My love affair with Cry Havoc...

I discovered the game through an awesome article written in the magazine Casus Belli back in 1983. This article had actually created a huge enthusiasm among the French wargamer audience. It's probably the reason why the French had been so creative to expand the game over the following 10 years. As far as I'm concerned, I bought the first 2 games (Cry Havoc and Siege) just one month later during a trip to Paris (at that time, the Standard Game edition with a simple type written translation into French could only be found in one shop in Paris - I live in the South East of France in Grenoble). I started to write a booklet of rules for tournaments based on the life of William the Marshall. It has never been published but I still have a paper copy of it.

I then had to wait 4 years to buy Croisades back in 1987 with its 2 sequels (the Castle and City extensions). Frankly speaking, the strategic game never got my endorsement: it was too complex and with very limited gameplay. I almost only played the tactical game with its revised, deeper rules that really rocked. As this period is one of my favorites, I started to design new characters to represent historical figures like Renaud de Chatillon, Onfroy de Toron; Saracens, camel-mounted Arabs and more. I also hand-drew a very nice "Caravanserai" map.

Vikings was still 5 years down the road but was really worth the wait : the ship rules and outstanding coastal maps deserved two thumbs up. In the following year, I wrote the Montjoie rule booklet and Robin Hood campaign (1993). I then published the Byzance medieval ship rules. I hand-drew 3 large medieval boats and created a Fortified Harbor extension compatible with the Fortified City, to replace the Eurogames' official one that was never released. I also wrote a few additional rules for Viking ships with a scenario that were never published and started a series of 10 ship-based scenarios with historical background that was never completed. At that time, we were in 1996 and after 13 years of playing almost exclusively the Cry Havoc games, I switched to PC games with Lords of The Realm II. Just like anybody, I played the Age of Empires/Age of Kings series (but by-passed Age of Mythology). Over the last years, I've been a die-hard fan of Medieval: Total War (versions I and II).

Interesting enough, I uncovered my old Cry Havoc boxes for the first time since 1996 in November 2003 to show them to my (then) 11-year old son: he insisted to use the maps for his Warhammer and Lord of The Rings figures but I refused: I still love this game and doesn't want him to destroy them...

Other interests

As you may have guessed, I'm a die-hard find of medieval times, and used to be the president of a local association that recreated disappeared Alpine castles from accounts of the 14th century through detailed scale models. You can check the English section of our web site with numerous pictures.