In this article, I’ll provide a high-level overview of the mechanics found in Bear Trap, and an explanation of the gameplay. This example of combat in a prior InsideGMT article will also help elucidate some of the explanations found here.

Note that, for the sake of brevity, the rules aren’t described here in complete detail—for anyone interested in reading further, the draft player aid and draft rulebook can be found on GMT’s webpage for the game.

QUICK FACTS

• Bear Trap is a 2-player game, with a solo mode.
• Bear Trap is a simulation of the Soviet-Afghan War (1979-1989).
  • One player takes command of the ruling Democratic Republic of Afghanistan and its forces, supported by the Soviet 40th Army—this side is referred to here as the Soviets, or the Soviet player.
  • The other player takes command of the local tribal rebels (the Lashkar) and Mujahideen guerrilla fighters—this side is referred to as the Insurgents or the Insurgent player.
• Bear Trap is a block wargame, which is to say that units are represented by a small square block of wood with a sticker on one side. The block stands on edge with the information facing its owner and a blank side facing the opponent. Hidden information on blocks helps simulate the fog of war. Each player has their own pool of blocks.

• Each player has their own deck of cards. Additionally, each player has a set of 16 special strategy cards (8 pairs each). These start the game set aside, but when a player reshuffles their deck, they’ll add 2 cards to their own deck, enabling them to adapt their strategy to the developing situation as the game plays out.

• The gameboard depicts Afghanistan (divided into hexagonal areas) as well as Pakistan, Iran, and the USSR (divided into larger areas). Within Afghanistan, borders between hexes denote either mountainous (rough) terrain, local minor roads, and main highway routes. 3 major cities are depicted on the map (Kabul, Kandahar, and Herat), as well as 10 other provincial capitals.

• Bear Trap builds on the core game system found in Sekigahara, although the games diverge in a number of ways.
• The playtime for two experienced players should be around 2 hours, but this will vary depending on how long players agonize over their decisions. With decisive play, turns can take as little as a few seconds. And because the game ends as soon as someone satisfies one of their victory conditions, it’s possible for games to finish in under 1 hour.
• Bear Trap does not use dice in any way.

VICTORY AND HOW THE GAME ENDS

The game ends as soon as:

• A player satisfies one of their victory conditions; or
• The players have reshuffled their decks a combined total of seven times (e.g. 3 Insurgent reshuffles and 4 Soviet reshuffles, or 5 Insurgent reshuffles and 2 Soviet reshuffles, etc).

If neither player has satisfied their victory condition by the 7^th reshuffle, both players lose.

Each side has its own victory condition.

The Insurgent player immediately wins:

1. If they control Kabul at any point; or
2. If Soviet Fatigue reaches the 9^th space on the Soviet Fatigue track

The Soviet player immediately wins:

1. If there are no Insurgent blocks in any Afghan areas (i.e. by clearing the country of insurgents); or
2. If the Soviets control every city, and can trace a path from the USSR to each city through only highway borders, when a reshuffle occurs—3 times

Let me clarify the second Soviet condition. The main highway of Afghanistan creates a ring road around most of the country and connects a number of major centres, as depicted below:

The Soviets are trying to establish a new status quo in the key parts of Afghanistan, a level of stability and control, whether or not other pockets of the country remain in rebel hands. We check if the Soviets are progressing towards this—if they do control such key areas—each time either player reshuffles their deck. If the Soviets can trace an uninterrupted route from each major city to the USSR during 3 of the reshuffles, they win the game (since, over time, they’ve maintained sufficient control of the key parts of the country—and can claim ‘mission accomplished’—even if other parts of Afghanistan are still controlled by Insurgents).

Some comments about the second Insurgent victory condition might also be helpful. Every time the Soviets lose one of the following blocks, the Soviet Fatigue token moves up 1 on the Soviet Fatigue track: Soviet Infantry, Soviet Armor, and Spetsnaz. Soviet Fatigue will also move up in a few other ways—if the Insurgents play their ‘CIA Intervention’ card in reaction to ‘Soviet Air Strikes’, or if the Insurgents play ‘Western Media’ in reaction to a Soviet overrun or ‘Landmines’. Moreover, Soviet Fatigue will increase for each major city and USSR area controlled by the Insurgents when either player reshuffles their deck. Soviet Fatigue tracks the willingness of the Soviets—as a government and as a populace—to ensure setbacks and losses through this war. If the Insurgents manage to advance the level of Soviet Fatigue 9 times, they win the game (as the willingness of the Soviets to endure such heavy setbacks in pursuit of the war as been sufficiently eroded).

SET UP

Aspects of the set-up process are variable, to give variety and greater replayability to the game.

