Gandhi includes a brand new Solitaire system, called Arjuna, that replaces the flowcharts that have become a staple of the COIN Series. Players who play COIN Solitaire have asked many questions about how the system works – and don’t fear! – COIN Series Developer Jason Carr is here to walk through the design, ergonomics, and play of Arjuna. This installment shows Arjuna in action as we begin our Campaign.

Last week, the Congress and Raj (me) opened the proceedings with bold moves towards their Victory Condition. Next up is the Revolutionaries, who are seeking to create Unrest across India. The Revolutionaries are controlled by Arjuna and follow the instructions on the Arjuna Eligibility chart – in general, if the Event is not Critical for the Eligible Arjuna Faction, they will opt for an Operation with Special Activity, which our Revolutionaries do.

As with the Congress, I discard the top Arjuna card (which is the Congress card J from last week) and continue discarding until I get a Revolutionaries Arjuna card. It happens to be the next card in the deck, Arjuna card U. The first check on this card asks if there are 6 or more Guerrillas in India:

There are, so we will continue; on this Arjuna card the Special Activity is performed first. The Revolutionaries want to place a Base using the Infiltrate Special Activity, but that can only happen during a Crisis (note the “✔ Crisis” before the first Infiltrate). Instead, the Revolutionaries will Replace an Adversary via the Infiltrate Special Activity. Using the “Remove or Replace” column of the Revolutionaries’ Space Selection Priorities Table, we see that they want to Replace an Adversary piece from the space with the most Guerrillas. A quick scan for Guerrillas tells me that means either Punjab or East Bengal, each with 2 Guerrillas. The next two priorities (“fewest cubes” and “most support”) don’t help, so we assign probabilities and roll; per the Adversary Priorities, which govern Replacement and Removal of pieces, the Revolutionaries Replace the Protest marker in Punjab with a Guerrilla.

With this move, the Revolutionaries undercut both the Congress and Muslim League, and greatly enhance their position in Punjab. Now, they perform an Operation; to determine which Operation we check if a die roll is equal to or less than the number of Guerrillas the Revolutionaries have Available (3, since we just placed one with Infiltrate). Our die roll is 1, so the Revolutionaries will Rally. Had the roll been 4 or greater, we would have flipped the Arjuna card over and performed the Operation indicated on the back side. Rally is a good move for the Revolutionaries, as it allows them to cement their hold on Punjab. The first instruction for Rally is to “Place Bases where Guerrillas exceed Unity.” Since Unity is 3, no spaces qualify for this instruction. Instead, the Revolutionaries use the Place Guerrillas column of the Space Selection Priorities table to select spaces to place Guerrillas. Note the “max 3” in the top right corner of Arjuna card U: this is the Activation Number, which tells us that after the Revolutionaries Rally in a space, we will roll a die and continue selecting spaces only if the die roll is greater than 3. This limits the number of spaces that the Revolutionaries can act in, but makes it impossible for the player to know exactly how much the Revolutionaries can act!

The Revolutionaries will always first Rally anywhere there is a Base or Unrest marker without a Guerrilla – neither of these is true for our game – then wherever there are the most Revolutionaries Bases, to maximize the effect of the Rally. This narrows our spaces down to United Provinces and East Bengal, and this time there is a priority which will select a single space for us: “most Guerrillas”. So the Revolutionaries Rally in East Bengal, placing 2 Guerillas (1 plus the number of Bases). The Revolutionaries are still eligible to select more spaces, since they still have 1 Guerrilla Available, so we will roll against the Activation Number to see if Arjuna selects another space. The roll is 3, so the Revolutionaries end their Rally by moving 1 Guerrilla from Out of Play to Available. Now the Muslim League is Eligible.

As previously mentioned, Arjuna checks several conditions to determine whether to Pass, execute the Event, or take an Operation (and possible Special Activity). Looking at that chart, we see that the Muslim League will consider the current Event card, since no Critical Event is available, they are not guaranteed to be first Eligible on the next card, and the first Eligible Faction performed an Operation and Special Activity.

However, notice that the instruction says “Event is effective?” Effective means that the event does something for the executing Faction that they value – for the Muslim League, the shaded text (which it normally executes) does not provide any opportunity that makes the Event effective, so instead the Muslim League will perform a Limited Operation.

The Muslim League ends up with Arjuna card P. The check at the top of the card asks whether NV Activists (Muslim League and Congress combined) equal or exceed cubes in any spaces without Protest. In fact, two spaces meet this criteria: West Bengal and Sind. Since this is true, we follow the green arrow… to a Special Activity! But this is a Limited Operation, so we just skip the Special Activity altogether and check the next condition: “Any Available Protest markers?” Yes! The Revolutionaries made one Available when they Infiltrated Punjab. So the Muslim League will Civil Disobedience in one space for their Limited Operation. As with other Arjuna-controlled Operations, we use the indicated column (“Place Protests”) to select a space, in this instance the 2-Pop Muslim space with the fewest cubes that is not at Active Opposition (that’s a mouthful, and now you know why we used the charts!). That selects West Bengal, and the Muslim League places a Protest marker. Since the space does not have 3 Muslim League pieces, the Muslim League will not execute the checkmark instruction to place a piece on a Railway, and they end their play, the game turn, and this week’s session report.

Next week: Bhagat Singh Frustrates the Empire.

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