Ever since the Union navy had retaken Norfolk, Virginia, Union gunboats had been prowling the James River to within seven miles of the Confederacy’s capital city of Richmond.
In this week’s blog, we take a step away from the history and dive right into the game itself. Daniel Burt takes us through a playthrough of Rebellion: Britannia in its prototype form on Tabletop Simulator, walking us through the sequence of play, key concepts, and some of the strategies the different factions may explore.
This is the second of a four-part playthrough of a voyage from Zheng He. The prior article covered the basic rules of the game, setup, and the first turn. We had just arrived in the port of Champa, in modern-day Vietnam.
Welcome to this playthrough of the first voyage of Zheng He: Admiral of the Ming Voyages, currently on P500 and designed by myself (Geoff Engelstein) and David Thompson.
As the longest river system in the Virginia Commonwealth, the James River has its origins out west in the Appalachian Mountains. It meanders 443 miles through the northern Virginia countryside before emptying into Chesapeake Bay.
Note: I wrote this article in response to questions about history and the Event cards in Mr. President. I hope you find it interesting! – Gene
At the end of our previous installment, the defeated Briton leader, Caratacus, had been betrayed by the Brigantes, and handed over to Rome. However, the rebellious Silures do not seem to have been deterred by the loss of their leader, and continued to resist Roman occupation and engage in hit-and-run guerilla attacks on Roman forces. Such was the tribe’s resistance, that Scapula declared that they would be either exterminated or enslaved and forcibly removed from their lands. But again, this merely served to reinforce their resolve, and they continued to be a bothersome thorn in the side of the Roman Governor and to oppose Rome’s occupation throughout the Claudian period.
In the last installment we looked at the first two phases for an attacker attempting to break the enemy line, preparation and choosing when to attack.
Zheng He: Admiral of the Ming Voyages is a solitaire game that recreates the voyages of the Ming treasure fleets in the early 1400s. In the game you take the role of Zheng He, commanding the fleet as it sails the Indian Ocean, earning glory for the emperor, and keeping favor with the ministers of the court so the voyages can continue.
Your fleet is represented by a deck of 20 cards at the start of the campaign. Each card represents a specific type of ship that historically constituted the fleet: Equine, Patrol, Supply, Treasure, and Troop. Throughout the course of your campaign, you will have the opportunity to upgrade your ships, thus increasing the fleet’s capabilities to take on greater challenges.
Borikén: The Taíno Resistance ended up being quite a big project to work on, especially in the early days of doing research. While I went through many references on the topic, the information was scarce, but many referenced one historical book that I ended up using as the backbone of the historical narrative of my design, and that was Agüeybaná: El Bravo by Jalil Sued Badillo. What was interesting about this book is that the author used the original historical texts as his sources in his analysis of the historical period, instead of referencing the historical narrative of Spanish historians of the 16th Century and afterwards.