The Soviet player will place all their Infantry and Armor blocks in the USSR areas (distributed at random), and 1 DRAF block in each major city (Kabul, Kandahar, and Herat). They’ll add 1 copy of one of their strategy cards to their deck, shuffle their deck, then draw a starting hand of 6 cards. Finally, they have the option to discard any or all of their cards in hand, and refill their hand back to 6 (thereby having a greater degree of control over what their opening hand looks like).

The Insurgent player places the Warlord Stronghold and 1 Lashkar—local tribal rebels—each in any provincial capital (they don’t have to be placed in the same provincial capital). They’ll add 1 copy of one of their strategy cards to their deck, shuffle their deck, then draw a starting hand of 6 cards. Finally, they have the option to discard any or all of their cards, and refill their hand back to 6 (thereby having a greater degree of control over what their opening hand looks like).

Each player will then remove 2 of their strategy cards from the game from their pool of remaining strategy cards (which cards are removed is decided at random, limiting their strategic options for this playthrough of the game).

Play begins with the Soviets taking the 1^st turn.

TURN STRUCTURE

On your turn, you’ll do one of the following 3 options:

• Play 1 strategy card, or
• Discard 0-2 cards to activate areas containing your blocks (so they can, e.g., move), or
• Resupply your forces

You’ll then resolve combat in any spaces containing blocks belonging to both players. Once done, play passes to your opponent.

Let me expand a bit on how each of those options work.

The first option, play a strategy card, lets you do just that—play 1 strategy card from your hand to resolve its effect. You’ll note, from the setup process, that each player starts with only 1 strategy card in their deck. So this is at most something you’ll do once before your first reshuffle. But, as noted above, with each reshuffle you’ll add 2 more of your strategy cards to your deck, thereby expanding the occasions where you might want to play 1 strategy card as your turn.

The second option, activating areas, lets you do just that—usually at the cost of cards from hand. When you activate an area, you do so to do something with each non-Disordered block of yours in that area, i.e. each block with a orientation other than Disordered. This is a form of Area Movement—the board is divided into a number of areas, mostly single hexes, and when you activate an area the blocks in it can form groups, which move together to/through other areas.

The above table summarizes your different options when activating areas, and notes how many cards you must discard from hand for each option, as well as what each one lets you do.

But let me expand a bit on these different types of activations. The urgent activation doesn’t cost any cards from hand, but it only allows you to activate a single block. The essential and restricted options each cost a single card from hand, however one lets you active 3 areas (but cannot create combat situations) whereas the other let’s you activate only 1 area (and can create combat situations). Finally, if you have a lot you want to do, you can discard 2 cards from hand to activate up to 6 areas. When you activate an area, each block of yours there can either stay where it is and change its orientation, or be moved (and have its orientation changed to mobilized)—I say more above how a blocks orientation works in the final section. On most occasions players will have between 4-7 cards in hand (though could sometimes be more or less than that), which means discarding 1 or 2 cards from your hand to activate areas is a non-trivial cost.

Finally, when a group of blocks move, how far it can move will depend on a few factors: what kind of blocks are in the group, what kind of hex borders they will cross (e.g. mountainous vs highway), how many blocks are in the group, and whether you discard an additional card to give them a movement bonus. The Soviets can also make a special “air bridge” movement from the northernmost USSR area (the Turkestan Military District HQ) to Kabul. If a moving group containing 4x as many enemy blocks than in an area, the enemy blocks are immediately eliminated—no combat need be resolved, and the overrunning blocks may continue moving.

And finally, the third option for your turn: resupplying. This is the way you replenish your hand of cards, change Disordered blocks to Mobilized, and optionally bring new blocks into play. First, though, you must discard half of the remaining cards in your hand.

COMBAT

At the start of combat, any rumor (i.e. decoy) blocks in the area are removed and both players start with 0 “impact”—the way we measure who’s winning in combat. Starting with the attacker, players will play cards to commit blocks in order to generate impact, with combat victory being determined by who generates the most impact (ties going to the Soviets).

After the attacker commits that initial block, play rests with the player who’s currently losing (has less impact). That player will continue to commit blocks until they’re either not losing (in which case the other player gets the opportunity to commit more blocks) or choose to pass (in which case combat ends).

When committing blocks, in most instances players will play a card from their hand to commit a matching block in the area—e.g. the Soviets would play a DRAF card to commit a DRAF block. However, there are cases where a player can commit a block without playing a card, sometimes even if they aren’t in the area where the combat is taking place. For instance, the Soviets are able to commit blocks in adjacent areas without playing a card, so long as the Soviets are the attacker and the blocks have Fire Support as their current orientation.

