Even though we’re not talking about a turn-based game, Band of Crusaders is one of those exceptions I allow myself from time to time when a title really deserves attention. And in this case, we’re not straying far from turn-based structure anyway, since what we have here is an RTwP Strategy RPG.
I’ve been following this project because I find its blend of management systems and its dark medieval setting genuinely interesting.
The team at Virtual Alchemy is very active with news and updates on the development, and in their latest devlogs, they introduce two core enemy families, Abominations and Cultists, and explain how their design ties directly into both the setting and tactical combat.
The latest two Chronicle of the Crusade devlogs for the RTwP Strategy RPG Band of Crusaders finally start to show what you will be up against when you march across 14th-century Europe.
Abominations – When the Land Itself Turns Against You
The first devlog, Chronicle of the Crusade #1: Abominations, opens in 1350, with Europe already gutted by years of conflict. Villages are ruined, kingdoms shattered, and the land feels cursed. Out of this mess come the Abominations: not demons from another dimension, but things the soil has spat back out after swallowing too much death.
They’re described as patchwork creatures made from human bodies, animal carcasses, twisted roots, and rotting plants. The idea is that they should look grotesque but still plausible for the period, the kind of horror a medieval soldier might actually believe in. It’s corruption made flesh, not just a fantasy monster.
One of the first enemies you’ll meet is the Hellhound. It still moves on four legs like a wolf, but that’s where normal ends. Antlers jut from its skull. Parasitic limbs sprout from its back.
Its whole body looks like something that has been rebuilt too many times from whatever was lying around. Even those extra limbs aren’t random: visually, they echo the twisted arms of cultist heretics, hinting that these different enemy families are more connected than they first appear.
The Hellhound is also a good example of how Band of Crusaders wants you to think during fights:
- It has Blooddrinker, a trait that lets every bite restore its health. Let it gnaw on your frontline for too long, and you’re not really winning the trade.
- It can Feast on nearby corpses when it’s close to death, stopping the fight to gorge itself and return in better shape than before.
If you leave bodies lying around, the Abominations can use them. You might have to chase a wounded Hellhound to stop it from turning the battlefield into a buffet, even if that means exposing someone or breaking formation. On top of that, there are variants of the Hellhound that mix up their stats and behaviour, so it’s not always the same encounter.
They embody the idea that the world you’re walking through is sick. They make positioning, target priority, and corpse control part of your basic thought process, not advanced tactics for later difficulty modes.
Cultists: The Fanatics Between Man and Monster
Chronicle of the Crusade #2: Cultists shifts focus from monsters born of Chaos to people who chose to side with it. The devlog starts by stressing that the world is not only full of Abominations and selfish humans.
There is a third group in between: Cultists, described as neither fully human nor Abomination, but something vile in the middle.
Their origin story fits the same ruined 1350 Europe. Common folk live in a world on fire, plundered by raiders and defiled by demonic creatures. With order gone and lords shut away in their castles, some people turn to Abominations for protection and power.
That worship drags them into a servant role, then further down, until they abandon their humanity entirely. Rituals that strengthen and summon more Abominations, plus attacks on the settlements they used to belong to, leave physical and mental scars: new appendages, deformed bodies, and twisted minds.
The design approach is different from the purely monstrous Abominations. Cultists began as regular people looking for a way to survive. They now appear as fanatics, caring less about armor and appearance than human soldiers would, but still using weapons and gear they craft themselves or salvage from battlefields. Visually, they should feel brutal, raw, and chaotic, but also more grounded than overtly magical demons.
The devlog then zooms in on one enemy archetype: the War Heretic. This cultist type dual-wields weapons and appears in Light, Medium, and Heavy armor variants, forcing you to adjust which crusaders you bring and how you engage.
Lighter versions may be easier to break but more mobile, while heavier ones push fights into tougher, more deliberate exchanges.
There is also a strong link between Cultists and Abominations on the battlefield. The devs confirm that these families fight as allies, sometimes even forming joint units on the campaign map or appearing as two full armies in the same battle. That kind of mix sets up encounters where cultists support the more bestial Abominations, and vice versa.
To give the Cultists more personality, the devlog introduces Hexe, a named enemy drawn from German medieval legends about witches. Her name comes from early “hecse” variants found in Rhenish and Upper German dialects, and she is framed as a ranged specialist who rarely fights alone.
She stays behind other cultists and relies on self-mutilation to generate high damage. In combat, the devlog highlights two key abilities:
- Blood Hisses, where Hexe sacrifices some of her own life to create three piercing projectiles. Each summoned projectile further increases damage, so leaving her active for too long makes things worse every turn.
- Blood Rain, which calls down a rain of blood over an area, healing both Abominations and Cultists caught in it.
Hexe thrives in drawn-out fights, which means the longer you hesitate, the harder the clean-up becomes. The devlog openly advises players to strike fast before she can swing the battle with healing and escalating damage.
About Band of Crusaders
Band of Crusaders is a dark medieval strategy RPG where you play as the Grandmaster of a knightly order leading a crusade against a demonic invasion of Europe.
The campaign plays out across a simulated open world, letting you explore war-torn regions, recruit up to around twenty crusader knights, manage a growing camp, and react to an ongoing demonic onslaught.
Combat uses real-time with pause and a tactical slow-motion system. Positioning, ability timing, and unit synergies are central, and the developers emphasize that every hit matters because crusaders can die permanently. Encounters take place on varied maps with different tactical choke points and opportunities.
Outside of battle, you develop your roster through attributes and flexible skill trees. There are no fixed classes.
Abilities are tied to weapons, and you can blend active, passive, and semi-active skills to shape multi-role builds that fit your preferred style. The camp functions as a hub for recruitment, healing, repairs, training, and other upgrades, with buildings that interact in ways meant to encourage experimentation over the course of a long campaign.
The wider world is reactive. A simulated demonic invasion pushes against human factions and changes conditions over time, including things like demonic saturation, seasons, and a day-night cycle.
As Grandmaster, you face both human enemies and demonic creatures inspired by biblical imagery and European folklore, with each enemy family, including the Abominations and Cultists from the latest devlogs, designed with its own strengths and weaknesses that ask you to adjust your tactics.
Developed by Virtual Alchemy and Ironward and published by NCSOFT, Band of Crusaders is currently listed on Steam with a release date “To be announced”.
