The following are a few French Faction first Event cards and the associated history:
60. Comte d’Orvilliers Builds a Fleet at Brest
In 1777 D’Orvilliers was appointed Lieutenant-General of the Navy and worked to prepare the navy for conflict with the British including the preparation of a fleet in Brest.
The following are a few Indian Faction first Event cards and the associated history:
75. Congress’ Speech to the Six Nations
“We desire you will hear and receive what we have now told you, and that you will open a good ear and listen to what we are now going to say. This is a family quarrel between us and Old England.
83. Guy Carleton and Indians Negotiate
As Patriot forces moved toward Quebec City in 1775, Quebec’s Governor Guy Carleton struggled to raise Militia. Area Indians were willing to fight on the British side and the Crown wanted them to do so.
84. “ Merciless Indian Savagesâ€
The Declaration of Independence lists “repeated injuries and usurpations†against the colonialists on behalf of King George III of Great Britain. The second paragraph concludes, “To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world,†before 27 sentences listing various transgressions from tax complaints to forced military conscription. The last of these complaints reads: “He has …endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare is undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.â€
96. Iroquois Confederacy
A confederation of six Indian tribes across what is currently upper New York state that played a strategic role in the struggle between the French and British for mastery of North America. During the American Revolution, the Oneida and Tuscarora supported the Patriots, while the rest of the league, led by the Seneca and including Chief Joseph Brant’s Mohawks, fought for the British.
Articles in this Series: Part 1Â Part 2Â Part 3Â Part 4
The depth of the history around the American Revolution is captured in the Liberty or Death Event Cards. Below is a sample of the Patriot Faction first Event cards with a brief discussion of the history.
Card Number 4. The Penobscot Expedition
The largest American naval expedition of the war, a flotilla of 19 warships mounted by the Provincial Congress of the Province of Massachusetts Bay sailed from Boston in July of 1779 for the upper Penobscot Bay in the District of Maine (then a part of Massachusetts colony.) The flotilla also included a ground force of more than 1,000 colonial troops as well as a 100-man artillery detachment under the command of Lt. Colonel Paul Revere. The goal was to reclaim control of what is now mid-coast Maine from the British who had seized it a month earlier, renaming it New Ireland. The Patriots paid a heavy price in the fighting over three weeks in July and August of 1779. As the British were reinforced the Patriot fleet was destroyed as it fled up the Penobscot River. It was one of Britain’s greatest victories of the war. The Expedition was also the United States’ worst naval defeat until Pearl Harbor 162 years later in 1941.
As a historical boardgamer, my greatest hope in trying out a new game is that it will reveal to me something about some other time or place that I did not already understand. Harold Buchanan’s Liberty or Death does that for me, even on the should-be familiar topic of the American Revolution. Let me tell you how so…
A Puzzle
In 1994, my wife and I took a wonderful driving vacation through the Empire State—wonderful for me, at least, as we endeavored to visit all New York’s colonial-era historical exhibits that we could reach. Our last stop before the drive back south to Virginia was Newtown Battlefield.
The GMT Weekend at the Warehouse offers gamers an opportunity to play their favorite games amongst the shelves of thousands of GMT games. For me, the best part is the opportunity to meet designers and other notables that created and love the games. Now that I am designing Liberty or Death it gives me the rare opportunity to meet face to face with those working with me. COIN Series Developer Mike Bertucelli and I enjoyed playing head to head, trading smack talk like we have known each other for years, all the while working the kinks out of the game. Gene Billingsley is the master facilitator, and in fifteen minutes with him I complete 6 things on my to-do list. This year was a rare treat with Mark Simonitch and Tony Curtis in attendance. Mark and I talked about the Republic of Texas and he gave me advice (and a deadline) on working with the artists engaged in Liberty or Death’s production: Terry Leeds and Charlie Kibler. Tony helped me nail down piece types and colors – the final production version is going to be fantastic! But, I must say the highlight was spending time with the Bot Master – Örjan Ariander visiting from Stockholm, Sweden!
Some of the GMT/COIN Brain Trust – Series Developer Mike Bertucelli, GMT President Gene Billingsley, Bot-Master Örjan Ariander and Liberty or Death Designer Harold Buchanan
VICTORY CONDITIONS
How could the French or Indians win the American Revolution? If you define winning the game as controlling North America in some way – they can’t. But the question for me is a broader question: How can these Factions, each important to the outcome of the conflict, win their situation? With that question the answer to “How can the French win?” becomes more clear. Each Faction comes to the conflict with different goals, expectations and capabilities. Capturing this asymmetry is one of the strengths of the COIN system.