Loyalty challenges are an important feature of combat. Each time you commit a block, your opponent has the opportunity to play a loyalty challenge card—Defectors, in the case of the insurgents, or KhAD in the case of the Soviets. If your opponent plays a loyalty challenge card, you must reveal an additional card from your hand that could commit that block. If you cannot, the block you were committing is eliminated and your opponent gets to add a new block to play and commit it (the forces effectively switching sides). In the war, the DRAF suffered from a high rate of defection and so the Insurgents have more loyalty challenge cards in their deck than the Soviets (KhAD, the Afghan secret police, also pressured rebels to abandon the cause through a variety of harsh measures).

As mentioned, once the player with the initiative passes combat ends. The player who lost must take casualties equal to the difference in impact—e.g. if the Soviets had 5 impact and the Insurgents 2, the Insurgents would lose, and would have to take 3 casualties. Each block can absorb casualties up to its current impact value. For instance, a Lashkar with Fortified as its current orientation has an impact value of 2, and could thereby absorb up to 2 casualties. Any block which absorbs at least 1 casualty is eliminated. The player who lost the battle must also retreat any remaining blocks out of the area in which the combat occurred, and these retreating blocks become Disordered. If the Insurgents won, they may replace a Lashkar with a Captured Artillery.

Finally, as the last step, both players discard all cards played during combat and then may draw up to that number of cards (i.e. if a player played 5 cards, they could draw up to 5 cards). For each block of yours that was eliminated during combat, you may also draw an additional card.

THE RESHUFFLE PROCESS

As soon as your draw deck is empty and you need to draw another card, play is interrupted so that you can complete the reshuffle process. This process consists of the following steps, resolved in the following order:

1. First, check to see if the Soviets progress towards their victory condition. That is, do they control all 3 cities, and can they trace an uninterrupted route from each city to the USSR that only passes through highway borders? If yes, and this is the 3^rd time they’ve satisfied this condition, the Soviets win the game immediately (otherwise the Soviet Victory track is increased one step).
2. Second, advance the reshuffle token up one space. If it’s now on the 7^th space, the game ends—and both players lose.  
3. Next, for every major city area and USSR area controlled by the Insurgents, Soviet Fatigue is increased by 1. If the Soviet Fatigue token reaches the 9^th space on its track, the Insurgents win the game immediately.
4. Then, if it’s the Soviet player undergoing the reshuffle process, they must move 1 Soviet Infantry or Armor block from each major city to the Turkestan Military District HQ. If they have no eligible blocks in a city, they must instead change the orientation of half the DRAF in that city to Disordered. (This simulates the rotation of troops back home, and the arrival of new forces, as well as the unreliability of the local forces without Soviet oversight and support.)
5. Finally, choose 2 of your available strategy cards (without showing them to your opponent). Take them and your discard pile together, shuffle these cards to form your new draw deck, and then finish drawing cards into your hand.

Note: only the player whose deck is out of cards goes through this process, although both player’s victory conditions are always checked at each reshuffle.

OTHER COMMENTS ABOUT GAMEPLAY

A note about block orientation is worthwhile here. One of the innovative things about Bear Trap is the way blocks are used. Traditionally in block wargames, the different sides of a block represent its strength and remaining hit points. So, in virtue of the way it’s orientated, it will roll more or less dice and be able to take more or less hits before being removed from play. (Think Hammer of the Scots or Triumph and Tragedy.) This isn’t how blocks work here. In Bear Trap, the orientation of the block dictates whether it can be activated (Disordered blocks cannot be), if it recently moved (after a block moves it becomes Mobilized), and how it performs in combat (e.g. Fortified blocks have higher impact, while Ambush and Fire Support have special rules about how they can be committed in combat). While you will normally be required to play a matching card from your hand to commit a block (e.g. to commit a DRAF block in combat the Soviet player must play a DRAF card), some blocks can be committed without use of a card and/or from an adjacent space (e.g. if its orientation is Fire Support or Ambush).

Finally, it’s worth emphasizing that Bear Trap is an asymmetric game—While there’s a common ruleset for both sides, each side has some things they do better than the other side and things only they can do. For instance, a moving group containing only Soviet Armor blocks needs to have only 3 times as many blocks as those it is overrunning (whereas the normal requirement is 4 times, and Lashkar require 5 times). As another example, the Insurgents are better at defense as they have more blocks that can have their orientation set to Ambush, while Soviets are better at offense using Fire Support. The Soviets also have a special kind of movement only they can do (via the ‘air bridge’ between Kabul and the Turkestan Military District HQ in the north). Each side also has a unique set of blocks, a unique deck, a unique set of special ‘strategy’ cards. These are just a few examples in which the game is asymmetric, which I will expand on in future InsideGMT articles.

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