After Action Report: Learning how to play Seljuk

Zachary Grant, 26 March 2026

I’ve read and heard all sorts of good impressions of Volko Ruhnke’s Levy & Campaign series, yet I’ve never taken the time to play them. Well, that’s not entirely true. I played one learning game of Plantagenet via Rally the Troops last year; however, one game is not enough to truly understand Mr. Ruhnke’s Levy & Campaign system and I forgot most of what I learned.

When the occasion arrived to write something about Seljuk: Byzantium Besieged 1068-1071, designed by Justin Fassino, I thought this might be an opportunity to learn more about the Levy & Campaign games and to write something for the Armchair Dragoons. What follows is my after action report on my first attempt at playing the learning scenario for Seljuk.
Full disclosure, GMT Games provided this copy of Seljuk to the Armchair Dragoons; however, that will not influence my writing one little bit! Double disclosure, I am learning this game system and I made numerous mistakes. Boy howdy did I make some errors! I didn’t correct my goof-ups. I left them as learning moments for everyone. If you see other mistakes I don’t mention, please let us know in the comments.

Setting up took a wee bit more time than I thought. The instructions are very clear in the rulebook; however, I wasn’t familiar with all the counters and wooden pieces used to play the game. This problem was easily solved by carefully reading the rule book and  looking at the quick reference foldout card. Everything is described or named and there are plenty of examples and color pictures in both the Rules of Play and Scenario book and the Play Book.

 

Spring 1070

click images to enlarge

For the introductory scenario, we skip the Levy phase and go straight to the Campaign phase. Normally, each player would have a command deck of 7 cards for spring, and for this learning scenario, we start with 6 cards. As this is a solo game, my thought process was the Seljuks are going to want the Emir of Arran to capture Manby, which he is besieging. To have the Seljuks Ravage as many Locales as possible to meet the Seljuk Unity number of 15, and finally, to capture one of the two cities conquered by the Romans, most likely Manzikert. For the Romans, my thought was to attempt to interrupt the siege at Manby with Chatatourios and advance Manuel Komnenos and Roussel de Bailleul to defend the Roman territory from the Seljuks.

I created the command decks so the focus of the action will be at Manby between the Emir of Arran and Chatatourios and then the other commanders later in the campaign.

Here are the command cards for the Seljuks and Romans.

 

Seljuks always go first, so I attempt to capture Manby with the Emir of Arran. It is at this point I realize that I can’t add more siege engines because I only have one Lord at Manby. This means my attempt only has a one in six chance of success. I roll a d6 and fail. Chatatourios advances to Artah and recruits an infantry unit from the local Themata Garrison. Even though I know attempting to besiege Manby a second time is folly, this is a learning game, so I try again and fail. This allows Chatatouris to advance to Manby and the Romans and Seljuks face off in their first battle.

 

I’m not going to describe the battle process in detail. I organize the Lord mats around the Battle mat and work through the battle step-by-step. The order in which units attack is defending archers attack first, followed by attacking archers. Then the defending horse attack, followed by the attacking horse units. Finally the defending infantry attack, followed by the attacking infantry. Seljuk archers and cavalry are very good, while the Roman infantry are better than the Seljuk infantry. The battle begins!

 

I rolled poorly for the Seljuks and well for the Romans and the end result is the Emir of Arran realizes it is time to leave. With only one Turkish horse unit remaining, he knows he doesn’t stand a chance against Chatatouris’s almost full army.

 

Arran is able to retreat to Edessa and only permanently loses one Turkish Cavalry unit. Chatatouris loses the militia unit. The siege at Manby has been lifted. Huzzah!

 

Next will be a flurry of activity between the Seljuks and the Romans. Arisighi moves to Chaldia and fails to Ravage this area due to the Themata Garrison guarding it. Both Manuel Komenos and Roussel de Bailleul advanced to the east. Their command rating is low, so they don’t move very far.

 

Alp Arslan moves to Manzikert and begins to besiege it. Again, just like the Emir of Arran experienced, trying to capture Manzibert via a siege is not going to be easy. Alp Arslan may have a high command rating; however, because he is the only Lord at Manzikert, there can only be one siege marker. Alp Arslan is going to need help.

 

Spring ends with Arisighi’s second attempt to Ravage Chaldia being successful. Alp Arslan’s continues to besiege Manzikert and Manuel Komnenos and Roussel de Bailleul slowly advance to Kolonera. Next I need to finish this season and then plan for Summer.

 

End Spring Campaign

It is the end of the spring campaign and this means some Ravaged Locales will no longer be Ravaged. Each side selects half the number of Ravaged makers on the map and can remove them. There are no Roman Ravage markers for the Seljuks to remove. I selected three Seljuk markers for removal.

