Wargame

A Heroic Fantasy Wargame wherein Peacemaker the Wizard, tired of eons of conflict over rulership of the island kingdom of Marnon, sets up a quest competition to choose the rightful ruler and end all bloodshed forever.

The map portrays the island of Marnon divided into 36 numbered territories and 8 bordering castle spaces. Orcs are placed in approximately 1/3rd of these spaces, then players place their Men in the remaining spaces. An opposing player places your 3 Magic Items around the map for you to find later. The first player to collect all three of their own treasures is the winner.

Each turn, Orcs around the board repopulate and then frenzy, indiscriminately attacking nearby Men. The Dragon flies around and eats Orcs and Men. Peacemaker the Wizard visits a region and bestows prosperity, and also enforces peace there that turn. After all this, each player may petition the Wizard for a card, receive reinforcements, and then carry out an attack campaign. Players forces include Men and two 'superpower' counters: Hero and Sorcerer.

Garret J. Donner later took his concept of objects moving semi-randomly and sometimes under partial control of the players (The Wizard and The Dragon) and designed the game Dragonhunt around it.

Avalon Hill Complexity rating - 2

Memoir '44 is a historical boardgame where players face-off in stylized battles of some of the most famous historic battles of World War II including Omaha Beach, Pegasus Bridge, Operation Cobra and the Ardennes.

Memoir '44 includes over 15 different battle scenarios and features a double-sided hex game board for both beach landings and countryside combat. Each scenario mimics the historical terrain, troop placements and objectives of each army. Commanders deploy troops through Command and Tactic cards, applying the unique skills of his units -- infantry, paratrooper, tank, artillery, and even resistance fighters -- to their greatest strength.

"By design, the game is not overly complex", says Memoir '44 designer, Richard Borg. "The game mechanics, although simple, still require strategic card play, timely dice rolling and an aggressive yet flexible battle plan to achieve victory." In addition to the large, double-sided gameboard, Memoir '44 includes 144 amazingly detailed army miniatures - including historically accurate infantry, tanks and artillery; 36 Obstacle pieces, 60 illustrated Command cards, 44 Special Terrain tiles, and 8 Custom Wooden dice.

Memoir '44 is designed for 2 players but easily accommodates team play. And with Memoir '44 Overlord scenarios, players can use multiple boards and up to 8 players to conduct large scale operations, experiencing the challenges of troop coordination and military chain of command on a large scale battlefield. Average game length is between 30 and 60 minutes, encouraging match play where players can command first one side and then the other.

The Memoir '44 series consists of the base game and a number of expansions.

This game is based upon Richard Borg's Command and Colors system.

The Dragon Hordes expansion (55 cards, two small pages of rules) to Warriors adds a new creature, the Dragon, along with additional Catapults and Attack Cards, and makes the game playable by up to 6 players.

Dragons, unlike other creatures, must attack and defend individually, but just one can wreak havoc. They roll two dice on both attack and defense, adding one to each die roll. Catapults have only one chance in 6 of killing Dragons, and their defense can be augmented by "Flames" (basically, extra lives that must be eliminated before the Dragon can be killed). Having the most Dragons at the end of the game also gains victory points.

Warriors is a card and dice-rolling game with a fantasy military theme. Each player begins with a randomly dealt army of 11 units. Most will be creatures of one of the game's 6 types (Barbarians, Goblins, Elves, Trolls, Dwarves, Undead). A lucky player may also get Wizards (which protect creatures of one type from attack) or Catapults (one-use weapons that have a 50/50 chance of destroying a target card). Creatures come in three varieties (infantry, archers, cavalry).

Armies are placed face-up in front of the players, and three rounds of warfare ensue. At the start of each round, players receive additional cards, including the vital Attack Cards, without which an army can only stand on the defensive. Attack cards are of two types. One ("Battle") allows all of a player's creatures of one type to attack creatures of either the same type or the type that the attacker most dislikes. Elves, for instance, may attack an opponent's Elves or his Trolls (the Elves' "natural enemy".) The other type of Attack Card ("Mercenary Army") allows creatures of different types to combine in an attack against creatures of any one type, but limits the number of attackers. Attack Cards also provide various bonuses to the attacker.

The resolution of attacks is modeled on Risk. The attacker rolls up to three dice, the defender up to two (the number depending on how many infantry each side has in the battle). The side with more archers, if either, adds one to its high die roll. The highest and second highest rolls for each side are compared, and the low roller in each loses a card (with the defender winning ties). The attack continues until one side is wiped out or the attacker voluntarily breaks off. Attackers with surviving cavalry can then make further attacks.

Players gain victory points for enemy units destroyed and for having the most creatures of a particular type at the end of the third round of play.

"Now the trumpet summons us again, not as a call to bear arms, though arms we need; not as a call to battle, though embattled we are – but a call to bear the burden of a long twilight struggle..."
– John F. Kennedy

In 1945, unlikely allies toppled Hitler's war machine, while humanity's most devastating weapons forced the Japanese Empire to its knees in a storm of fire. Where once there stood many great powers, there then stood only two. The world had scant months to sigh its collective relief before a new conflict threatened. Unlike the titanic struggles of the preceding decades, this conflict would be waged not primarily by soldiers and tanks, but by spies and politicians, scientists and intellectuals, artists and traitors. Twilight Struggle is a two-player game simulating the forty-five year dance of intrigue, prestige, and occasional flares of warfare between the Soviet Union and the United States. The entire world is the stage on which these two titans fight to make the world safe for their own ideologies and ways of life. The game begins amidst the ruins of Europe as the two new "superpowers" scramble over the wreckage of the Second World War, and ends in 1989, when only the United States remained standing.

Twilight Struggle inherits its fundamental systems from the card-driven classics We the People and Hannibal: Rome vs. Carthage. It is a quick-playing, low-complexity game in that tradition. The game map is a world map of the period, whereon players move units and exert influence in attempts to gain allies and control for their superpower. As with GMT's other card-driven games, decision-making is a challenge; how to best use one's cards and units given consistently limited resources?

Twilight Struggle's Event cards add detail and flavor to the game. They cover a vast array of historical happenings, from the Arab-Israeli conflicts of 1948 and 1967, to Vietnam and the U.S. peace movement, to the Cuban Missile Crisis and other such incidents that brought the world to the brink of nuclear annihilation. Subsystems capture the prestige-laden Space Race as well as nuclear tensions, with the possibility of game-ending nuclear war.

A deluxe edition, published in 2009 includes the following changes from the basic game:

Mounted map with revised graphics
Two double-thick counter sheets with 260 counters
Deck of 110 event cards (increased from 103)
Revised rules and player aid cards
Revised at start setup and text change for card #98 Aldrich Ames

Upgrade kit for the owners of the previous version includes the following:

Mounted Map with revised graphics
New card decks
Updated Rules & Charts

There are also the deluxe mounted map and deluxe euro-style countersheet upgrades.

Components:

228 full colour counters (260 in the 2009 Deluxe edition)
22"x34" full colour cardboard map (mounted map with revised graphics in the 2009 Deluxe edition)
103 event cards (110 in the 2009 Deluxe edition)
2 six-sided dice
1 24-page rulebook
2 full colour player aid cards

TIME SCALE: approx. 3-5 years per turn
MAP SCALE: Point-to-point system
UNIT SCALE: Influence markers
NUMBER OF PLAYERS: 1 - 2

DESIGNER: Ananda Gupta & Jason Matthews
MAP, CARD, & COUNTER ART: Mark Simonitch