Stripped down for parts: Fire and Stone: the Siege of Vienna

 

Robert De Leskie’s Fire and Stone: Siege of Vienna 1683 (Capstone Games, 2022) is one of those games what will have the opinionated arguing for years to come: Is it a wargame? Is it a Euro? Is it trying to awkwardly straddle the two camps, pretending to be a wargame when it clearly isn’t because it has little cannon meeples and wooden fieldworks markers and… oh, wait…

For my money, Fire and Stone is clearly a wargame, even though it looks a lot like something that could take a prize at a German game industry convention. The theme is an episode in a much longer conflict between the Muslim Ottoman Empire and the Habsburg Empire. In 1683 an 90,000-strong Muslim army marched on and laid siege to the fortified city of Vienna, outnumbering the defenders nearly eight-to-one. Historically, the city held out for fifty-nine days, until it was relieved by a cavalry army lead by Polish king Jan III Sobieski, and the siege was lifted.

Fire and Stone is an abstracted treatment of that siege. One player takes the role of the besieging Ottoman Turks, the other the brave Habsburg defenders facing overwhelming odds.

 

The box is a nice, solid with firm-fitting lid, but is still not too difficult to open. The box cover art is elegant in its simplicity, with the title appearing in a suitably archaic font, and embossed with the split sword insignia of the Ottoman Empire and the double-headed eagle of the Habsburgs.

The back of the box continues in the same thematic style, and advises that the game is for two players*, and that it recommended for players aged 14 and up, and should play in 60-90 minutes. These feel right, given the different play concepts introduced in the game (more about these in a review to come). It also reassures the player that knowledge of siege warfare is not require to play the game.

In fact, the whole package is so beautifully presented – the inside of the box-lid is illustrated with an image of the brutal nature of the fighting at the siege, while the travel insert (the shaped piece of card that stops the map-board and the components from moving around too much during shipping) shares some of the same graphic qualities as the box front, emblazoned with the tile panel and the crossed match-lock muskets, and a vivid splash of colour with the red Ottoman and Yellow Habsburg crests.

The rulebook is printed on glossy, fine-quality paper, and is very well laid out, with a decent-sized font and two-column format. Illustrations and descriptive examples make the whole package clear and easy to understand; despite some different concepts appearing in the game, you won’t need a degree in ludology to interpret these rules.

Along with the rulebook, a booklet of historical and designer notes is also included. I always appreciate the extra effort that goes into design notes and a good bibliography (part of the joy of a new wargame is learning about the period and events it highlights), and putting it all into a separate booklet is really a cut above the standard.

The board is about 23” by 16.5”, in muted tones of browny-greys and greens, representing the Ottoman camp, the staging area before the outer walls (glacis), the two sets of bastions and the Curtain Wall, which the Ottomans must breech to fulfill one of the paths to victory. It is divided into huge hexes that take up most of the play area, but are only four columns deep and three rows wide (4” hexes. This isn’t a game of manoeuvre and counter-manoeuvre, but one of slow advancement and dogged defence; a war of attrition.

Two player’s aid cards are included in the package (no expense spared). These are identical, except for the Ottoman split sword on a red background or Habsburg double-headed eagle on a vivid red background. The PACs are as clear and well laid-out as the rulebook, with turn structure, battle process and exceptions all spelt out concisely.

But for me the best part of the whole package is the components. There are wooden pieces representing cannons and fieldworks, thick cardboard area control markers and shovel tokens to draw for mine actions (and a pair of lush draw bags to put them in).

Everything as it comes in the box. You can't see them very well in this photo,
but the turn, morale and battle markers are all screen-printed wooden pieces.

Mine draw tokens and Control markers.

The cards are printed on good stock. Each side has three decks; one each of strategy cards and tactics cards, and a slimmer reck representing their side’s fighting forces. Each of the strategy cards has a note as the bottom tying that card’s action to a particular event or mundane occurrence during the siege, and there are more of both the strategy and the tactics cards than you will use in a single game, adding baked in replayability to the package.

Sample Strategy cards.

Sample Tactics cards.

The Army cards represent a spread of forces displaying a strength of 1, 2 or 3, but each is denoted with a particular troop type that participated in the siege. These are beautifully illustrated in a style reminiscent of the era.

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Sample army cards.

A lot of care has gone into the design and production of Fire and Stone. It is a gorgeous game to look at with a nice, tactile experience of play. The brightly coloured pieces really pop on the muted-palette board, and the card illustrations add to the verisimilitude of the experience. The reality of the situation is perhaps restricted to the little historical notes on the base of the cards, and the historical notes that come with the game, which are well worth the time to read them.

 

* Given the nature of play (lots of concealed information), Fire and Stone is low on the solitaire-playability scale. That doesn’t mean you can’t do it – I got familiar with the game the same way a lot of people do, playing two-handed – but for the best experience, this is a game you want to play with a friend.