 

Comments on the Spring Campaign:

Did the eagle-eyed veterans of the Levy & Campaign series catch all my mistakes? Well, I know I made plenty and the one that I realized I made during the End Campaign phase was I didn’t remove Provender after each command card. I was so excited to get pieces moving and the battles started I completely forgot this crucial part of the game. What a rookie mistake! I’m not going to reset and try again. I’m leaving this glaring error in plain view so others can learn from it. If you see other errors, please leave them in the comments.

 

Summer

Starting the Levy part of Summer, I drew Art of War cards for both sides. The Seljuks got two Hold cards which I tucked under Alp Arslan’s Lord mat. The Romans received one Hold card and a card they couldn’t use. I put Local Scouts, the Roman Hold card under Manuel Komnenos’s Lord mat.

Not a bad draw and not a super helpful draw either.

 

Next we have to pay Lords to extend their service. The Seljuks don’t have anyone for the summer of 1070; however, for the Romans, Roussel de Bailleul needed to be paid to keep him around a wee bit longer, so I used one coin and moved de Bailleul’s marker to autumn 1070.

Showing how Roussel de Bailleul’s service marker advanced from summer to autumn.

 

No one ended their service, there was no Muster, and there was no Call to Arms, so time to start the Summer Campaign.

I selected eight command cards for both sides. My intent was to move Emir of Arran northward to Ravage more Locales in the hopes of getting closer to the 15 Seljuk Unity. Alp Arslan and Arisighi would join forces and attempt to capture Manzikert. For the Romans I spread out the command cards to give each commander an equal opportunity to move in order to react to whatever the Seljuks did. My thinking was Chatatourios would pursue the Emir of Arran while Roussel de Bailleul and Manuel Komnenos would  rescue Manzikert from the Seljuks.

I very much like the artwork on the command cards.

 

For the summer campaign, everything progresses much slower than it did in the spring. Why? Because I remembered to expend Provender and I used the Forage action to replenish supplies. Whew! At least I didn’t make the same mistake twice. Emir of Arran moved to Amid and foraged for supplies. Chatatourios followed closely after Arran and also foraged for supplies in Edessa.

 

Luckily for both commanders they foraged in friendly places, so success was automatic. Arran used the path leading to the northwest to reach Melitene; however, it took all their command points to do that, so they consume a Provender and now their supplies are gone.

Roussel de Bailleul gathered their forces and moved to Tephrike and also foraged. Alp Arslan attempted to capture Manzikert via the siege and failed. Manuel Komnenos planned to advance to Keltzene; however, I decided to forage only, so they would have extra supplies for their next action. Arisighi moved east from Chaldia to Manzikert to support Alp Arslan. Chatatourios, sensing his opportunity to defeat the Emir of Arran was close, moved north along the path to engage in battle.

 

The Emir of Arran is a bit weaker now than when he started the game and at the end of the battle, the Seljuks are eliminated while the Romans only lose one infantry unit. Again, it was a matter of my poor rolls for the Seljuks and good rolls for the Romans that led to this outcome.

The poor Seljuks didn’t have a chance with my poor die rolls.

 

Trying to move the remaining Roman forces east proved to be very difficult because of my poor planning, their low command rating, and the fact the Locales along their intended path to Manzikert were Ravaged, preventing the Romans from foraging. Alp Arslan and Arisighi were finally successful in capturing Manzikert before the end of the campaign season.

Comments on the Summer Campaign

It was at this point I decided to stop the learning game and assess how I did.

Forgetting to consume a Provender at the end of each command card was an embarrassing mistake. During the Levy phase, I should have levied more carts for the Romans. Not having enough Provenders for them made advancing east difficult when they needed to pass through Locales that were Ravaged. Letting the Emir of Arran become isolated and then eliminated was also a mistake. I should have retreated Arran to the east to preserve his force for future campaigns. Pursuing the Emir of Arran to stop that force from Ravaging the Locales was probably a good move. It is easy to see that Ravaged Locales can really hamper an advancing army. Joining Seljuk forces at Manzikert to improve my chances of a successful Siege was also a good idea.

The learning game is exactly that, a short scenario to help you learn the basics of the game. With the low number of leaders, the player has plenty of command cards to give each leader plenty of opportunities to move and take actions. I can see how this becomes more challenging as more leaders are on the map. If you have 5-6 leaders and only eight command cards, that suddenly means some leaders will only get one, or possibly no command cards. I look forward to my next game and sharing with you what I’ve learned and how I’ve improved. Hopefully I don’t make too many errors next time!

 

You can chat about this game in the Pre-Gunpowder section of our discussion forums

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