After visiting Director Kellen Butler at the Lasch Conservation Center and seen the H.L. Hunley itself being painstakingly and lovingly restored, I needed to learn more about the locations where those involved in unleashing the Hunley upon the Union Navy blockading Charleston Harbor did their good work.
In this InsideGMT article, we’ll play through a few turns of Bear Trap.
The following playthrough is designed to demonstrate a few different aspects of the game, and to give you a basic sense of what it’s like to play—it’s not meant to be a demonstration of good play by the players.
In what follows, I won’t explain the game rules in detail. Instead, I’ll focus on describing what the players are doing. Insurgent play will be in green text, while Soviet play will be in red text, but I’ll also offer some commentary in italics. In all images here, all blocks are face up only for illustrative purposes; in an actual game, you would only be able to see the sticked side of your own blocks (until enemy blocks are committed in combat).
If you’re unfamiliar with the mechanics of how the game works, check out this prior InsideGMT article which provides an overview of gameplay, or take a look at the draft rulebook and player-aid (both on GMT’s product page for the game). Finally, note that the graphic design and artwork used here are for playtest purposes only and isn’t indicative of what the final artwork and layout will be like for the game when published. (What we have works fine for playtest purposes, but the GMT art department will eventually do a great job of creating something beautiful with a natural look that supports the gameplay.)
For this example of play, we’ll tune in about halfway through the game. The players have so far undergone 3 reshuffles and the Soviet player is getting close to their next reshuffle. A game of Bear Trap lasts up to 7 reshuffles, but can end earlier if a player satisfies their victory condition.
At the opening of the American Civil War, Confederate president Jefferson Davis and his people faced an enemy that had a substantially larger and fully ocean-going navy and was wedded to a strategic “Anaconda Plan” of defeating the Confederacy by economic strangulation through a naval blockading of all of its ports.
Like their forefathers, the Confederates used the technology of the 19th Century’s Industrial Revolution to even the odds by engineering an up-to-date version of a Revolutionary War weapon, the torpedo.
The term “torpedo” here applies to any explosive device triggered either remotely or by its own internal fuse.
With the Civil War entering its second year, the Confederate government set up two separate bureaus in Richmond, VA to expedite development and deployment of the torpedo on land and sea.
My goal in designing I, Napoleon was not to produce a competitive game since as a solo design the only opponent to beat is the game itself. While it is quite possible to “lose” the game, and there are a wide variety of different potential “wins” that can be achieved, in I, Napoleon the play is the thing. I wanted players to experience the narrative of Napoleon’s extraordinary life, and also the narratives that could have been.
But from the start, I was faced with the question of how far from Napoleon’s actual biography I could go. That Napoleon remains such an object of fascination 200 years after his death has less to do with his achievements or his crimes, than the sheer improbability of an obscure Corsican artillery officer rising to rule over the greatest European empire since Charles V. In a period of only 22 years Napoleon packed in more events than a score of normal lives. Simply including the events that did happen was obviously going to take up the bulk of the game’s 220 cards.
For my final article on the new Sovereign of Discord expansion, I will focus on one of the themes of the Bonus Events that are included for the base game. The expansion includes 40 new Events to be used with the original Fire in the Lake scenarios and the two additional base game scenarios that are provided (“Long 1964” and “Turning Point”). I chose the Bonus Events to reflect some new scholarship on the war since the release of Fire in the Lake in 2014 and to further emphasize a few themes: women’s role in the war, civilian victimization, the effect of the war on South Vietnamese society, North Vietnamese strategies, and the 1964 escalation debate. In this article, we will focus on just one of these themes: women’s role in the war.
This is the fifth and final article in the series presenting each of the five powers of Baltic Empires in turn. This time I will cover Denmark.
Just like Poland-Lithuania, Denmark-Norway (or “Denmark” for short) starts near the height of their historical power, with a far-flung empire with possessions across the Baltic Sea, and a strong navy to help control it. Their territories may not be the richest on the map, but they are blessed with a varied economy (a decent distribution of different Goods), and geography is also Denmark´s friend in another crucial aspect: the Øresund.
The American Civil War lasted from April, 1861 to May, 1865, just over forty eight months.
When I was researching the background information for “Infernal Machine: Dawn of Submarine Warfare” I knew there would have to be some way of showing the influence of the outside world on the Player’s project.
The Player’s role in the game is that of Inventor and entrepreneur.
As such, you must be forever cognizant that, while that team of engineering wizards you’ve hired are busy constructing that underwater terror of yours, there is a Civil War raging across the formerly United States.
Current events generated by that Civil War will occur both near and far in relation to your machine shop’s front door, frequently accompanied by a frisson of dread.
At the time of writing this, All Bridges Burning, COIN Series Volume X, is the latest released COIN Series game.The game tells the story of the Finnish Civil War of 1918 including the lead up to the war during the previous year.
In this article, we will introduce you to a new variant to All Bridges Burning for two players. The 2-player variant is released as free download with this article. All the rules and procedures needed to play are contained in this PDF file.
I want to thank Adrian Rubiero for testing and preparing the variant with me.
By Ed Ostermeyer, Master Engineer (Grade 2)
Good day to you, young Inventor.
In these chaotic days of this accursed Civil War, it is well that you have all your important papers in order.
Especially important is to have in your possession documents known as “letters patent.”
Today’s session of instruction from the Inventor’s Vade Mecum will discuss the acquisition of two of these letters patent from the War Department.
The first of the letters patent can be useful, though you may not need its help right away.
Of the other letter patent, a young Inventor and his fishboat cannot afford to be without one.
Last article, I covered the struggle in South Vietnam between the Ngo Dinh Diem regime and the Viet Cong (VC) insurgency. Both sides in the war received external assistance and advice from sponsors seeking to direct the conflict and exert control over their clients. Over the course of the Kennedy administration (1961-1963), US assistance in South Vietnam dramatically increased until there were 16,000 advisors in country by the end of 1963. Likewise, beginning in 1959, North Vietnam gradually increased its military assistance and advisors to support the insurgency. The North eventually sent thousands of trained “regroupees,” southerners who regrouped to the North in 1954 as part of the Geneva Accords, to add additional strength to the insurgency. In this article, I’ll focus on how Sovereign of Discord models American and North Vietnamese external assistance.
