In the final article in this series on the Enemy of My Enemy expansion, I’ll focus on the expansion content that extends or changes the original games featured in The British Way. Each of the original conflicts (Palestine, Malaya, Kenya, and Cyprus) in the base game gets new components and rules that add additional strategic trade offs enhancing the gameplay and historical fidelity. The new components include additional cards for each game and new types of Cell pieces in the Palestine and Cyprus games. Furthermore, the expansion adds new ways of playing campaign scenarios. New rules allow players to link the prequel expansion conflicts (Arab Revolt and Japanese Occupation) to their respective conflicts included in the base game (Palestine and Malaya). By linking the conflicts, players can now experience two “short” campaign scenarios that can be played on their own or added to the broader End of Empire campaign. Speaking of the End of Empire campaign, new “Insurgent Policy” cards give the insurgent player greater agency in the scenario. Together the new content for The British Way offers players even more reasons to come back and further explore the nuances of British counterinsurgency.

New Rules and Components for Base Game Conflicts

I’ll summarize the extensions or “variants” to each of the original conflicts in chronological order. I should note that to better incorporate these variants into each of the original games, copies of several of the original events from the base game are included with adjusted effects to incorporate the new variant rules. We did this to ensure that, if a relevant Event comes up related to the variant rules, it should allow players to interact with the new components and rules.

Palestine (Lehi Variant): The original Palestine game (1945-1947) models two of the three Jewish armed groups opposing British rule, Haganah and Irgun. Haganah, the largest of the three, is reflected in the game’s track, given their less confrontational stance with British forces that fluctuated over the conflict. The next biggest group, Irgun, represents the player faction and the game abstractly combines their forces and operations with the smallest of the three groups, Lehi, who adopted a similar stance and actions. Given Lehi’s small size and similar repertoire of violence, the decision made a lot of sense for keeping the focus on British counterinsurgency. However, given an opportunity to add more rules to the game, I wanted to include Lehi so that all three groups are explicitly covered by the game.

The “Lehi Variant” adds three blue Lehi Cells to the game, one in each City space at the start of the game. All British Operations treat these Lehi Cells as if they are Irgun Cells, but the British now get a Political Will for each Lehi Cell off the map at the Propaganda Round (representing the elimination of the most extreme group). Irgun may place Lehi Cells with Events allowing for placement of “Cells”, but cannot Recruit them as they do their own forces. Each Reset, Irgun also gets to return all Available Lehi Cells to Cities, further incentivizing British forces to get them into Prison! The presence of Lehi Cells also encourages the British player to increase their use of the Mass Detention Special Activity. Irgun Cells get removed before Lehi Cells (the smaller group is better able to avoid the drag nets), posing a liability to grouping forces in the Cities. However, Lehi Cells are more than just a new target for the British player. The presence of Lehi Cells in a City adds 1 to all Irgun Terror Operation rolls representing the tendency of the two groups to violently outbid each other. In addition, when Event Cards are revealed that include a symbol of the Lehi Cell, Irgun must conduct Sabotage with an Underground Lehi Cell (if possible). As a target of British repression and a contributor to Terror and Sabotage, Lehi represents unique opportunities and challenges for both players.

Malaya (Deep Jungle Variant): The original Malaya game focused particularly on the years 1948-1954 and offered an extended length scenario as a simple way of modeling the longer tail of the conflict that lasted until MCP resistance became very minor (approximately 1957), and the conflict was declared over in 1960. I wanted to add rules to allow players to get a better sense of how the MCP resiliently survived in jungle camps after 1954 and the way the British used the Special Air Service (SAS) to combat their retreat to the deep jungle.

This variant requires that players use the extended length version of the Malaya scenario, three Campaigns of eight cards with the Propaganda card shuffled into the bottom two cards of each stack. This creates a game length of 22-24 turns, rather than 16-18 turns for the shorter The British Way games. To keep up the Event variability, four brand new cards are added to Malaya reflecting the new mechanics and the later period of the war (SAS Squadrons Capability, Deep Jungle Camps Capability, Helicopters, and Ferret Force).

Furthermore, additional rules are added to address the two new types of markers: British SAS Squadrons and MCP Jungle Camps. Unless an SAS Squadron is present, the last MCP force (Guerrilla or Base) removed from a Province through British Assault or Air Strike places a Jungle Camp marker (MCP forces disperse to their camps in the Deep Jungle). Jungle Camp markers allow the MCP to Rally and Extort in spaces with Support and New Villages! This reflects the MCP raiding from their jungle camps to prey on the squatter communities on the jungle fringe, prolonging the insecurity of an area. There are two ways to remove Jungle Camp markers. First, the camps get removed from Support spaces during the Reset Phase (starved to the point of surrendering). Second, instead of the usual Air Strike option, the British can move an SAS marker to a Province to either flip an Underground Guerrilla Active or remove a Jungle Camp marker. The British gain access to two SAS markers after the British Commander Track shifts to the Brigg space, and an additional one once it shifts to the Templer space. These rules together reflect the more resilient staying power of the MCP, but also the increasing capability of the British to root them out.

