New Project – A DISTANT PLAIN

Now it can be told…

For the last month or two Volko Ruhnke (designer of Wilderness War, Labyrinth, Andean Abyss and Cuba Libre) (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgamedesigner/772/volko-ruhnke) and I have been working on on an Afghanistan game for GMT Games, as one of the instalments in their “COIN series”.

Provisionally, it’s called “A Distant Plain” and is derived from Volko’s just-released game Andean Abyss (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/91080/andean-abyss). Like Andean Abyss, the game is for four players: Coalition, Afghan Government, Taliban, and Warlords. Each has differing powers and abilities, and varying victory conditions. Also like Andean Abyss, there will be a solitaire-playable version. So far there will be three scenarios from different times during the war: 2003-04 (the Taliban begins to revive and build its insurgency), 2005-06 (Taliban making rapid gains) and 2009 (just as the Afghan Surge of American troops begins).

Gene Billingsley playtested it at the recent Consimworld Expo and liked it a lot: http://talk.consimworld.com/WebX?14@627.0wk6aMcjiEM@.1dd12ac…

Consimworld discussion topic for the game has been started: http://talk.consimworld.com/WebX/.1dd70f84/1?14@466.rIL0axAtiW6@

Now “live” for P500 at GMT’s website: http://www.gmtgames.com/p-416-a-distant-plain.aspx

More details in a recent post at PAXSims: http://paxsims.wordpress.com/2012/07/07/coin-in-afghanistan-a-distant-plain