The French interests were much broader than the British Colonies in North America. Coming off the Seven Years War and the competition with the British around the world, the French view was this Insurrection in America can be an opportunity to pull British resources away from other more important areas, like West Indies and Europe itself. This leads to the Secondary Victory condition between the French and British: pieces eliminated. Make the other Faction pay a high price for involvement and pull pressure off other critical theaters (outside the game.)
For those of you who missed Part I of this article, you can find it here: Rendering Caesar’s COIN (Part I)
Welcome back to our answers to your questions about how our design Falling Sky adapts the COIN Series’ game system, originally about modern insurgencies, to depict the Gallic revolts against Caesar in the late 50s BC. In Part I , we attempted to address the larger questions you raised about the change in era, and about player roles, incentives, and capabilities. Now, as promised there, we delve further into the details of individual game mechanics, events, and aspects of war in ancient Gaul as explored in this upcoming COIN Series volume. Thank you for joining us once more! – Volko Ruhnke
How are Roman politics handled, when Caesar’s goal was power in Rome, and Gaul was just a way to achieve this? Can the Caesar player lose the game by losing the support of the Senate? If Caesar loses the Senate’s support, does it mean he has to go beyond the Rubicon?
Volko: As we touched on in Part I, the game treats Caesar’s exploits in Gaul as helpful to his power in Rome because they were an expression of Rome’s larger impulse to expand. So, the degree of Caesar’s success in subduing the Gallic and Germanic tribes will influence the degree of the Senate (and other Roman interests’) approval of Caesar. Each Winter, the number of subdued, dispersed, and Roman-allied tribes in Gaul—the Roman player’s victory score—can push Roman politics (a simple the “Senate” track in the game) from the usual intrigue to either adulation of or uproar against Caesar. Various events (for example, “Cicero”) can have a similar effect.
Andrew: It is definitely possible for Caesar to lose the game by losing the support of the Senate, although indirectly. Instead of loss of Senate support causing an automatic defeat for the Roman player, it instead causes several nasty, negative effects, such as decreased auxiliary forces and more limited access to legions. A Senate in uproar against Caesar will not take legions away from him, but will limit his ability to replace any legions lost.
We have also included an event card which, when played, will trigger a need for Caesar to cross the Rubicon and effectively end the Gallic War and the game and cause a final victory check. An effect this drastic will of course need a certain prerequisite to be met: that the Roman score exceeds a certain threshold. This represents significant opposition from Caesar’s political enemies and a slightly earlier than historical Roman Civil War. In this scenario, Caesar’s opponents have become alarmed enough by his military success to attempt to remove him as governor.
Welcome to the first Strategy Article we’ve published in InsideGMT! Unlike the majority of our articles, this one was not written by one of our designers or developers, but by one of our players. I want to thank Mark D. (the new owner of Grognard.com)  for creating such a well-conceived and well-written article that’s aimed at helping players new to Fire in the Lake. I’d also like to take this opportunity to invite any of the rest of you who would like to submit a strategy article on one of your favorite GMT games to please do so. My hope is that over time, we can create an excellent online resource of player-created strategy articles to help others as they sit down to learn and play our games. Enjoy the article!  – Gene
Fire in the Lake: Insurgency in Vietnam, designed by veteran designers Mark Herman and Volko Ruhnke and published by GMT Games is a 1 to 4 Player game that simulates either a part of, or the entire, Vietnam War. It’s a game with many moving parts and many interrelated methods, procedures, and techniques. The interaction of four players with competing, and often conflicting objectives (even for nominal allies) often results in a bewildering array of potential outcomes.
However, as in most games of skill or chance, there are fundamentals to which gamers should adhere, particularly new or inexperienced players. The player who gets the first move of the game should capitalize on this advantage. It can set the tone for the early portion of the game and, in Fire in the Lake, it’s the only move that can be planned with any certainty. After that very first move, the game can go off in a thousand different directions… but the first move can be carefully planned.
You can choose a “shotgun approach”, attempting to inflict damage on both of your historical enemies while simultaneously assisting your ally, or you can opt for self-promotion and the bettering of your own position. You can also choose to focus your aggression against one particular enemy player whom you consider the most immediate threat, hoping to rock him back on his heels for the next turn or two. Or you can try to do a bit of all the above.
Each player’s initial game situation is unique and demands a custom strategy that complements their peculiar capabilities. This article is geared towards inexperienced Fire in the Lake players who have a decent working knowledge of the game mechanics, but are still not “old pro’s”. It proposes a set of “perfect opening moves” for the Viet Cong, assuming the luck of the draw has granted them the very first move of the Short: 1965-1967 Scenario.