Kenya (Detention Variant): Kenya is the game that I hear that players find the hardest to play given the brutality of British repression. I continue to strongly recommend that players consult the great books on the Kenya Emergency, such as David Anderson’s Histories of the Hanged or Caroline Elkins’ Imperial Reckoning, to provide greater context to the game. The COIN games are limited in their ability to address serious conflict dynamics due to scale and abstraction choices made at the start of the series. Therefore, one can always do better at trying to further illustrate key aspects of the two sides. For Kenya, I wanted to further emphasize the role of mass detention of Mau Mau insurgents and their supporters. The original game relies a little too much on the Pipeline Track and a few events to highlight what is going on in those detention sites. Additionally, I relied on Events to incorporate several of the key Mau Mau leaders such as Dedan Kimathi and Waruhiu Itote. We have memoirs or at least detailed accounts about several key Mau Mau leaders and a lower scale game that better handles abstraction through precise scoping could do more to highlight the Kenya Land and Freedom Army’s fragmented command structure that relied on these key personalities to function. The best I can do in this game is to include a simple mechanic that at least highlights their role in the conflict.

The Detention Variant adds two new aspects to Kenya gameplay. First, the British player uses a “Detention Deck” whenever they would be required to Roll for Outrage in the original game. These Detention cards not only assess whether British repression is caught by external observers, but also include their own event effects that better illustrate how the detention system interacted with other parts of the British counterinsurgency strategy: intimidate the population into loyalism, removal of Mau Mau leaders, and recruitment of Home Guard police. The plan is to use the color scheme of these cards to highlight the British color scheme used in the detention sites of “the pipeline” system to code the intensity of repression to be used: “white” representing rehabilitation to “black” representing the hardcore members of the insurgency to be broken down with violence. Such violence led to the horrific deaths of eleven detainees and seventy-seven more sustaining serious injuries at the Hola Detention camp, represented by one of the original game’s events (which has an updated replacement version for the variant).

On the Mau Mau side, the player gets two new Mau Mau leader counters, Kimathi and Itote, that begin the game on top of the starting Mau Mau Bases in the Mountain Jungles. These leaders modify the key Mau Mau Raid Special Activity by enhancing that ability in a unique way. Dedan Kimathi’s counter allows the Mau Mau to perform two rather than one Limited Operations in the selected space. Waruhiu Itote’s Raids remove one Police from the selected space or may move one Troop cube back to Nairobi. However, if the British remove those starting Bases, the leader marker is also permanently removed. One of the British Detention Deck cards is even enhanced by the removal of each leader! These two rules will hopefully illustrate for players the worst of British repression in Kenya and some of the local leaders who resisted British rule.

Cyprus (TMT Variant): As many readers following The British Way will know, Cyprus already received an Advanced Variant posted to InsideGMT: https://insidegmt.com/the-british-way-advanced-cyprus-variant/ that will now become standard in future printings of The British Way. The original Cyprus game had a few issues that arose because I worried too much about keeping Cyprus as simple as possible, as the simple introduction to the multipack. The changes that Joe and I implemented were not just about “balance” but also improving the historical dynamics. Since the “Advanced Variant” just tweaks a few rules, we decided against a first printing update kit (though GMT does offer PDFs with official art of the player aids). However, since the TMT Variant requires the use of the now standard “Advanced Variant”, all copies of the Enemy of My Enemy expansion include physical copies of those updated player aids. Now onto the TMT Variant itself.

TMT stands for Türk Mukavemet Teşkilatı (Turkish Resistance Organization), which represents one of several Turkish armed groups that formed during the Cyprus Emergency (1955-1959) to resist the EOKA insurgency that sought “enosis” or unification with Greece. As with the Lehi Variant above, I originally modeled these actors as four distinct Event cards in the original Cyprus game. I wanted to keep the game simple and also did not want to script the ethnic tensions between the Cypriot Greek majority and Turkish minority communities into the game. These tensions did not really begin until several years into the conflict and often were outside the control of the two player factions: British and EOKA. Therefore, allowing the degree of ethnic tensions to exogenously fluctuate by the number of the related Event cards that came up in any given game was a simple and effective way of addressing that issue. However, given the opportunity of adding additional components and rules, I wanted to include those groups into the gameplay in a fitting way.

