over 54,000 Turk soldiers. This siege took place as a part of the Ottoman-Habsburg struggle for control of the Mediterranean Sea in July 1539 at the walled town of Castelnuovo, which is the location of present-day Herceg Novi, Montenegro. After days of open trench warfare and more than a month of smaller combats, skirmishes, assaults and bombardments from the Turkish navy, the last Spanish defenders fell ending the siege. Castelnuovo 1539 is a wargame that focuses on this siege designed by Francisco Ronco. The defenders are safe behind sturdy walls and battlements but time and continual shelling from the Ottomans will lead to assaults over the walls. The battle is hopeless for the defenders but they can win the game by doing enough damage to the Ottomans to end their campaign and stop them from invading further into the Albania and then onto Spain and the rest of Europe. The game is very well produced using wooden blocks for soldiers, stylized walls, siege trenches and cannon along with ships and the board is also beautifully illustrated. The game is a block wargame where the strength of units are hidden from the opponent and plays pretty quickly in less than 90 minutes and really is a great representation of the battle and its history.

In this series of Action Points, we will first take a look at the beautiful Game Board and its area movement scheme, examine the units available to both sides and compare their relative strengths and weaknesses, take a look at the 5 different types of Command Cards and discuss how they are used, look at the 2 different types of rounds including a Siege Round and an Assault Round and how they differ, take a look at an example of combat and bombardment and finally examine the victory conditions for both sides and how casualties effect this outcome.

Game Board

The Game Board represents the fortified city of Castelnuovo and its surrounding areas, including the Mediterranean Sea to the south and the rolling countryside to the north. The Game Board is divided up into areas which are used to regulate the movement and positioning of the block units. The Game Board is pretty large really measuring in at 29″ x 21″ and is a fully mounted map board and is very nicely illustrated by Paco Arenas and absolutely was a joy to play on.

As you look at the Game Board in the picture above you will notice a few things. The areas of the city of Castelnuovo are outlined in red with a dotted line representing the city walls around its perimeter. There are also 4 inner areas of the city itself outlined in purple. Sometimes the game rules make reference to the “Fortress”, which means the 4 areas of the city and the walls surrounding them.

Here is a closeup of the Fortress where you can see the colored lines a bit better. You will also notice that there are rectangular boxes on top of the walls in the Fortress outlined with white dotted lines. These are spaces where the wooden wall segments are placed to represent the Resistance Level of the walls. You will see that in each area of the city that has walls, there is a number found in a white star that represents this Resistance Level. There are areas with both Resistance 1, 2 and 3 inside the Fortress. As the walls are attacked with bombardments from artillery, their Resistance Level will be degraded represented by placing wooden cubes in each area marking the current Resistance Level with 1, 2 or 3 cubes. If an area has 3 Resistance Level and takes a hit, the player will remove one wooden piece indicating that the Resistance points have dropped. Once the Resistance Level reaches 0, the walls are destroyed and the wooden wall pieces are removed from the board. The Ottoman player may then storm the walls and attack the defending units in the city.

There are 2 types of terrain found in the countryside of the Game Board with clear terrain being shown by a solid white outline and rough terrain outlined by a white dotted line. Each area of the map has a Height Level value printed in its location, which indicates the height of the area. The heights are 0 being the lowest, or basically the sea level with a 4 being the highest which represents a mountain level. The height effects the shooting of firearms. In addition, other terrain features are printed on the Game Board including the coastline, which separates the sea areas from the land areas, and also is a landing point for a majority of the Ottoman player’s reinforcement troops. Also, the 3 areas with Resistance Levels of 2 and 3, marked with the white star, are the areas that the Ottoman army must occupy at the end of any round to win the game.

Movement is specifically tied to the type of lines found in the areas of terrain. Units and Leaders can move by playing Action Cards, which allow a group of 1 to 3 units that are in the same area to one or more areas. Activated Infantry units will have 2 movement points and Cavalry have 4 movement points. Moving into a clear terrain area costs 1 movement point while moving into a rough terrain area, which is marked with white dotted
lines will cost 2.

The countryside areas have various depictions of buildings including shacks, storage sheds, houses as well as farm fields. These buildings do not affect combat or movement and are simply illustrative of the surroundings of the city. They are also many trees and bushes drawn on the Game Board with connecting roads also shown.

There are a few pieces that the players will place on the Game Board at the outset of playing including the wall blocks already mentioned as well as the Bastions. These Bastions are used by the Spanish player and are placed at the beginning of the game in any terrain areas outside of the city proper. These Bastions function similarly to the walls of Castelnuovo’s fortifications. Once these are placed, they cannot be moved and will remain on
the board even if their Resistance drops to 0 and they are destroyed. The Ottoman player can destroy them with artillery Bombardments or by spending Trench Points from Command Cards when entering them. These Bastions do not provide defense to the Ottoman player.

The Casualty Track is printed in the bottom left hand corner of the Game Board and is used to keep track of the number of blocks lost by the Ottoman player. In addition, also tracked will be Leaders and the number of Assault Rounds used by the Ottoman player.

The game really is a nicely made production with the Game Board being one of the best parts of the package. It is clear, well laid out and takes little to no time to understand its locations and areas. I think that one of the strengths of this game is that it is not only nicely produced but the rules are very clear and the strategy of what each side should be doing, by taking advantage of their defenses and the terrain.

In Action Point 2, we will examine the units available to both sides and compare their relative strengths and weaknesses.

-Grant