Volume VI of the COIN series will bring a number of changes to the system to apply the realities of combat, politics and economics in the eighteenth century. Each leader has a specific Brilliant Stroke card with capabilities that can be used by trumping an event card in play. The mechanism allows each player, once per game, to utilize their current leader to deliver an earth shattering blow to the enemy. Additionally there is a hierarchy of Brilliant Stroke cards so one side can trump another sides Brilliant Stroke. In the end it is a threat that each player possesses and a threat to each player’s strategy.
Where did the term Brilliant Stroke come from? There are a number of references to the concept of a Brilliant Stroke in the writing of the time.
With the arrival of General Howe and his armada of ships and men near New York City in 1776 Washington called a council of his Generals to discuss a response. He later wrote to the Continental Congress to communicate the results of the council. In reference to the enemy they faced Washington wrote: “…it is now extremely obvious from their movements, from our intelligence, and from every other circumstance, that, having their whole army upon Long Island, except about four thousand men who remain on Staten Island, they mean to enclose us in this island by taking post in our rear, while their ships effectually secure the front; and thus, by cutting off our communication with the country, oblige us to fight them on their own terms, or surrender at discretion; or, if that shall be deemed more advisable, by a brilliant stroke endeavor to cut this army to pieces, and secure the possession of arms and stores which they well know our inability to replace.
After leaving New York, Washington wrote John Hancock and discussed the plan to “…wait for an opportunity when a brilliant stroke could be made with any probability of success” Certainly Washington’s successful attacks at Trenton and Princeton that followed were “Brilliant Strokes”.
The Marquis de Lafayette proposed to Washington a “brilliant stroke: to rouse the people of France.”
General Charles Lee planned (and wrote about) but never attempted a “brilliant stroke’ into New York from New Jersey. Perhaps the most professional soldier in the Patriot army Charles Lee was an extraordinarily controversial figure. He and his guards were captured by British Colonel Banastre Tarleton at White’s Tavern in Basking Ridge, New Jersey. His time in British custody including plans he made for the British is controversial and documented by his own writings. After being released through an officer swap he showed poorly at the Battle of Monmouth. Washington dressed Lee down in front of the troops, Lee publicly expressed disrespect to the Commander-in-Chief and was arrested and later court-martialed. After Lee appealed unsuccessfully to the Continental Congress to overturn the court-martial’s verdict he resorted to written and verbal attacks on Washington – not a popular move.
After reading about the concept of the “Brilliant Stroke” it was easy to apply the label to the larger impact of leadership in the game. Leaders also influence other aspects of the game like battle and each leader has special capabilities but the Brilliant Strokes will each change the momentum and potentially the outcome of the game. What will your Brilliant Stroke be?
Before GMT had announced Falling Sky as an upcoming COIN Series volume, a couple images of our prototype posted on GMT’s Instagram site spawned a Boardgamegeek thread  contending that application of the COIN Series system to ancient Roman warfare was an unwise and awkward mismatch – a square peg in a round hole. I was a bit amazed that a few cropped snapshots could generate such an impassioned discussion.  Andrew’s reaction to the thread was simply “well, we are changing the COIN mechanics, of course.†Â
Thus, at first whiff, we faced the question of how the COIN Series would transition from modern to ancient. How indeed are we changing the mechanics? There is a lot to say to that, so to help us best address that question on InsideGMT, Gene back in August called for your questions. Since then, Andrew and I have been busy supporting playtest of the game. But now, finally, we have a chance to answer. Part I below begins with the larger questions you raised about the change in era and player roles, incentives, and capabilities. Part II later will delve into more details of individual mechanics and aspects of war in ancient Gaul. – Volko Ruhnke
Why the huge change in time period?
Andrew: It’s a combination of me being personally interested in the subject, and our thinking that it would be an intriguing change of topic, after four volumes that all take place within a few decades of each other, to go back a couple millennia. Gaul seemed like a good setting for the system, and a good system for the setting (as we will elaborate on below).
Volko: Also, by showing how the core system fits a topic so far back from modern insurgency, we wanted by example to open the door to other designers to look across the span of all ages of history for topics that they feel the COIN Series mechanics might give new expression. And that is happening!
The choice of Gaul, as opposed to any other ancient campaign, for me was simply an irresistible co-design opportunity that presented itself (as it has been with each of my other COIN Series co-designs). Andrew had just read a translation of Caesar’s Commentaries and was redesigning to his liking the setup for the River Sabis battle from Commands and Colors: Ancients – Rome & the Barbarians. We played the new setup and reworked it a few times, aiming for results as faithful to Caesar’s description as we could get them. Andrew’s attention to the project told me that he had a focused interest in the topic, and we had done a lot of design work together for ourselves at home before. So I knew that we could pull off a fresh co-design about the Gallic War. With that, our conversations about the scope, roles, and victory objectives for a new COIN volume began….
