Restoration Games’ Crossbows & Catapults: Fortress War shows the scrappy little board game publisher at its very best — hunting down older, long-forgotten games and giving them a fresh coat of paint for modern audiences. Its latest effort is perfect for families with young children, and easily bridges the gap between hardcore fans of the tabletop hobby and the kids who love them. But the big box of plastic may prove a bit too pricey for some.
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Published in 1983, the original Crossbows and Catapults was a big hit at retail, straddling the line between a novel toy and a dexterity-based board game. Players compete to land their caroms — chunky plastic disks — on their opponent’s treasure horde, or use those same caroms to knock over a central tower. The mechanisms for flinging those caroms are little plastic siege weapons, including a ballista and a catapult powered by rubber bands.
This new version of the game, available now, is a massive mechanical upgrade over the original. Neither the crossbow nor the catapult requires a flimsy rubber band to power it, which should improve their longevity quite a bit. The catapult, on the other hand, now features a rotary auger to set the launch angle. Better still, the caroms land with significant impact, but don’t need to travel nearly as far. The weapons have been tuned not just for a 6-foot-long patch of smooth flooring, as recommended in the original, but for any hard surface 50 inches long — like a pub-height kitchen table, for instance.
The biggest change by far, however, is in how the game utilizes its miniatures. In the original, the medieval warriors included in the box were essentially markers that you placed on the battlefield where caroms landed. It was almost as if you were launching individual soldiers over the castle walls, trying to gain a foothold behind enemy lines before moving your siege weapons forward for a precision strike. This 2024 version has a lot more personality.
The base game includes two factions, the goblins and the dwarves, and each one has five unique, named miniatures. These miniatures only enter the game when their singular action cards are played, and each has a special power. Chozz The Armorer, for instance, is a goblin who can use a carom as a barricade to give players an additional action. Olga The Destroyer, another goblin, allows you to fire two caroms at once. Additional one-time-use caroms are also available, like the “bomberang” that you can fire repeatedly so long as it always lands face up.
Unfortunately, the manual — which is only eight pages long, mind you — has a few errors and inconsistencies in it. Nothing game-breaking to my eye, but issues related to clarity and precision might cause some consternation, especially among younger players. Beyond that it’s the whopping $90 price tag that is likely to give potential buyers the most heartburn. Most consumers who come across this product in the wild are likely to scoff at it, seeing only a box of plastic blocks. But those in the know understand that everything in Crossbows & Catapults was created more or less from scratch. Engineering, mold-making, and assembly on these kinds of plastic components cost real money and time, and the production value here is top-notch. Even the blocks themselves are artfully designed to slouch and sag after impact, like a rotting old wizard’s tower. I especially liked the ornamental stickers and the cardboard terrain that you can use for ranging and target practice.
Crossbows & Catapults: Fortress War is, in all actuality, an excellent value for the money. Even if you never crack open the manual, you and the family are going to have a great time building and knocking down those castle walls.
Crossbows & Catapults: Fortress War is available at local game shops and online. The game was reviewed using retail product provided by Restoration Games. Vox Media has affiliate partnerships. These do not influence editorial content, though Vox Media may earn commissions for products purchased via affiliate links. You can find additional information about Polygon’s ethics policy here.
Source：https://www.polygon.com/review/492196/crossbows-and-catapults-review-board-game-restoration-games
