Review: 1569: Siege of Malta (solo game)

 

1565: Siege of Malta (Worthington Publishing, 2022) is an instalment of Worthington’s Great Sieges series. The series began with 1765: Siege of Quebec (Worthington, 2019), which received a Second Edition revision with the publication of Siege of Malta and 414BC: Siege of Syracuse (Worthington, 2022), which I reviewed recently. Much of what I had to say about the series is covered in that previous review. I intend to follow this review sometime soon with a further review of Siege of Quebec. By rights, I probably should have begun with that one, but it seemed right at the time to approach them in chronological order; that ad the fact that I have played Syracuse most recently and I’d been turning aspects of that one over in my head for a few weeks before putting metaphorical pen to paper.

Like Dan Fournie with Siege of Syracuse, Maurice Suckling has taken the basic concepts and elements of form and play from Siege of Quebec and made Siege of Syracuse a familiar but very different beast. These changes may seem superficially simple, but they radically change the experience of the game. Siege of Syracuse, I’d argue, is a departure from its progenitor, but Siege of Malta is its own journey altogether.

Starting set-up for the Turkish player

Appearance

Siege of Quebec set the parameters of style and tone of play for the series; a card driven AI which also acts as a timer for the game, simple tactical map-board (contained to a manageable 17” by 22”) with abstracted movement and combat with plain wooden blocks for various units, and a limited colour pallet. This actually helps to focus the attention on the play of the game. The board remains both attractive and functional, and uses every part of its limited area.

The board features a map of the main port of Malta, including the harbour fort of St Elmo and the fortified cities of Birgu and Senglea (the bastion of the knights of the Order of St John and the sites of the Turkish siege). Inset maps track troops at the Mdina fort (elsewhere on the island) and the gathering of area for the Knights’ reinforcements’ staging area in Sicily.

Battle attrition. Not a game for the faint of heart.

The board also features a Morale Track identical to the one featured in Siege of Quebec, with the double spaces for the higher reaches of the track. Also featured are several short tracks to monitor the use of various resources available to the two sides, such as the Turks Ammunition levels and other resources available to each side.

As with the other games in the series, the components are simple wooden pieces, like elongated cubes, about three-quarters of an inch long (that’s an estimate; I haven’t measured them), with the Turkish ships represented by simple, boat-shaped blocks (one end shaped like a ship’s bow). One of the Turkish blocks is used to represent the siege tower when in operation, standing on its end; functional and surprisingly effective, visually.

Siege tower in place - for now.

Play

As with French and English in Siege of Quebec, it is possible to play either the besieging Turks or the besieged Knights in Siege of Malta. Each side has its own orders chart and a corresponding bot deck to provide the actions and countervailing orders of the opposing side. One radical difference is that in the other games in the series, you cannot duplicate orders consecutively; each order must be different from the previous one selected, but you could feasibly play the same two or three orders alternately through the entire game. In Siege of Malta, you must play each order once, in any sequence you wish, but every order must be given before the chart resets. There are even a set of seven cards for the two factions to place upon each order as it is played. There is a way around this for the Knights, but it comes at the cost of a Defiant Speech (more on these later).

Cards are provided to cover each played order - no doubling-up.

Each turn, the player will choose a hereto unplayed order, then draw a card. The card will (usually) present an event that it resolved immediately, and offer a counter-order; the counter-order will tell the player which of the four results tables on which to roll. To resolve the success or not of the order.

Essentially, the Turks have to capture the fort of St Elmo, the fort of St Angelo/city of Birgu, and city of Senglea (the fort at Mdina doesn’t count to the victory, but securing it makes some actions in the game easier for the Turks), and have at least one ship in the harbour to claim victory, whereas the Knights merely have to wait out the siege until the Turks ship out for Cyprus. This makes it sound easy for the Knights, but the Turks had superiority of numbers and access to supply lines off island (as reflected in the Turkish adversary deck).

 

Appraisal

Siege of Malta is, to my mind, the most complex of the three Great Sieges games (so far). That’s not to say it’s more difficult, but there are more things happening on the board than in either of its stable-mates. As with the other games, the player can double down on a crucial play by playing one of four Aggressive Commander actions for the Turks or one of two for the Knights. This difference is caused by the other two Knights’ spots being reallocated for Defiant Speech actions, of which there are also only two. A Defiant Speech action can be used in two ways; to immediately reset the orders display, making all the orders once again available to the player, or to burn the Bridge of Boats running between the walled cities of Senglea and Birgu.

A lot of historical events have been built into play, like the Turkish siege tower (allowing a +1 to some rolls, though the tower can be destroyed by the Knights in certain circumstances), and the way the Knights can destroy the bridge of boats for a one-point morale boost, but can no longer move troops between Birgu and Senglea, limiting their defensive options. Then there’s the diminishing Turkish ammunition, their musketry and Janissaries options (limited resources to apply and -1 or a re-roll respectively in certain situations) and the corresponding Greek Fire and Elite Knights for the order of Saint John. With only three each of these, the player has to weigh up the benefits of using each option carefully.

Birgu and Senglea, with the Bridge of Boats still intact.

Like the other games in the series, Siege of Malta is well balanced – read difficult but winnable. Out of around seventeen solo games, fairly evenly split between the two sides, I’ve won the solo game once playing the Turks and twice as the Knights. On balance, I think it’s a little tougher to win as the Turks; they are doing the heavy lifting – the Knights will win if they can deny a Turkish victory until the deck runs down (representing the point of time in which the Turks must set sail to avoid the winter storms). But both sides provide their share of challenges (and the occasional reprieve from the opposing deck).

After playing this game so often, I’ve got the set-up time under five minutes, and the playing time for a medium challenge game (24 cards) down to under an hour. If you have a couple of hours to kill, this is the perfect distraction; after you inevitably lose the first game, you will want to immediately play a second game to save your wounded pride. Or you can play through once as the Turks and once as the Knights and make your own judgement on who has the easier time of it.

In the roughly four months since I received Siege of Malta and Siege of Syracuse, I’ve played each about a dozen-and-a half times and neither game has got stale for me. They still offer challenges and surprises, and victory is never guaranteed. I have yet to play either in the difficult mode (reduced or increased deck size, depending on whether you are the aggressor or the defender), so there is that particular joy to look forward to. All in all, 1565: Siege of Malta is an elegant game that is quick to set up and play, and has built-in replayability rewards repeated play. I think it’s a good investment.