Below you will find the second in a four part article series from Elihu Feustel featuring a Labyrinth: The Awakening turn-by-turn playthrough. If you would like to read the first part in the series, that can be found here. Enjoy!

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Turn 2:

Jihadist hand: With a funding of 5, 8 cards are drawn.

The Jihadist has 4 US events. Peshmerga can be negated by moving or eliminating the Iraqi cell. Tahrir Square is very bad, giving the US player a net advantage of 2 awakenings. Similarly, Strike Eagle can safely be played while Syria and Iran are not yet in play. Pearl Rounadabout gives up 1 awakening. The Jihadist plan should play Strike Eagle and Peshmerga quickly, and use first plot to negate Tahrir Square.

US Hand: At war deployment, 8 cards are drawn.

The US has two bad events: Censorship and Bloody Thursday. Each has the potential to remove an awakening (or two in a country with Censorship). At the start of the turn, there is only 1 awakening in play. If both are played early, the damage is minimized.

Status Quo is a very strong in this situation. That stabilizes Afghanistan by removing the Regime Change marker there and making it much more costly for the Jihadists to fight there, since recruiting is no longer automatic. Obama Doctrine is also potent and flexible.

Jihadist Actions 1-2

The Jihadist opens with Tahrir Square, playing it for 2 ops to plot (and avoid the nasty US event). The two active cells in Afghanistan are used, and one succeeds with rolls of 1 and 5. A Plot 1 is placed. With his second action, the two active cells in Afghanistan move to Pakistan and become hidden.

US Actions 1-2

The US plays Bloody Thursday to WOI Germany. With a 3, Germany becomes soft, the GWOT moves to Soft 1, and the US prestige moves up to 4. He then plays Censorship for 2 ops to WOI United Kingdom. With a 2, UK goes soft, US Prestige goes up to 5, and the GWOT is now Soft 3. The US will gain 1 prestige at the end of each turn if it is soft while the US GWOT is Soft 3 also. There are no awakening counters to remove, but Censorship still places an irrelevant marker stopping Facebook, which could not be played anyway, as no Smartphones have been played yet.

A different approach would be to use all 3 ops from those two cards to disarm the plot.

The plot in Afghanistan resolves, adding 1 funding and lowering the US prestige by 1 to 4.

Jihadist Actions 3-4

It is not enough to avoid disaster. The Jihadist player must move towards a win before the coalition hits a critical mass of prestige and a core good governed country.

Pakistan is a good starting point because in addition to getting nukes, flipping Indonesia/Malaysia with plays Peshmerga for 1 Op, and attempts to move the cell in Iraq to Pakistan. By using the op before triggering the event, the Jihadist player negated the effect of Peshmerga (as there is no cell in Iraq when it triggers). He rolls a 3, and the cell arrives.

US Actions 3-4

With 5 cells and a reaction in Pakistan, there is an immediate danger there. He plays Obama Doctrine to place an Awakening in Pakistan. With his second action, he places an Aid marker in Gulf States. As tempting as it is to place aid in Pakistan or Afghanistan, it is too fragile there. A single unblocked plot might destroy it. He then plays Status Quo in Afghanistan which removes the Regime Change marker. It also gives the US player the option to deploy out of Afghanistan for 1 op (instead of withdrawing for 3 and risking a prestige check).

Jihadist Actions 5-6

There are several divergent strategies here. He could focus on Pakistan. Attempt to degrade the government to poor, and then Jihad. The difficult in doing that is that when the country degrades to poor, the reaction goes away but the awakening remains. Then the Poor Pakistan is much more difficult to flip.

He could try to thwart Gulf States. With aid, and soon an awakening (due to the Pearl Roundabout he is holding), Gulf States could become the anchor the US. HE could also pursue a civil war in Syria, although Syria must first be tested before Free Syrian Army can be played.

He plays Islamic Maghreb for 1 op to move the active cell in Pakistan to Gulf States. He then plays Martyrdom Operations to kill the cell and replace with a plot 2 and plot 3.

US Actions 5-6

The US faces a dilemma. Does it disarm one plot, and let the other go off? This would lower US prestige to 2 and increase Jihadist funding to 7. 7 is a tipping point; it will drop to 6 and allow only 8 cards drawn. Or does the US pull its troops out to avoid prestige loss, but allow the Jihadist to gain two funding?

The US ops to alert a plot. He plays UNSCR for 2 ops to reserves, and plays Kinder – Gentler for 1 op, with reserves to alert a plot. He randomly selects the Plot 3.

The remaining plot activates, lowers the US prestige 1 to 3, and increases the Jihadist funding 1 to 7. A plot 2 gets two dice to roll a 2 or less to both degrade Gulf States’ governance and destroy the aid. Rolling 6, 6, the plots are ineffective.

Jihadist Actions 7-8:

His blocking play in Gulf States failed, so he sets up a civil war in Syria. First, he attempts to send a cell from Afghanistan to Syria playing Pearl Roundabout for 1 op. This forces Syria to be tested. With a roll of 4, Syria is poor. He rolls a 6 for his cell which dies a horrible death trying to get to Syria. The US event also triggers, placing an awakening in Gulf States. He then plays Free Syrian Army, placing Syria into civil war. An aid is placed in Turkey, which tests poor. 2 cells and 1 militia also go in Syria. This card is removed from the game, instead of going into the discard pile.

US Actions 7-8:

He places Operation New Dawn for 2 ops and deploys troops in Afghanistan to the Troop Box. This places him in low intensity, so he can draw 9 cards per turn. He plays Humanitarian Aid for the event, placing aid in Pakistan.

End of turn: The Jihadist funding drops 1 from 7 to 6, just enough to cost them a card. The US prestige increases from 3 to 4 due to GWOT: +3 soft.

Civil war attrition: the 1 militia in Syria rolls a 2 and fails to hit a cell. The 2 cells roll a 4 and fail to inflict damage.

Here is the board at the end of Turn 2:

In Two Weeks: Labyrinth: The Awakening Playthrough — Turn 3

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Previous Articles from Elihu Feustel:

Labyrinth: The Awakening – An Introduction (Part 1 of 2)

Labyrinth: The Awakening – An Introduction (Part 2 of 2)

“No Plan Survives Contact”: Playing Labyrinth: The Awakening (Part 1)