The TMT Variant adds three blue “TMT” Cells to the game. Unlike the Lehi Variant above, none of these Cells begin on the map. TMT Cells are placed by any EOKA modified Sabotage roll that is 6 or greater (representing highly provocative actions that might increase tensions with Turkish Cypriot communities). In addition, when one of the four event cards with TMT symbols comes up, a TMT Cell is immediately placed in a random Town space. In either case a TMT Cell is not placed if one is already present or a Curfew is in the space. At the start of the Political Will Phase, any spaces with an Underground TMT Cell and an Active EOKA Cell triggers inter-group fighting that removes all Cells from the space and places a Sabotage marker. The removal of Cells hurts EOKA organizationally but the fighting (Sabotage marker) expedites a possible British withdrawal. If no TMT Cells activate, the British player gains 2 Political Will for keeping the peace. Therefore, like the Lehi Cells, the new TMT Cells pose an opportunity and a challenge for both sides of the conflict.

New Campaigns Scenarios and Variant

The expansion includes a procedure for linking the two brand new prequel games (Arab Revolt and Japanese Occupation) with the subsequent conflicts covered by the original Palestine and Malaya games. Based on my experience with linking the Sovereign of Discord expansion to the Fire in the Lake campaign scenario, the procedures allow players to play two game mini-campaigns on a respective map (Palestine or Malaya) or connect the prequel games to the End of Empire campaign scenario from The British Way.

The “End of the Revolt” procedure uses three major steps to assess how the outcome of the Palestinian Arab Revolt (1936-1939) affects the Jewish resistance that followed (1945-1947). First, the Revolt’s outcome can produce adjustments to the White Paper that granted a limitation on Jewish immigration into Palestine, which historically inflamed the Jewish resistance. Furthermore, Irgun’s position as an extremist group is strengthened if the British player heavily relied on Jewish irregular units during the revolt and/or the Palestinian Arab Revolt succeeded in mobilizing their communities. Finally, the British position is improved by fragmenting the Palestinian Arab Resistance, which frees up more police for addressing the threat of Jewish resistance groups, and taking a tough stance (modeled by the number of curfews on the map) that reassures Haganah, leading to enhanced British Negotiation rolls that shift the Haganah Track away from Irgun.

The “Return of British Rule” procedure reflects how the experience of Japanese occupation and its end affected the ability of British forces to reestablish rule over Malaya and contain the threat posed by the Malayan Communist Party (MCP). Whether the Japanese occupation game ends in a costly invasion (Japanese victory), seizure of the countryside by MCP (MPAJA victory), or triumphant British return (British victory), affects the starting setup of the Malaya game to favor the British or MCP. The MCP’s starting position is further strengthened or limited by the extent of weapons (Supply Caches) and popular support (Opposition) that the MPAJA possessed at the end of the occupation. The British starting position is adjusted by the presence of Malay collaboration police that could hand over power to landing British forces and the extent of war damage to Malaya’s economy (Sabotage railway markers). The linked campaign scenario forces the British player to think not only about maximizing resistance against Japan but also about how the resistance will affect their own re-occupation of Malaya.

Finally, one thing that always bugged me a little about the End of Empire campaign is how much the campaign focuses on decisions for the British player (setting Colonial Policy, Campaign Events). History dictated that to a large degree, since British global imperial strategy and withdrawal is what allows for connecting the four games into a coherent overarching narrative. However, I wanted to explore a way of capturing a key decision for the insurgent player that also does not exaggerate the links between the four separated insurgencies. To address this dilemma in the expansion, I’ve provided a unique “Insurgent Policy” card for each of the four factions (Irgun, MCP, Mau Mau, and EOKA). These cards represent how the insurgencies politically responded to Colonial Policy on British withdrawal. Each allows the insurgent player to choose between escalating violence or de-escalating violence to focus more on political opposition and a negotiated settlement. Insurgent players declare their Insurgent Policy choice at the end of the second Propaganda Round. This occurs one campaign after the British player’s choice of Colonial Policy. Stand Firm Colonial Policies enhance the effect for the insurgency of the escalation option while Concessions Colonial Policies enhance the effect of the de-escalation option. Hopefully, these add a decision for the insurgent player that still reflects the unique approach taken by the four separated groups.

I hope this series of InsideGMT articles illustrates how much additional content comes in the Enemy of My Enemy expansion and how that content gives players more reasons to keep exploring the history represented in The British Way. I’ve had a lot of fun working with Joe to provide a well rounded, playable, and most important of all, educational experience. The expansion would not be possible without all your support for the first printing of The British Way. Let me conclude by saying thanks to all those who purchased, played, shared, and reviewed my first game. I couldn’t ask for a better start to my design career.

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Previous Articles: 

Enemy of My Enemy: Arab Revolt

Enemy of My Enemy: Japanese Occupation